ATF Report Undermines Left’s Hysteria Over So-Called ‘Gun Show Loophole’

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment (NFCTA), Vol. III, undermines the left’s long-standing hysteria over a so-called “gun show loophole.”

The NFCTA examines gun trafficking and gun trafficking channels, both domestic and international.

The ATF uploaded the NFCTA in various parts or segments, and part four looks at “source-to-market” trafficking.

From the NFCTA:

The term source-to-market type captures the geographic scope of firearm trafficking cases, which include intrastate, interstate, and international trafficking. Within the U.S., intrastate trafficking involves the movement of firearms in markets within states, while interstate trafficking occurs between states. International trafficking involves the movement of firearms in markets between the U.S. and a foreign country. For interstate and international trafficking, the term ‘source’ is used to identify the state or country that is the supplier of illicit firearms, while the term ‘market’ is used to identify the state or country that is the recipient of illicit firearms. In the case of international trafficking, the U.S. may serve as the source country while a foreign country serves as the market country, referred to as U.S. to foreign trafficking. Conversely, a foreign country may serve as the source country while the U.S. serves as the market country, referred to as foreign to U.S. trafficking.

Following decades of hysteria from the left resulting in gun control push after gun control push based on the so-called “gun show loophole,” one would think such shows to play a dominant role in intrastate and interstate trafficking. However, the NFCTA numbers show only 3.2 percent of ATF intrastate trafficking cases involve “trafficking in firearms at gun shows, flea markets, or auctions.”

Moreover, only 4.3 percent of ATF interstate trafficking cases involve “trafficking in firearms at gun shows, flea markets, or auctions.”

The percentage of international ATF trafficking cases from the United States to a foreign country involving “trafficking in firearms at gun shows, flea markets, or auctions” is 4.5 percent.

Trafficking at gun shows, flea markets, etc., did not even rank high enough to merit mention when it came to international trafficking from other countries into the United States.

In part five of the NFCTA, the ATF noted “relatively few investigations involved FFL traffickers and trafficking in firearms through gun shows.” However, they hedged their statement by noting that the “relatively few investigations” did involve over 50 firearms each.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.