Old Dominion Terror Attack Exposes the Myth of Gun Tracing

The gun used in the terror attack on Old Dominion University was a stolen .22 caliber handgun that uses 10-round magazines. The pistol was untraceable for two common reasons. First, the gun was stolen. This breaks any chain of custody. A trace only goes to the first retail purchaser. When a gun is stolen, there is no link from the legal purchaser to the thief. From apnews.com:

The man charged Friday, Kenya Chapman, told federal agents in an interview that he stole the gun from a car in Newport News, Virginia, about a year before the shooting and recently sold it to Jalloh, according to an affidavit filed in court. Chapman said he met Jalloh at work and that Jalloh told him he needed the gun for protection as a delivery driver, the affidavit says.

The second reason the pistol was untraceable was that the serial number was partly obliterated. From unionbulletin.com:

Jalloh was still on supervised release from a 2017 prison sentence — and barred from carrying firearms — when he barged into an Army ROTC classroom at Old Dominion University on Thursday morning.

He was carrying a loaded Glock 44 .22-caliber pistol with a partially obliterated serial number, according to the newly filed court documents in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

When a firearm’s serial number is obliterated or altered, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to trace. There are other common reasons why the firearms tracing system is almost never used to solve crimes of violence. The most common reason gun traces are not useful for solving violent crimes is that they are seldom found at the scene of the crime. When guns are found at the scene of a violent crime, they are often found with the person who used them, as happened in this case. When the person who used the firearm is already known, a trace does nothing to solve the crime.

Another common reason firearms become untraceable is their age. Once a firearm is more than ten years old, tracing becomes difficult. Guns are sold, change hands through estates, are given, traded, and stolen, as was the gun in this case.  There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States that are more than 10 years old. There are hundreds of millions of firearms in the United States that are untraceable.  In 1987, almost 30 years ago, there were 198 million privately owned firearms in the United States.

The investigators in the Old Dominion Islamic terrorist attack did not find the person who sold the pistol to the terrorist through the tracing system. They found him through an analysis of the terrorist’s telephone records. It has become harder and harder to do anything without leaving an electronic trail that can be unwound.

The entire firearms tracing system is obsolete and cost-ineffective.

Even systems that require complete registration for the legal ownership of firearms are seldom helpful in solving violent crimes. Canada has required all handguns to be registered since 1934. In 1995, Canadian officials could not identify a single instance in which handgun registration helped solve a crime.

Registration systems are even more expensive and intrusive than the failed gun “tracing” system in the United States.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.