- Even states with strong gun violence prevention laws are imperiled by firearms being trafficked across state laws. One of the best ways to combat this is with reliable, accurate, and accessible gun trace data.
- Any firearm recovered by law enforcement can typically be traced to the time and date of its first sale.
- Gun trace data can help states understand how illegal firearms are entering their state.
- Several states have used this data to develop more specialized law enforcement tools to fight this trafficking.
- Currently less than 40% of Minnesota’s law enforcement agencies participate in ATF’s eTrace system and less than one third of those have opted into data sharing.*
Sources
*U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. (n.d.). Retrieved January 20, 2023, from www.durbin.senate.gov website: https://www.durbin.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/All%20States%2012-1-2015%20pdf.pdf
