Oregon high school shooting: ATF joins investigation, tracing gun history

[central scrutinizer]

Source: Portland Oregonian

Last year, the ATF traced 3,600 guns in Oregon, including 947 rifles. The agency also traced 35 derringers and 15 machine guns. Nationwide, ATF traced 336,000 guns connected to crimes, according to a report released Monday.

ATF maintains no database of gun owners. Instead, each gun has to be traced from scratch, which can turn into a laborious process. The process starts with a local police request to ATF's National Tracing Center in Virginia. The center first contacts the gun manufacturer, learning to which wholesaler the gun was sold. The wholesaler, in turn, will lead agents to the local retailer.

ATF Special Agent Brian Bennett, public information officer for ATF's division office in Seattle, said retailers are required to keep records of each gun sale, including their background checks done before sales are completed. "We will try our best to find that original purchaser," Bennett said. He said agents follow leads to contact every known buyer of a gun. With private sales, there often are no records, making tracing a challenge, Bennett said.

Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/gresham/index.ssf/2014/06/oregon_school_shooting_atf_joi.html

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Interesting inside look at the process. Cars are much easier to trace than guns.

[statementofgoods]

1. It's actually quite easy to trace it , it's only two steps if it was sold through dealer

It's when it gets into private sales that it can get almost impossible to trace

[blueridge3210]

2. Most cars are intended to be operated on public roadways

and therefore must be licensed; licensing will indicate ownership. Most firearms remain in the residence and are not carried in public. If one were to compare ownership records of firearms to, say ATV's you would probably see the same lack of record keeping regarding ownership after the point of sale.

[valerief]

3. So a residential gun lives in an apartment building. Someone shoots the gun.

The bullet goes out the window to the public roadways. If the gun can do that, shouldn't it be licensed ALWAYS?

[blueridge3210]

4. Not from where I stand.

ATV is operated on private property; exhaust goes out on the public roadway. Emissions requirements to not come into play there. You may wish to see all firearms registered; I do not, given the actions of a few states that use registration lists to attempt confiscation of firearms that were legal at time of registration but later made illegal by legislative action. The point of the OP was that cars were easier to trace; my response was to explain why cars were registered (public roadway operation) and guns (unless carried in public) were not.