Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Delivers Remarks at ATF’s Chiefs of Police Executive Forum on Crime Guns

Remarks as Delivered

I heard part of that introduction, more generous than appropriate, but I’m still grateful. Thanks, Steve. Thanks for your leadership and support for the extraordinary men and women of the ATF.

I know you are nearing the end of this year’s forum. But I couldn’t miss the chance to thank the law enforcement leaders who have traveled so far from across the country to be here at ATF headquarters this week.

We have an enormous amount of respect for the work that you and your departments do every day to keep your communities safe.

You are asked not only to combat violent crime, but also to serve as first responders to some of our most entrenched social problems. In doing this work, you and your officers regularly face extremely dangerous situations and bear witness to tragedy that thankfully, most Americans never have to see.

And as the leaders of your departments, you are often the ones who are asked to console and reassure your communities when a horrific act of gun violence occurs.

In the wake of every mass shooting and every act of gun violence that touches your communities, even the ones that don’t make headlines, people who are scared and in mourning turn to you for support and answers.

The fact that these acts continue to happen, in community after community, is heartbreaking, and it is unacceptable.

All of us at the Justice Department, and especially the agents and professionals of ATF, recognize that our work together in the fight against gun violence has never been more urgent than it is now. So, we are accelerating our efforts on every front.

First, we are marshalling the resources of every one of our 25 ATF Field Divisions and our 94 United States Attorneys’ Offices to investigate and prosecute the recidivists who are responsible for the greatest gun violence.

Our prosecutors and agents are deploying every available authority we have to crack down on criminal gun trafficking pipelines and keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them.

Shortly after I was sworn in as Attorney General, I announced that the Department would launch strike forces in five key corridors across the country to target the communities where criminal gun-trafficking pipelines are bringing in illegal guns. 

Since then, ATF’s work on those strike forces has resulted in the prosecution of 682 defendants and the seizure of more than 4,000 illegal guns, including almost 300 machineguns and machine gun conversion devices.

Our prosecutions of unlicensed firearms dealing has also increased – by 52% between 2021 and 2022. And we expect them to continue to increase again this year.

We are also continuing to implement the expanded background check requirements and new firearms trafficking provisions that Congress enacted last year as part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Thanks to those requirements, more than 200 firearms have been kept out of the hands of young people who should not have access to them. And we have already charged more than 100 defendants under the Act’s new gun trafficking provisions and seized hundreds of firearms in connection with those cases.

Second, we are maximizing the capacity of our grantmaking components to provide law enforcement agencies and communities across the country with targeted support and assistance. Last year, we awarded more than $139 million for the COPS Hiring Program – to enable law enforcement agencies across the country to hire additional full-time law enforcement professionals. In the coming year, we will award even more, with over $224 million dedicated to the COPS Hiring Program.

The Department is also funding evidence-informed, community-centered initiatives aimed at preventing and disrupting gun violence. That includes funds that allow communities to implement the extreme risk protection order laws and programs that we know save lives.

Third, ATF and the entire Department are doubling down on what we know to be some of the most effective tools we have against violent crime – our partnerships with all of you.

Today, ATF SACs, agents, and experts are working more closely than ever with their state and local partners to disrupt the entire cycle of gun violence – from the places where illegally trafficked guns originated, to the communities where the shootings are often concentrated.

I want to provide just a few examples of what that partnership looks like in practice.

In January of this year, there was a horrific mass shooting in Goshen, California, that left six people dead, including a mother and her 10-month-old baby. ATF San Francisco immediately responded and worked with local law enforcement, including rushing cartridge casing evidence across the country to conduct DNA testing in ATF labs.

That led to the identification of one of the alleged shooters. And when law enforcement officers executing the warrant for the shooter’s arrest came under fire, the ATF Special Response Team was there to take down the shooter – and then to render life-saving medical aid so he can stand trial for his crimes.

In March of this year, a federal jury in the Southern District of Illinois convicted four leaders of the Gangster Disciples street gang for their participation in a years-long conspiracy involving drug trafficking, three murders, and two attempted murders. This conviction was the result of years of work by ATF Cape Girardeau alongside their state, local, and federal partners.

And earlier this month, ATF Philadelphia and the Delaware County Drug Task Force conducted federal arrest and search warrants related to the ongoing investigation of a suspected firearms trafficker. The arrests came after a months-long operation in which agents conducted the controlled purchase of 51 firearms from the alleged trafficker.

Using NIBIN, ATF was able to determine that 16 of those firearms had been linked to 27 shootings associated with an ongoing ATF Louisville street gang investigation.

These examples represent just a small fraction of the work that our ATF SACs and their offices are doing alongside their state and local partners. I am very proud of them.

These cases also make clear the power of ATF’s crime gun intelligence capabilities. This includes the Crime Gun Intelligence Centers operating in every ATF Field Division, which coordinate comprehensive tracing and ballistics analysis.

It includes NIBIN, the tool that allows ATF to turn the evidence that your departments collect at crime scenes into concrete leads.

Since June of last year, ATF has generated nearly 200,000 leads on violent criminals because of ballistics evidence that was submitted to NIBIN.

NIBIN is an extremely powerful tool, and one that gets even more powerful the more information is submitted.

That is why in December, the Deputy Attorney General issued a policy requiring that all firearms and fired cartridges recovered in connection with every federal investigation, including those by federally funded task forces, be submitted to NIBIN.

We are continuing to work with our state, local, and Tribal partners to help them submit ballistics evidence to the NIBIN system on a timely basis.

I urge all of you to do everything in your power to keep your departments’ NIBIN submissions as up to date as possible.

We are also working to increase participation in ATF’s eTrace program, which serves as a central online database for firearms data across jurisdictions.

Now, we recognize that there can be barriers to using the eTrace system, which is why ATF is implementing a pilot program called eTrace DIRECT. The program allows law enforcement agencies that use a centralized Records/Case Management System to fully automate submission of firearms data to eTrace.

The program eliminates unnecessary paperwork by automatically generating a trace request any time firearms data is entered into your standard case management system.

We have successfully deployed eTrace [DIRECT] as a pilot program in partnership with the Kentucky State Police. And we are now expanding it to several other large federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

All of our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and ATF Field Divisions have also designated coordinators to work with our law enforcement partners to tackle the threat of ghost guns. This year, ATF has established a division here at headquarters dedicated to supporting these coordinators in each field division.

And it has updated its regulations to make it harder for criminals and other prohibited persons to get their hands on these untraceable guns.

That work will continue.

As I said at the outset, all of us at the Justice Department recognize the urgency of our shared work to protect our communities and our country from gun violence.

We are sparing no resources to hold accountable those who perpetrate this violence, as well as those who put illegal guns in the hands of violent criminals.

We recognize that so much of the work to combat violent crime falls on your shoulders. We are committed to doing everything we can to provide you with the partnership and the support that you need and that you deserve.

Thank you for coming to this year’s forum.

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you do for your communities, and for our country.

Have a good remainder of your day.