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ATF currently has two mission responsibilities with respect to firearms. First, it is a law enforcement agency responsible for enforcing federal gun laws. ATF special agents work with their counterparts at other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to identify, investigate, and refer for prosecution individuals who are violating federal gun laws by illegally possessing firearms, participating in violent gun crimes, or illegally trafficking firearms. ATF's disproportionate focus on individual acts of gun violence is also represented in data on federal prosecutions for gun-related crimes. An analysis of DOJ data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) found that there were 6,526 new weapons-related prosecutions from October 2018 through April 2019, 63 percent of which were led by ATF. Sixty-seven percent of these prosecutions were “felon in possession” cases, which charge an individual with possessing a firearm who was prohibited from buying or possessing guns because of a previous felony conviction. Many of these cases involve individuals charged only with illegally possessing a gun or ammunition, not with any additional acts of violence. ATF has also devoted substantial agency resources to enforcing federal drug laws, regardless of whether the cases have a nexus to gun-related crimes: According to DOJ data obtained by TRAC, 11 percent of new prosecutions referred by ATF in June 2020 were for drug or drug trafficking offenses.
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