THE New York Initiative

If there ever was a nemesis to the National Rifle Association it is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. The NRA calls Bloomberg the "man who would take away our guns".

Guns smuggled from other states

New York estimates that 85 per cent of its gun crimes are committed with firearms from other states. More than 500 crime guns recovered by New York City police between 1994 and 2001 have been traced to 15 gun dealers in Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. These states have more lenient gun control laws than New York. In order to stem the flow of illegal guns into New York, in May 2006, the city filed a lawsuit against those dealers and then in December 2006, a second lawsuit was filed against 12 more gun dealers in the same states.

Mayor Bloomberg's right-hand man on gun control is John Feinblatt. Feinblatt says Mayor Bloomberg has made gun control a big part of his second term because the Mayor has seen the human toll exacted by the illegal guns. Feinblatt explains that Mayor Bloomberg has gone to eight funerals of police officers shot in the line of duty and he doesn’t want to go to anymore.

"The mayors”, Feinblatt says, “are the ones that get woken up at 4 a.m. in the morning and have to rush to the hospital and comfort the widow of a police officer or comfort the parents of a child who’s been shot by a stray bullet. It’s mayors that have to break the news that’s going to break somebody’s heart."

Interview with John Feinblatt

John Feinblatt is New York City’s Criminal Justice Coordinator

Here are some excerpts from an interview with John Feinblatt.

BOB MCKEOWN: If you had to define the clear and present danger that these bad gun dealers, whereever they may be located, present for New York City, how would you do it?

JOHN FEINBLATT: Well look, I think we have to start with the premise that most dealers are honest business people. Most play by the rules. We know from the ATF that about 1% of the dealers are responsible for 60% of the crime. But these are criminals, just like traffickers are criminals, just like straw purchases are criminals, just like people who hold a gun in their hand and shoot somebody are criminal. They are all disobeying the law.

BOB MCKEOWN: And it’s our responsibility to try to stem the flow of illegal guns…

JOHN FEINBLATT: That’s the way that, the common way that guns get into the hands of criminals is through illegal sales. I think about a third of the cases, ATF tells us, get in the hands of criminals through straw purchases. Straw purchases are a very simple thing. It’s when somebody who’s prohibited from buying a gun uses a confederate to buy the gun for them and that is a very, very common way that guns get into the hands of criminals.

BOB MCKEOWN: Alright, let me interrupt there for a second. And what's the criminality in that as far as the gun dealer is concerned? Could that not simply be an honest mistake?

JOHN FEINBLATT: Look, gun dealers are trained about straw purchases. It’s sort of a 101 course of being a gun dealer is to be able to recognize straw purchases…

BOB MCKEOWN: How did they know?

JOHN FEINBLATT: They knew because the person who was - one person - this is a typical example is that one person, often a male, generally a male, comes up to the counter, handles the gun, asks the questions about the gun, asks about the ammunition, the firepower, uses the gun, sights the gun, makes the decision about the purchase.

When it comes time to fill out the federally required paperwork somebody else, usually a woman, comes up to the counter, who’s taken no interest or involvement in the choice, selection, questioning about the gun, comes up and fills out the paperwork.

The paperwork is filled out. Then the man who’s generally a felon or some other type of prohibitive purchaser, pays for the gun and walks out with the gun. Sometimes these people are relatives; sometimes they are, unfortunately, welfare mothers and homeless people who are paid $25 to be a straw purchaser. Gun dealers know it when they see it.

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BOB MCKEOWN: 57% of the guns used in crime (come from just over 1% of licenced dealers or pawnbrokers). Is that not a profound enough statistics to allow the authorities, especially the AFT, to figure out who those bad guys are?

JOHN FEINBLATT: Well look, the way that you figure it out is through trace data. Trace data is a very simple thing. It’s when a gun is recovered in a crime or used in a crime. You’re able to trace it back to the original manufacturer and the original dealer and the first purchaser. And trace data is the way that you identify traffickers and straw purchasers and dealers. And most dealers don’t have any traces. That’s the thing, you know.

It’s very interesting, in a given year, 85% of dealers have zero traces. But there’s a small group who have large numbers of traces that basically pop off the page. They stick out like a sore thumb. And those are the people who you want to focus on.

Twenty percent of ATF’s own investigations begin just by the very fact of looking at the number of traces. Sixty percent of their investigations use trace data as a piece of evidence. And it couldn’t be more important as a building block in terms of evidence and that’s where you do it.

Unfortunately, ATF is hampered in many ways in their enforcement powers. Congress has put a bit of a lasso around ATF. They are prohibited from doing more than one inspection a year. They’re prohibited from things like requiring a dealer to reconcile their paperwork with their inventory. Those are the kinds of investigatory tools that you would want to use if you were interested in aggressively figuring out who’s breaking the law.

And if for local law enforcement like the NYPD those 15% of bad dealers pop off the pages you say, what are the obstacles that are put in the way of the local police to finding out who and where they are.

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JOHN FEINBLATT: The Tiahrt Amendment which has been in effect since 2003 and has become increasingly more restrictive every year, essentially limits drastically the ability for police departments to access and use trace data.

What the Tiahrt Amendment says is that police departments can only get trace data for what’s called a bona fide criminal investigation. And what that means is they can trace a gun after the fact. Well let me tell you, in the year 2007 we shouldn’t be content with only being able to investigate crime after it’s happened.

What we really want to be able to do is stop crime before it’s happened. What we really want to do is be able to break up trafficking rings. What we really want to do is be able to identify the bad dealers so that we can stop them from their practices…

It says that you can only base - you can only get data for the investigation of a bona fide criminal investigation. And what that means is you can only get data for one crime at a time and that means after the crime has occurred.

But, what you want is aggregate data. There are other restrictions in the Tiahrt Amendment just beyond that. You can’t get - you can’t get regional data. Look, gun trafficking is an interstate problem. 90% of the crime guns in New York City come from outside of New York. We know it’s an interstate problem and that’s not just a New York City problem.

We’ve talked to all of the mayors in our coalition. They all have this problem of interstate trafficking. The Tiahrt Amendment says that you can’t get regional data. It’s a remarkable restriction given the fact that this is a regional crime.