Fact Check: Ruben Gallego's claim on ‘bad apple’ gun dealers

THE MEDIA: Internet

WHO SAID IT: Ruben Gallego

TITLE: U.S. House representative, 7th District

PARTY: Democratic

THE COMMENT: In a letter titled, “A small number of ‘bad apple’ gun dealers supply almost all guns used in crimes,” this comment appeared: “But what may surprise you is that approximately 90 percent of guns used in crime in the U.S. are traced to just five percent of all gun dealers.”

THE FORUM: A joint letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in conjunction with U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., and Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING AT: Whether 90 percent of the guns used in crimes in the United States can be traced to 5 percent of gun dealers.

ANALYSIS: The Brady Campaign, an anti-gun-violence organization, has used this statistic repeatedly. The group cites a 2000 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives study on gun traces as its source.

The report defines tracing as “the systematic tracking of the movement of a firearm recovered by law enforcement officials from its first sale by the manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain (wholesaler/retailer) to the first retail purchaser.” That information is used to tie suspects to a crime under investigation, to find possible gun traffickers and to attempt to find patterns “in the sources and kinds of crime guns.”

The 15-year-old study separates gun dealers into two categories: retail and pawnbrokers.

— For retailers with two or more traces, 88.2 percent of guns used in crimes were traced to 5.6 percent of such businesses.

— For pawnbrokers with two or more traces, 91.1 percent of crime guns were traced to 18.9 percent of such businesses.

— For retailers and pawnbrokers combined with two or more traces, 89.5 percent of guns used in crimes were traced to 7.2 percent of sellers.

While thorough, the data is old — from 1998. And more recent numbers are difficult, if not impossible, to find from public sources.

In 2003, Congress passed the Tiahrt Amendment, which prevents the ATF from disclosing federal gun-tracing information to anyone other than law enforcement or lawyers connected to a criminal investigation.

The amendment’s passage has shielded gun dealers from scrutiny, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. “To me, the bad apple gun dealers have more protections now than when that report came out in 2000,” Webster said.

No research has been done using more recent data at a national level since the amendment’s passage, making it unclear how or whether the figures cited are still valid.

Furthermore, tracing a gun used in a crime back to a dealer does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing or negligence on the part of the dealer. Guns could have been bought by straw purchasers (people who obtain guns legally as a cover for someone else) or passed around the second-hand gun market before ending up in the hands of criminals.

Gallego’s office did not respond to a request for clarification of the statement and to see if the statistic was pulled from a more recent source.

BOTTOM LINE: Gallego signed a letter that says 90 percent of guns used in crimes can be traced to 5 percent of gun dealers. The most recent federal gun-tracing study concluded that nearly 90 percent of such guns could be traced to 7 percent of all dealers. However, among retail dealers — excluding pawnbrokers — 88 percent of crime guns could be traced to about 5 percent.

While these numbers come close to his claim, they’re from a 2000 study and are based on 1998 data, which makes them difficult to apply to the current gun market. The federal government has prohibited disclosure of national gun-tracing data since 2003, so there is nothing more recent on which to base a conclusion.

THE FINDING: No stars: Inconclusive

Sources: Letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Bad Apple Gun Dealers, Ruben Gallego, Robyn Kelly, Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, July 29, 2015; Commerce in Firearms in the United States, Department of the Treasury Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, February 2000; Taking on “bad apple” gun dealers, Brady Campaign fact sheet, December 2014; “Industry pressure hides gun traces, protects dealers from public scrutiny,” Washington Post, James V. Grimaldi and Sari Horwitz, Oct. 24, 2010