A group of House Democrats called for action from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Tuesday, days after CBS News. published a survey which revealed that dozens of law enforcement officials were illegally selling guns, even weapons of war, in 23 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.
California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, who serves on both the House Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, wrote to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach expressing his “grave concerns” regarding the report that some law enforcement officers were “exploiting their positions to illegally acquire and distribute firearms.”
Garcia, joined in his letter by Rep. Dan Goldman of New York and Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, asked the ATF to respond to a series of questions by Jan. 15, 2025, about the serious systemic vulnerabilities revealed by the CBS News investigation.
“Reports suggest that there may be serious systemic vulnerabilities in current regulations and enforcement mechanisms relating to machine guns, rifles and sawed-off shotguns, endangering public safety by allowing the proliferation of dangerous weapons, often in the hands of international traffickers and organized crime groups.” they wrote.
The members of Congress noted in the letter that, according to the most recent ATF data available between 2017 and 2021, nearly 26,000 firearms were traced from U.S. crime scenes to a government agency, the force. the order or the army. Although some firearms may have been lost due to negligence, thousands of firearms reported missing by law enforcement were later discovered to have been improperly sold or traded, the agency said. letter.
The CBS News investigation found at least 50 cases of police officers illegally selling their weapons online, through dealers, out of their homes or out of the back of their cars – in many cases to high markups.
Members of Congress cited the troubling case of Bradley Wendt — a former police chief in Adair, Iowa, who was convicted earlier this year on federal charges related to obtaining firearms. military-grade fire under false pretenses — as an example of a broader trend among law enforcement. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Wendt sometimes made a profit margin of more than 90 percent, CBS News found in court records.
Local U.S. law enforcement agencies must obtain authorization from the ATF to gain access to high-powered weapons such as battlefield weapons, including machine guns, used by U.S. and NATO forces in conflict zones. The CBS News investigation found that the office generally does not verify the suitability of machine gun applications for a department or track where the weapons end up. And even though the law has been in effect for more than three decades, the office didn’t begin reviewing each application until 2023.
Lawmakers noted concern that the ATF lacked a comprehensive vetting process to ensure the legitimacy of law enforcement requests for high-powered weapons.
“We are deeply concerned that the lack of rigorous oversight and follow-up audits has allowed individuals to exploit these loopholes and circumvent federal law,” the members of Congress wrote.
James LaPorta contributed to this report.
