The Scope and Implications of a Tracing Mechanism for Small Arms ...

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as a result, potentially tip-off the dishonest dealer. This manual process is
prohibitively time consuming involving disproportionate costs, which is why
in the UK, historically, tracing was undertaken in only 6% of cases.
However, the UK is still without a computerized database listing individual
civilian and commercial firearm holdings. Nevertheless, proposal for a
National Firearms Database include an important link to the Police National
Computer, as it has been recognized that record-keeping cannot stand
alone and has to be integrated with other national intelligence databases to
detect, for example, fraudulent applications for firearm ownership.
In 2001, the US Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms undertook
240,000 tracing enquiries. However, this does not represent the total
number of illicit firearm recoveries investigated in the US. In many countries
tracing is not a routine aspect of investigations involving illicit firearms.
There are a number of factors that influence this: one is the cost (including
time) and another is the fact that tracing can complicate the original
investigation, especially where identifying the history of a weapon does not
form an essential part of the evidence to prove the case. For example, in a
case involving an armed robbery, the prosecution will rely on evidence to
show that the person arrested was in possession of an unauthorized firearm.
Tracing is, therefore, irrelevant to the case and will not be undertaken.
Many investigators need to be re-educated in the importance of tracing.
Individual recoveries may not have any significance at the local level but,
when analysed alongside others on a national or regional level, the bigger
picture becomes apparent as individual seizures become linked to batches
of identical weapons.
In 2003 the UK will introduce the computerized National Firearms
Forensics Intelligence Database (NFFID). Seized illicit weapons will be
forensically cross-matched, for example, through serial numbers from the
same batch or identical hallmarks involving the same gunsmith, to identify
common denominators that link them to one illicit source. When linked to
tracing, the NFFID will provide valuable intelligence linking a multitude of
individual seizures, potentially missed at the local level, to a much larger
illicit trafficking operation. Therefore, law enforcement agencies need to
view tracing at the strategic level to prevent illicit trafficking.
There is a widely held axiom that potentially every illegally held firearm
was once in lawful circulation and, therefore, transfer to the illicit “black
market” involved a diversion from the legal market. Consequently,