FILE – Steve Dettelbach, proposed for chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, speaks at an event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Washington, April 11, 2022. A comprehensive federal report on crimes at hand armada reveals a reduction in the time between the purchase of the weapon and its seizure at the scene of a crime. It is the first report of its kind in more than 20 years (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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A comprehensive federal report on armed crime in the United States reveals a reduction in the time between gun purchase and seizure at a crime scene. The first report of its kind in more than 20 years indicates that legally purchased guns are being used more quickly than ever before to commit crimes.
It also reveals a sharp increase in the use of conversion gadgets that give a semi-automatic weapon the firepower of a machine gun. He also documents the seizure of hard-to-trace homemade ghost weapons.
The report comes at a time when the country is registering a sharp increase in violent crimes, especially at armed hands. Much of the data in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) report was not available until now. The goal is to help police and lawmakers reduce gun violence, said director Steve Dettelbach, adding that “information is power.”
According to the report, 54% of weapons seized in 2021 by police at crime sites had been acquired in the previous three years, a sharp increase from 2019. This time reduction would be indicative of illegal arms trafficking or of legal purchases of weapons to resell them to people who are not authorized to possess them.
The number of total new guns in the United States saw a significant increase during the coronavirus pandemic, when sales broke all records.
Most of the weapons used in crimes have changed hands since they were purchased, according to the report. It also found what Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco called an epidemic of gun theft: Between 2017 and 2021, more than 1.07 million guns were reported stolen, 96% of which were in private hands.
On the other hand, the report reveals that the number of devices used to convert a legal semi-automatic weapon into an illegal fully automatic one has more than quintupled. Between 2012 and 2016, the ATF seized 814 of these devices, a figure that increased to 5,414 in the five-year period covered by the report.
A conversion device was used in an April shooting that left six dead and 12 injured in Sacramento, Calif., in what authorities considered a confrontation between rival gangs.
The document also reveals the increasing appearance of homemade “ghost weapons” without serial numbers at crime scenes across the country.
The ATF found more than 19,000 homemade weapons in 2021, more than double the number the year before. The agency encourages police to send these guns to it for tracing, though they generally don’t provide as much information as typical guns.
The report was made at the request of Attorney General Merrick Garland to the ATF.
Source: El Nuevo Herald
