Larry Keane
Yes, some number of months ago, a reporter from the USA Today, and also separately, from Brady United served Freedom of Information Act requests on ATF for the list of licensed dealers that are on what is known as ATF Demand Letter Two. And ATF released that list to both USA Today and Brady Unite.
The list identifies license dealers who meet the parameters for being placed on the Demand Letter Two program. That is a licensed dealer who has had at least 25 traces in a year where firearms had what ATF refers to as ‘time to crime ‘ of less than three years.
“Time to Crime” means the time between when the firearm was sold at retail to a non-licensee, a consumer, after a 4473 and a NICS background check which is required by federal law until it recovered by law enforcement in connection with a crime and traced. They call that “Time to Crime.”
When you're a dealer on the Demand Letter Two program, you, as the dealer must report to ATF on a quarterly basis, the make, model and serial number of used firearms that you take into your inventory.
ATF has said that the fact that a dealer has received a trace or received even more than one trace does not mean that they've done anything wrong at all.
And that is true for dealers that are on Demand Letter Two. You cannot make any assumptions about the dealer based on the fact that they're on the program.
Dealers come on the program - and dealers come off of the program. ATF evaluates them - and if they fall outside of the parameters- they're no longer subject to Demand Letter Two.
So you see from the reporting, you have small mom and pop stores and you have very large corporate retailers, like several Bass Pro Shops.
And again, it's absolutely critical this does not mean the dealer did anything wrong.
Unfortunately, ATF released this information - for the first time ever - in response to a FOIA request demand letter.
The names of the dealers on Demand Letter Two have never been released publicly by ATF. We believe they released in violation of federal law. That’s because the information comes from the National Tracing Center Firearms Tracing System. That's the database of traces.
Congress, going back over 20 years now, I believe, has restricted the release of trace data, because it's sensitive law enforcement data. It is not to be shared outside of law enforcement.
(EDITOR’s NOTE: The Tiahrt Amendment is a provision of the U.S. Department of Justice 2003 appropriations bill that prohibits the National Tracing Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing information from its firearms trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation