ATF director Steven Dettelbach says "we have to work within that system" since there is no federal gun registry

Source: CBS News

March 3, 2024 / 11:05 AM EST


Washington — Steven Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Sunday that without a federal gun registry, the agency has to go through a "system of records" to trace crime guns. "That means that we have to work within that system. That means that we have more people there pouring through records." Dettelbach said on "Face the Nation." "For what we call a normal trace, right now we're running at about an eight-day lag."

The ATF is prohibited by federal law from creating a centralized database of registered gun owners. Instead, they must sort through a system of records, of which they are sent millions per month, according to Dettelbach.

The director said tracing crime guns is one of the areas of intelligence that is "so important." But the process isn't especially straightforward. "The way it doesn't happen is we punch in a person's name, and up comes 'oh, they own so many guns,'" Dettelbach said. "Congress has prohibited us from doing that."

Dettelbach said that the agency pays to have the search function taken out of their software, explaining that the function that other customers use must be removed in order to comply with U.S. law. Instead, the ATF works to find the initial purchaser of the firearm through its system of records, before being able to confirm whether they or someone else committed the crime.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steven-dettelbach-bureau-of-alcohol-tobacco-firearms-federal-gun-registry/