i m happy to see a trend in which law enforcement are given the tools to protect themselves and the citizens from these dangerous thugs who like to arm themselves with what they believe are state-of-the-art weapons. new york city s own grahe gun investigation had immediate results. the number of crime gun dropped by 1100 from 2006 to 2007. many cities are frustrated by a lack of information about where crime guns come from. because of a congressional amendment, the atf s tracing data base can only be used to track guns in criminal investigations, not by cities trying to detect patterns of crime. backers of the amendment like the national rifle association say that releasing the data more widely could violate the privacy of gun owners and compromise criminal investigations. the atf is making progress. the agency working with state
supplied hundreds of crime guns to cities up and down the eastern seaboard. that s the place where you should find out what s going on. eliot s gun shop in jefferson, louisiana, was one of those places. atf agents raided the store and shut it down. 2,300 weapons from elliot s were later implicated in crimes, including an astonishing 125 homicides. at the time, it was one of the the top suppliers of crime guns in the country. if one store puts out hundreds of firearms to the criminal element and it goes to certain gangs or gang members, and they re using crimes all across the country, it s important for us to be on top of those very few gun stores who may be doing so illegally. to track guns after they ve been used in a crime, the atf uses several methods. there is no national gun registry, so the national tracing center helps track firearms through licenses, sales, and other records.
maryland. matching a bullet to a gun makes the link and helps solve the crime. beginning with firing the weapon if question into the water. you fire the bullet in here. the resistance from the water slows it up and allows you to recover the bullet intact. in a pristine condition, yes. each gun leaves unique marks on every bullet fired, just like a fingerprint. we ll just load the firearm and fire twice into the water. you couldn t identify these by the naked eye, could you? absolutely not. certainly need the aid of a microscope. next he checks the bullet against those from the crime scene. it s a split screen. as you rotate the bullets in
copy. we ll soon join them to see if their mission is a success. the atf conducts hundreds of operations across the country every year to control gun trafficking and violence. everything from ruthless drug gangs to lone gunmen. does it surprise you the audacity of some of these criminals? when you think you ve seen it all you haven t. i don t think anything surprises us any more. the level of violence we ve seen is alarming. america is awash in guns. nearly 4 million are manufactured every year. almost half of all americans are registered gun owners. the vast majority of weapons are never used in a crime. they re collected, used for sport, or used for protection. when guns are in the news, the story is usually a sickening familiar one. six teenagers were shot. five people shot.
i wish i had just took my life. he says his biggest regret was the pain he caused his 12-year-old son. i m sorry for not being there for him. that wasn t his daddy that did this. this was somebody else. you really don t know what causes him to decide to make some of the choices they make and wind up in a situation like sublet did. was it because this guy fired him from his job? everybody has a trigger point. for the atf, the best of all possible outcomes. safety is the utmost important thing. safety of the public is first, safety of our agents is second and the safety of the suspect is actually important us to, as well. we want everybody to go home safely. while the atf works on gun crime at the national level, some cities are taking matters into their own hands. chicago and miami are arming their police with higher caliber weapons.