Gun-Buyer Checks Halted by ATF Amid Criticism Appear Proper, Report Says

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives no longer routinely checks the addresses of some buyers at gun shows after being accused of slowing sales at a show in Richmond in 2005, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

But the checks were part of investigations that appear to have been warranted, the 56-page report by Glenn A. Fine, the Justice Department's inspector general, concluded.

"We found that ATF's decisions to conduct investigative operations, including those in the Richmond area, were based on significant law enforcement intelligence from a variety of sources indicating that illegal activity was occurring or was about to occur at a specific gun show," the report concluded.

An ATF spokesman agreed with the report's findings, calling the report "an objective assessment of ATF's investigative operations at gun shows."

The "blanket" residency checks sought to verify addresses of gun-show buyers living in targeted areas. They were conducted mostly by agents from the ATF's Washington field office, which also handles investigations in parts of Virginia, including Richmond.

The ATF abandoned the checks five months after dealers at the August 2005 gun show in Richmond said sales plummeted because buyers were intimidated by police who showed up at their homes, sparking congressional criticism.

A January 2006 memo from ATF headquarters advised agents against conducting residence checks "without reasonable suspicion that criminal violations may exist," the report noted.

The U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria found that the checks "were resource-intensive and rarely resulted in prosecutions for only providing a false address on federal firearms transaction documents."

Fine's report found that the residency checks were part of ATF investigations at 195 gun shows nationwide and netted 121 arrests between 2004 and 2006. Of those arrests, 27 were made by the bureau's Washington field office. No other ATF office except the one in Houston, also with 27, made as many arrests, the report showed.

Congress is considering giving local police easier access to gun-purchasing data to track down illegal firearms, despite objections from the National Rifle Association, which says doing so would violate privacy rights.

The Senate is considering the provision as part of ATF's budget. It has not yet been included in House-approved legislation to fix the national system for gun background checks, which allowed a Virginia Tech student who killed 32 people to buy guns despite receiving a diagnosis of mental health problems.

The NRA did not immediately return a call for comment.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said studies show that as many as 40 percent of firearms sales at gun shows do not involve background checks.

"When there are no background checks, it's a lot easier for someone like the Virginia Tech killer to get guns," Helmke said.

Yesterday's report found that the ATF has "no specific enforcement programs" that target gun shows. It concluded that the ATF runs investigations at only a small number of shows, and usually only when agents have a reason to do so.

Between 2,000 and 5,200 gun shows are held in the United States annually.