WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama picked B. Todd Jones to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it looked like the moment had arrived when the beleaguered ATF would reassert itself as an agency with teeth.
It was January, and the nation was embroiled in a rare debate on gun control, the result of the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school the previous month. The White House pushed for tougher gun laws and Congress seemed unusually willing to consider them.
It didn’t work out that way.
One by one, the bills failed. Support for expanded background checks fizzled. Jones’ nomination sat idle for eight months before the Senate confirmed him.
Two months into his tenure, Jones is stuck between a White House with high expectations for curbing gun violence and a Congress that has little appetite for strengthening his agency.
The ATF is supposed to not only investigate gun crime but also inspect firearms dealers annually. But a recent internal report found the agency has nowhere near enough manpower for those inspections. More than half the nation’s gun dealers haven’t been inspected in the past five years.
There are 2,380 ATF agents, a number that’s remained relatively constant for more than a decade. One-fourth are eligible to retire this year.
Jones, 56, said he will push to expand hiring to bring in enough new agents in time to learn from those about to retire. Jones had been the agency’s acting director since 2011 and also was the U.S. attorney in Minnesota.
The ATF was among the many federal agencies rushing to the Washington Navy Yard last month when a Navy contractor killed 13 people and terrorized his office building with a sawed-off shotgun.
Tracing guns is the ATF’s responsibility. But in the first high-profile investigation since being confirmed, Jones saw the FBI snub his agents and trace the shotgun itself. Neither agency has commented.
Frank Surotchak, chief of ATF’s violent crime analysis branch, said his analysts merge gun-trace data with FBI crime statistics, which has helped agents focus some of the country’s roughest cities, including Stockton, Calif., and Camden, N.J.
While federal laws prevent ATF agents from using trace data alone to move to revoke a gun dealer’s license, the data can be used to build intelligence on potential criminal gun dealers.
