number of guns that are out there. we in law enforcement have to figure out a better way to address this growing problem. it s something that the men and women in law enforcement do on a daily basis. there are women in law enforcement, men in law enforcement risking their lives every day trying to protect the public. we have to be better when it comes to addressing that small percentage of the criminal element that are driving the violent crime in our communities. we have to do this by utilizing the data that s available to us and by sharing, collaborating on a daily basis, i know the legislation is talked about time and time again. we in law enforcement do not speculate, we do not opine about what we do not have in front of us. we re dealing with the reality every single day and the way we re going to be successful is to work better and optimize our tools that we currently have access to to address this problem. john, we talked about this, part of the problem is that there s no unif
and the problem has grown and a.t.f. is the same size. that s one of the dirty secrets in the country. we re tasked with the firearms laws and we re still the size as 1982. people would be astounded to find out how many agents are in new york state. bryan: thank you for the work that you re doing and appreciate it every day. john devito, special agent in charge of the new york division of a.t.f. aishah. thank you, sir. aishah: did not know that. thanks, bryan a doctor and two nurses stabbed at the emergency ward of a los angeles hospital and the subject was taken into custody. christina coleman has more on this developing story from california. and he refuse today come out of the room in the hospital at enchino in san fernando valley.
known as a.t.f. what s happening on the ground. my first question to you, we ve seen the data when it comes to surging violence, you can pull up crime surges in the city, new york city crime up 38%, chicago up 35%, philadelphia 20%. from your perspective on the ground, john, can you give us a better sense of what the problem is as pertains to gun violence right now? well, you can t break it down to simply one factor. there are many variables that come into play here. let s start with the basic facts, 500 million plus guns in open circulation within this economy right now. another 18 to 20 million added every year. last year alone, 548,000 crime guns were traced by law enforcement during the course of their investigative activity and that s a staggering factor when you bring in the fact that only 49% of law enforcement agencies in this country trace their firearms. we re dealing with a surge in violent crime based upon the
so the bail reform and discovery law have done nothing, but hinder us in law enforcement to stop the violence. bryan: john, my last question. red flag laws, from the a.t.f., would a red flag law potentially help and how would that work for you guys? i m not going to speculate what could happen. i believe that red flag laws are a bandaid. we as a community must come together. all americans have to address this problem together to if we re going to find any sort of resolution to it. being able to address people with mental health issues, people that are struggling in their own lives, as a community, we have to be able to identify those individuals, reach out and make sure that we re touching them and giving them the support and counsel that they need to get them through the dark times. ultimately you ve said and the a.t.f. has not grown in size since 1972.
is that firearms investigations can come up during the course of a myriad of different investigative agency priorities. we as a country have established the joint terrorism task force back in 1980 to address the global threat of terrorism and domestic terrorism in this country and the fbi has done a phenomenal job together to utilize a sound, uniform strategy under one chain of command to address terrorism as a whole and that s basically a whole of government approach. one of the big things i ve been trying to create here in new york city is a similar concept with the joint firearms task force, where-in we bring in all partners. anybody that has a stake in the game comes together and works with one unified strategy to address gun violence by the trafficker that starts in the southeast of the united states, to the shooters that terrorize the communities here in the bronx. we have to look at this as a whole problem with a whole system to address it. bryan: john, there s an annual