democratic Representative Robert Garcia California, who serves on both the House Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, wrote to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach citing his “serious concerns” over the report, saying that law enforcement Some officers are “exploiting their positions to acquire and illegally distribute firearms.”
Garcia, added in his letter Rep. Dan Goldman New York and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, asked the ATF to address a series of questions by January 15, 2025, on serious systemic threats uncovered by a CBS News investigation.
“Reporting suggests that existing machine gun and shotgun and rifle regulations and enforcement mechanisms may pose serious systemic risks, enabling the proliferation of dangerous weapons, often by international traffickers and organized crime groups. In their hands, they put public safety at risk,” he wrote.
The congressmen noted in the letter, according to which Most recently available ATF data Between 2017 and 2021, nearly 26,000 guns were recovered from US crime scenes by a government agency, law enforcement or the military. The letter states that while some firearms may have been lost due to negligence, thousands of firearms have been reported missing by law enforcement agencies that were later discovered to have been improperly sold or traded. has been done
A CBS News investigation revealed at least 50 cases of police illegally selling their weapons online, through dealers, out of homes, or out of the back of their cars — in many cases. In steep markup.
Congressmen cited the troubling case of Bradley Wendt—the former police chief of Adair, Iowa, who was convicted earlier this year of federal charges related to obtaining military-grade firearms under false pretenses—law. As an example of a broader pattern in enforcement agencies. That The sentence was pronounced Five years imprisonment.
Wendt sometimes made profit margins of more than 90 percent, CBS News found in court records.
Local U.S. law enforcement agencies are required to obtain permission from the ATF to access high-powered weapons such as those on the battlefield, including machine guns, which we and NATO forces have deployed. Used in conflict zones. A CBS News investigation found that the bureau doesn’t typically check the eligibility of machine gun requests for a department or track where the weapons end up. And although the law has been on the books for more than three decades, The bureau only began examining each application in 2023.
Lawmakers highlighted their concern that there is no comprehensive vetting process by the ATF to justify law enforcement requests for high-powered weapons.
“We are deeply concerned that the absence of rigorous oversight and follow-up audits has allowed individuals to exploit these loopholes and circumvent federal law,” the congressmen wrote.
Contributed to this report.