Where do the guns come from in Cuyahoga County?

Sunday, December 16, 2007 Rachel Dissell and Christopher Evans
Plain Dealer Reporters

Ohio ranked seventh in the nation as a source of guns used in crimes. 6,135 guns sold in Ohio were used to commit crimes last year. 1,819 guns used in crimes in 39 states last year were first sold in Ohio. 123 crime guns traced by Cleveland police last year were first sold at one suburban dealership -- Atlantic Gun & Tackle in Bedford Heights. Cleveland seized 1,095 guns in 2006 and 956 so far in 2007. Some guns used in crimes are stolen or borrowed. Others, criminals say, are found in bushes or under rocks. The origins of some guns can never be traced because they are too old or the serial numbers are filed off. The majority, though, are bought legally from federally licensed gun dealers and then resold on the streets. And local law enforcement can't do much about it.

Cleveland police officer Wayne Leon was killed during a traffic stop on a rainy Sunday in June 2000 by a 29-year-old felon who didn't want to return to prison.

The arrest and prosecution of the killer, Quisi Bryan, who shot Leon in the face with a .45-caliber Glock, grabbed headlines. The callousness of the act put him on death row. Bryan's Glock had starred in a subtle, more-surreptitious crime a year before the shooting. There was no blood, no bang -- just a few lies and a signature.

Police traced the path of the murder weapon to Atlantic Gun and Tackle in Bedford Heights. The dealership sold the gun to a woman named Elaine Smith. She had been Quisi Bryan's pen pal when he was in prison. Smith went to the gun store with Bryan. And made what law enforcement describes as a straw purchase. He picked out the Glock he had been pining for -- but couldn't buy because of his record. Smith signed paperwork vowing the gun was for her.

A year later, Bryan used the Glock to end Leon's life. The murder investigation includes thousands of pages of details about Bryan's moves and motives. But only a few lines about how he got the gun. Federal prosecutors could have charged Smith, who later married Bryan, with lying on federal documents.
They didn't.

U.S. Marshal Pete Elliot spent 11 years working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and helped trace the gun that killed Leon, a family friend. How guns get into the hands of criminals is no mystery, Elliot said. "It's not like a smuggler is bringing these guns into Cleveland. What you've got are people who can buy guns, then they're giving or selling the guns to criminals."

There are many things that can be done to try to stem the flow of guns that get into the hands of kids and criminals. Some require legislation. Others are more simple. Bust more straw purchasers. But in cases such as Elaine Smith's, they give many reasons for not prosecuting. Lack of manpower. Short sentences. It isn't always worth it, they say.

Cleveland crime guns come from suburbs

Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath knows that many of the guns, nearly 43 percent, used to commit crimes in Cleveland were first purchased at three federally licensed gun dealers - all in the suburbs. But McGrath can do only so much about it. Local efforts have been strangled by the state concealed-weapons law that took authority to regulate firearms away from cities and the fact that in Ohio, gun dealers are regulated solely by federal law.

McGrath works with federal agencies like the ATF - but can't launch his own investigations of dealers or straw purchasers. And the agency can't tell him which city residents have bought multiple guns in a short time.

For now, McGrath is limited to programs like the gun buyback done last month. That Saturday morning, 423 working guns were turned in. "Within three years, one of those handguns would have been used in a tragedy," McGrath said. "I know it."

The things he wants to do, he can't - without the help of lawmakers. McGrath wants to see guns come with paperwork as they change hands, so cops know not only who sold them but also who bought them. Ohio, unlike other states, hasn't passed its own laws to control the sale of guns. Local police cannot interfere with the purchase of guns. They can only make arrests when guns are used in crimes.

Only the ATF can regulate and inspect gun dealers. And it keeps its records secret. "We obviously as an agency are empowered to inspect the gun dealers but when we do it, we don't give those records out to anybody," said Jeff Stirling, assistant special agent in charge of the Columbus field division. However, 17 states - including Alabama, Pennsylvania and Georgia - have given themselves more control over gun dealers.

Those states license and inspect dealers - and revoke the licenses if needed. That is a powerful tool in quelling violence caused by the illegal gun trade, said Daniel Webster, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy. Webster said many states rely on the ATF, erroneously believing the agency has the manpower to regulate and investigate dealers who aren't following the law. "It's like saying the DEA should make all drug arrests," Webster said.

Some groups may lobby against legislation licensing dealers, Webster said, but it doesn't impinge on gun-owners' rights - it only regulates the sale of goods. States already regulate the sale of cars, homes, liquor and cigarettes among other things. "Whose [personal] right would be violated here?" he asked. "No one's." Webster said other states also would benefit if stricter laws were passed in Ohio and other Midwest states - none of which regulate dealers. "Ohio is known as a place where these crime guns come from," Webster said.

A Top 10 rating for crime guns

In Cleveland - and in the nation - thousands of those crime guns have come from one place. Atlantic Gun & Tackle, a 50-year-old gun dealership, ranks in the Top 10 among dealers nationally in the number of crime guns sold.

Last year, 123 guns used in city crimes were originally purchased at the Bedford Heights store. The next-highest number of crime guns were traced to Goschinski Fin Feather Fur & Outfitters in Ashland, with 19. B&T Shooting Supplies in Middleburg Heights and Stonewall Range in Broadview Heights were third with 18.

Atlantic, a family-owned dealership, defends its practices, saying employees look for suspicious purchases and work with the ATF in reporting them. "After the gun leaves the store, we don't know what happens to it. The only way we could tell for sure is if we were mind readers," said William Borsellino, president of the dealership.

Sam Borsellino, vice president, said high volume of sales drive their higher number of crime guns. "We've been around selling guns three times longer than anybody else in the Greater Cleveland area. So there's gonna be a lot of them in circulation that come from here."

Federal regulations limit information

Reports compiled by the ATF used to tell the public where the guns were coming from. It was a matter of public record. State-by-state reports gave detailed statistics culled from ATF traces of guns. They included types of guns used in crimes, ages of the suspects caught with them and the amount of time elapsed between the purchase and the crime.

But a string of federal regulations passed since 2002 has pared the information the public can get, limiting it to a few general numbers. Police can get information on specific gun traces or about their own city. But nothing about the dealers.

The information began to dry up after the ATF reported in 2002 that 57 percent of all guns used in crimes were purchased from about 1,000 federally licensed gun dealers - a little more than 1 percent of all dealers. "That was very embarrassing to the NRA and the gun lobby because this information proved that the gun problem really is solvable because there are so few dealers supplying crime guns," said Daniel Vice, senior attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA, disputed Vice. "The best way to address the issue of violent crime, or crime in general, is to go after the perpetrators. There is no need to harass law-abiding retailers or law-abiding manufacturers."

Over the past four years, Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a longtime NRA member, has authored legislation that restricts the ATF from releasing data the agency collects about guns used to commit crimes. These amendments have so effectively restricted the disclosure of trace data that more than 70 police chiefs across the country, including Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath, have written to Congress to protest.

"It is our position that this language has functioned to protect corrupt gun dealers at the expense of effective law enforcement," the letter states.

NRA spokesman Arulanandam disagreed. "I think the real question that needs to be asked, that no one has asked yet is: 'Why is there a divide between the political appointees like the chiefs of police, and the rank and file police officers, the men and women who put their lives on the line to get the job done?' "An educated guess would be these chiefs of police are just doing what their political bosses want them to. The national Fraternal Order of Police supports the Tiahrt Amendment. So does the Southern States Police Benevolent Association. As does the NRA."

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson doesn't see politics in a city trying to stop sky-rocketing shooting deaths. "Too many guns in the hands of younger and younger people and the guns are more powerful," he said. "The special interests need to take a back seat on this."

Local law enforcement wants the details

Local law enforcement officials say they need the same tools the feds have to go after straw purchasers. What the ATF has done is not enough. Since gun sales are regulated by federal - not state or local - law, only the U.S. attorney's office can prosecute straw purchase cases initiated by the ATF. In the past five years, the U.S. attorney's Cleveland office has prosecuted 30 people in 16 straw purchase cases.

McGrath said if the government wanted to get rid of the gun problems, it would pump money into the ATF and let it tackle dirty dealers alongside local law enforcement, the way it has with the gang problem. "All it takes is someone on the Potomac to put the throttle down and go after the straw purchasers," he said. If they do, it won't be easy.

"They're tough cases to prove because you've got to prove that they knew they were buying the gun for somebody else," Elliot said. "You need a U.S. prosecutor's office that is going to be very aggressive and go after straw purchases."

U.S. Attorney Greg White said that, in the past, law enforcement didn't have enough intelligence about gun purchases or the investigative manpower to track down leads about straw-purchase or gun-trafficking operations. White hopes a cooperative effort of law enforcement in an area that stretches from Toledo to Youngstown and as far south as Mansfield could change that.

A $5.9 million Department of Justice grant recently helped create the Ohio Gun Violence Center. It plans to assemble trace and ballistics data about all guns used in crimes in the cooperating cities.

The effort - White calls it the first in the country - will allow departments to feed each other leads about people who have made suspicious gun purchases. That is something they can't do now. "What it says to me is someone of authority recognizes the problem and is willing to address the problem and not just pretend it's not there," Jackson said.