When guns are used to commit violent crimes, they get traced. It doesn't necessarily deliver the name of who committed the crime, just who bought the gun. As a result of various factors, there are times when a certain handful of stores show up. Of course, this isn't a sign of wrongdoing.
However, two Democratic congressman don’t care, and they are introducing a bill that would punish those federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) anyway.
Why? Because of crimes that happened beyond their control.
How? By making it impossible for them to contract with federal law enforcement agencies:
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.-08) have introduced bicameral legislation to prevent the federal government from contracting with federally licensed firearms dealers (FFLs) that have a documented history of selling a disproportionate number of guns that end up being used to commit violent crimes.
Existing federal law requires FFLs that have sold 25 or more guns over the course of a single year that are subsequently traced to violent crimes within the previous three years to submit a report to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) providing additional information on their sales practices under the Bureau’s Demand 2 program. The Clean Hands Firearm Procurement Act would require ATF to identify the small number of FFLs that are consistently and dramatically overrepresented in criminal activity and render them ineligible for federal contracts.
“Far too often, lucrative federal contracts are inexplicably awarded to firearm dealers who have been linked to dangerous crime,” said Senator Padilla. “Our commonsense legislation aims to combat senseless, preventable gun violence by ensuring that gun dealers follow responsible business practices to keep guns from falling into the wrong hands.”
“With gun violence continuing to ravage America’s social contract and terrorize our communities, it is incumbent on Congress to act swiftly to pass common-sense gun safety policy like our Clean Hands Firearm Procurement Act,” said Representative Raskin. “The federal government should not be giving lucrative federal contracts to the bad-apple gun dealers who are consistently selling firearms to people who use them in violent crimes or transfer them to people who use them in violent crimes. I’m immensely grateful to Senator Padilla for his great leadership on public safety and partnership in this vital effort.”
The problem here is that if these dealers are doing anything underhanded, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) would be on them already, stripping them of their FFL and likely filing criminal charges.
That's not happening.
It should be obvious that there are a thousand different ways a gun from a given gun store could be used in a violent crime. Yes, it's entirely possible that it was an illegal gun sale. Those unfortunately happen.
Statistically, though, it's more likely that the gun was stolen from a lawful buyer, then used in a violent crime. Simply tracing a gun to the store that initially sold it doesn't preclude that gun from ending up in criminal hands in some manner beyond the dealer's control. The same can be said of a straw purchase, where the buyer doesn't trip any of the usual straw buy signals.
In other words, a dealer could do everything correctly and buy the book, but because they sold 25 guns in a given year that ended up being used in violent crime, they're ineligible to bid on federal law enforcement contracts. At least, that's what will happen should this bill come to pass.
And that's assuming they only focus on guns actually used in crimes.
That's not always the case. I know of at least one instance where a supposed firearm used in a crime was really one that was handed to police for safekeeping during a divorce. Law enforcement traced one of the guns and that was it. It wasn't actually used in a crime, it was merely traced by a law enforcement agency.
Under a bill like this, a few too many irresponsible gun owners could render a store ineligible to bid on federal contracts.
There are other cases where there are guns merely suspected of being used in a crime. Police don't know yet, but they trace them anyway. Often, they're not the guns used and the tracing is irrelevant.
What's happening here is that House Democrats hope to put Republicans on the ropes heading into November. "You support the people who arm violent criminals," they'll argue, all while knowing that nothing of the sort is happening. They know that the mere tracing of a gun isn't a reason to believe a dealer did anything wrong. They've been told, I'm sure, that there are numerous factors that contribute to these "tracing clusters" that are all beyond the ability of a gun dealer to do anything about.
They know and just don't care. This is meant to be a gotcha, and it's not even a subtle one.