A group of House Democrats Tuesday called for action from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, days after CBS News published an investigation which found dozens of law enforcement officials illegally sold firearms, even weapons of war, across 23 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of California, who serves on both the House Oversight Committee and on the Homeland Security Committee, wrote to ATF Director Steven Dettelbach stating his “grave concerns” over the report that certain law enforcement officers were “exploiting their positions to acquire and illegally distribute firearms.”
Garcia, joined in his letter by Rep. Dan Goldman of New York and Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, asked the ATF to address a series of questions by Jan. 15, 2025, on serious systemic vulnerabilities exposed by the CBS News investigation.
“Reporting suggests that there may be serious systemic vulnerabilities in current machine gun and sawed-off shotgun and rifle regulations and enforcement mechanisms, jeopardizing public safety by enabling the proliferation of dangerous weapons, often into the hands of international traffickers and organized crime groups,” they wrote.
The congressmen noted in the letter that, according to the most recently available ATF data between 2017 and 2021, nearly 26,000 guns were traced from American crime scenes back to a government agency, law enforcement, or the military. While some firearms might have been lost due to negligence, thousands of firearms reported missing by law enforcement agencies were later discovered to have been improperly sold or traded, the letter said.
The CBS News investigation uncovered at least 50 cases of police illegally selling their weapons online, through dealers, out of their homes, or the back of their cars — in many cases at steep markups.
The congressmen cited the troubling case of Bradley Wendt — a former police chief for Adair, Iowa, who was convicted earlier this year on federal charges related to obtaining military-grade firearms under false pretenses — as an example of a broader pattern among law enforcement. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Wendt at times earned more than a 90% profit margin, CBS News found in court records.
Local U.S. law enforcement agencies need to obtain permission from the ATF to get access to high-powered weapons such as battlefield weapons, including machine guns, used by U.S. and NATO forces in conflict zones. However, the CBS News investigation found the ATF rarely reviews machine gun applications from law enforcement to confirm they’re legitimate — and even though the law has been on the books for more than three decades — the bureau only started vetting every application in 2023.
The lawmakers highlighted their concern that there was no comprehensive vetting process from the ATF to ensure requests from law enforcement for high-powered weaponry were legitimate.
“We are deeply concerned that the absence of rigorous oversight and follow-up audits has allowed individuals to exploit these loopholes and bypass federal law,” the congressmen wrote.
contributed to this report.
