Report: 6 in 10 federal firearms licensees escape inspection; more than 170K guns lost or stolen

By David Sherfinski
The Washington Times
Friday, April 26, 2013





More than 170,000 firearms have been lost or stolen from the inventories of federally-licensed gun dealers since 2004, but about six in 10 licensees had gone at least five years without a compliance inspection from 2007 to 2012.
A report from the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General (OIG) attributes the findings to a lack of investigator resources and other competing priorities as the number of FFLs increased by 16 percent — 106,214 to 123,587 — between 2004 and 2011.
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But between 2007 and 2012, more than 58 percent of licensees — 73,204 out of 125,481 — had not been inspected for five years and between 2004 and 2011, they had 174,679 firearms lost or stolen, the report said.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) increased its number of investigators by 22 percent between 2004 and 2011, from 510 to 624.
“Despite this increase, ATF field divisions told ATF headquarters in 2012 that they were still understaffed by 45 percent and that they needed 504 more investigators to conduct all inspections due that year,” the report said.
The report comes as President Obama and some members of Congress continue to weigh their options on tackling gun control in the wake of the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The Senate last week rejected a proposal that would expand gun-purchase background checks to sales online and at gun shows, though some members are holding out hope that the measure, or something similar, can be brought up again this year.
Federally-licensed dealers are already required to perform background checks for gun purchases.
As part of the Justice Department’s $27.6 billion budget request for fiscal 2014, the ATF has requested $51.1 million to support additional investigative and regulatory resources and improvements to its tracing system.
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Mr. Obama has also pressed the Senate to approve Acting Director B. Todd Jones as permanent director of the agency. The body has not signed off on a permanent head for the ATF since the position became Senate confirmable in 2006.
The OIG report does credit the ATF with making changes and improvements to its FFL inspection program after a July 2004 review, such as reducing the number of qualification inspections done by phone and implementing an initiative to prioritize inspections of “high risk” licensees.
Its report also includes a series of recommendations, which include tracking whether an in-person follow-up compliance inspection is conducted within a year of an initial telephone application inspection and reconsidering how to meet the goal of performing cyclical compliance inspections on a 3- and 5-year basis, depending on the state.
In response, Mr. Jones wrote that the agency will make changes to monitor the timeliness of in-person follow-ups, but that telephone inspections aren’t effective and are rarely used anyway.
As for boosting the inspection rate, Mr. Jones wrote that they must strike a balance, considering the agency’s constrained resources.
“Shifting existing resources to meet cyclical inspection goals is not a viable option,” he wrote.

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