March 6, 2000, 10:07PM
124 Texas dealers scrutinized over guns used in crimes
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle
Some of Texas' biggest and best-known gun store owners in Houston, Austin and Dallas are among 1,000 gun dealers nationwide who have been targeted by the government.
They have drawn attention because they sold 10 or more guns last year that were traced to crimes.
But critics charge that the new measure is yet another instance of the government harassing legitimate gun dealers while not using existing federal laws to prosecute criminals who use guns.
"If you're a big dealer, the percentages are against you that a gun you sell will be used in a crime," said Bobby Nagel, who has run a San Antonio gun shop for nearly half a century.
"The bottom line is legitimate dealers have too much at stake. They'd have to be insane to have anything to do with the sale of firearms for illegal purposes," he said, echoing sentiments expressed by other large dealers.
Last month President Clinton ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to conduct "intensive inspections" of 1,020 dealers nationwide -- only a fraction of the nation's 104,000 dealers -- who sold 57 percent of the guns traced to crimes.
Texas has 124 of those dealers; all sold 10 or more guns in 1999 that were traced to crimes.
Another 10 Texas dealers, including four in Houston, have been asked to turn over all their gun records because they did not cooperate when the ATF wanted to trace guns they sold that were later connected to crimes.
One of those facing a closer inspection, William "Bill" Carter, who owns four Carter's Country stores in the Houston area, said he and his colleagues have been unfairly singled out.
"I think a lot of us got our feelings hurt by getting on a list that says you're a suspect dealer, after spending 40 years complying with every law, going above and beyond, and being told that by the BATF," he said.
A better tool to root out the bad apples would be to examine the percentage of guns a dealer sells that are traced to crimes, Carter said.
"It's not fair just to target a number of trace guns without computing the number of transactions that dealer has in that year's time."
For example, he said, if a dealer sells 50 guns a year and has five guns traced to crimes, that should set off more alarms than "a dealer who has 10 traces and several thousand transactions a year."
"It's a presidential deal," said Donnie Durbin, owner of Ray's Hardware and Sporting Goods in Dallas.
He contends that Clinton is "trying to do something where it looks like he did something positive for gun control, some type of legacy or something, in my opinion."
At any rate, local ATF agents said they will have a tough time with this new task, which was added to a number of other gun-related duties they have been assigned. The number of ATF agents and inspectors is lower than it was in 1973.
"We will have to find a way to do it, but it's going to be very difficult," said ATF special agent Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for the agency's Houston office. "We've got fewer inspectors than we do agents, and the inspectors are the ones who are going to be doing the compliance inspections."
ATF statistics showed a sharp reduction nationwide in the number of firearm dealers recommended for federal prosecution. In fiscal year 1997, 64 dealers were targeted; in 1998, there were 46 dealers referred to prosecutors; and last year, only 34 cases were sent.
Art Resnick, an ATF spokesman in Washington, had no explanation for the decline in prosecutions.
The National Rifle Association is quick to use the argument of many who oppose stricter gun controls that the government fails to enforce its current laws.
One official with the gun lobby pointed to a Syracuse University study that found a 44 percent decline in ATF referrals for federal prosecutions of crimes that include gun law violations during Clinton's administration from 1992 to 1998.
However, Clinton's current effort to focus on dealers who sell guns used in crimes -- an action he announced well before last week's two high-profile shootings in the Midwest -- was applauded by members of Handgun Control in Washington.
"Obviously these are the bad apples, and these are the folks who we need to target and make sure the guns aren't ending up on the illegal market," said spokeswoman Kim Mariani, who said many transactions are sales of cheaply made handguns known as "Saturday night specials."
"These people aren't collectors, and these gun dealers know it."
Last month, Dallas gun dealer Durbin received a demand letter from the ATF requesting a list of all used guns his stores bought and sold in 1999, with instructions to begin sending in a similar report for each quarter.
He said the ATF only asked the dates of his used gun sales, the type and serial numbers of the weapons, but not the names of the sellers of the guns, nor those who bought them from Durbin.
"It makes no sense at all, and it torques me off because of what they called me," Durbin said, referring to language in the ATF letter saying that the number of crime guns traced to his store "may be an indication of illegal firearms trafficking."
"And the information they're requesting, they can't do anything with it."
"What we're trying to do is improve our ability to trace guns," said Angelita Quinones, director of industry operations for the ATF in Houston. "In the case of used guns, we're trying to bring them back into the loop so we have some idea where they appear again in case we find them in a crime."
Meanwhile, gun control advocates say dealers have a responsibility for the products they sell and they want Congress to pass additional gun laws, including a measure that would allow a customer to buy only one gun a month.
"When 11 or 12 kids a day are dying, the industry has to take responsibility," said Mariani of Handgun Control.
124 Texas dealers scrutinized over guns used in crimes
By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle
Some of Texas' biggest and best-known gun store owners in Houston, Austin and Dallas are among 1,000 gun dealers nationwide who have been targeted by the government.
They have drawn attention because they sold 10 or more guns last year that were traced to crimes.
But critics charge that the new measure is yet another instance of the government harassing legitimate gun dealers while not using existing federal laws to prosecute criminals who use guns.
"If you're a big dealer, the percentages are against you that a gun you sell will be used in a crime," said Bobby Nagel, who has run a San Antonio gun shop for nearly half a century.
"The bottom line is legitimate dealers have too much at stake. They'd have to be insane to have anything to do with the sale of firearms for illegal purposes," he said, echoing sentiments expressed by other large dealers.
Last month President Clinton ordered the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to conduct "intensive inspections" of 1,020 dealers nationwide -- only a fraction of the nation's 104,000 dealers -- who sold 57 percent of the guns traced to crimes.
Texas has 124 of those dealers; all sold 10 or more guns in 1999 that were traced to crimes.
Another 10 Texas dealers, including four in Houston, have been asked to turn over all their gun records because they did not cooperate when the ATF wanted to trace guns they sold that were later connected to crimes.
One of those facing a closer inspection, William "Bill" Carter, who owns four Carter's Country stores in the Houston area, said he and his colleagues have been unfairly singled out.
"I think a lot of us got our feelings hurt by getting on a list that says you're a suspect dealer, after spending 40 years complying with every law, going above and beyond, and being told that by the BATF," he said.
A better tool to root out the bad apples would be to examine the percentage of guns a dealer sells that are traced to crimes, Carter said.
"It's not fair just to target a number of trace guns without computing the number of transactions that dealer has in that year's time."
For example, he said, if a dealer sells 50 guns a year and has five guns traced to crimes, that should set off more alarms than "a dealer who has 10 traces and several thousand transactions a year."
"It's a presidential deal," said Donnie Durbin, owner of Ray's Hardware and Sporting Goods in Dallas.
He contends that Clinton is "trying to do something where it looks like he did something positive for gun control, some type of legacy or something, in my opinion."
At any rate, local ATF agents said they will have a tough time with this new task, which was added to a number of other gun-related duties they have been assigned. The number of ATF agents and inspectors is lower than it was in 1973.
"We will have to find a way to do it, but it's going to be very difficult," said ATF special agent Franceska Perot, spokeswoman for the agency's Houston office. "We've got fewer inspectors than we do agents, and the inspectors are the ones who are going to be doing the compliance inspections."
ATF statistics showed a sharp reduction nationwide in the number of firearm dealers recommended for federal prosecution. In fiscal year 1997, 64 dealers were targeted; in 1998, there were 46 dealers referred to prosecutors; and last year, only 34 cases were sent.
Art Resnick, an ATF spokesman in Washington, had no explanation for the decline in prosecutions.
The National Rifle Association is quick to use the argument of many who oppose stricter gun controls that the government fails to enforce its current laws.
One official with the gun lobby pointed to a Syracuse University study that found a 44 percent decline in ATF referrals for federal prosecutions of crimes that include gun law violations during Clinton's administration from 1992 to 1998.
However, Clinton's current effort to focus on dealers who sell guns used in crimes -- an action he announced well before last week's two high-profile shootings in the Midwest -- was applauded by members of Handgun Control in Washington.
"Obviously these are the bad apples, and these are the folks who we need to target and make sure the guns aren't ending up on the illegal market," said spokeswoman Kim Mariani, who said many transactions are sales of cheaply made handguns known as "Saturday night specials."
"These people aren't collectors, and these gun dealers know it."
Last month, Dallas gun dealer Durbin received a demand letter from the ATF requesting a list of all used guns his stores bought and sold in 1999, with instructions to begin sending in a similar report for each quarter.
He said the ATF only asked the dates of his used gun sales, the type and serial numbers of the weapons, but not the names of the sellers of the guns, nor those who bought them from Durbin.
"It makes no sense at all, and it torques me off because of what they called me," Durbin said, referring to language in the ATF letter saying that the number of crime guns traced to his store "may be an indication of illegal firearms trafficking."
"And the information they're requesting, they can't do anything with it."
"What we're trying to do is improve our ability to trace guns," said Angelita Quinones, director of industry operations for the ATF in Houston. "In the case of used guns, we're trying to bring them back into the loop so we have some idea where they appear again in case we find them in a crime."
Meanwhile, gun control advocates say dealers have a responsibility for the products they sell and they want Congress to pass additional gun laws, including a measure that would allow a customer to buy only one gun a month.
"When 11 or 12 kids a day are dying, the industry has to take responsibility," said Mariani of Handgun Control.