Analysis: How ATF Operates
and How That Could Change

The "F" in ATF stands for "firearms," and, in the matter of overseeing the sale of these, the ATF is a damned peculiar creature: It is a law enforcement agency dedicated to regulating transactions between federally screened, licensed sellers and a population of buyers from which serious criminals (felons, domestic abusers, those under indictment for such crimes) are excluded.

It may not exactly shock you to learn that very few American criminals are carrying firearms legally purchased from a licensed retailer (murderers and armed robbers are not famously punctilious about lesser crimes) but just how small that share is may surprise you: It is less than 2 percent.

There are some other very small percentages that should be kept in mind. The share of U.S. firearms used in a homicide each year? About 0.005 percent, or about 1 in 20,000. The share of homicides carried out by means of so-called assault rifles? So small that the FBI doesn't even bother to keep track, but estimates run as low as less than 2 percent. Your likelihood of being murdered with an AR-15-style rifle? Way less than a quarter of your odds of being stabbed to death and half your odds of being beaten to death by somebody's bare hands.

The number of legally owned fully automatic weapons that have been used in a murder since World War II? Small enough that you could count them on one hand—and the majority of those were committed by police or military personnel rather than by civilians. .....