ATF Director Puts 2025 Crime-Gun Traces at a Record 674,000, Up 9 Percent

ATF traced approximately 674,000 firearms recovered at crime scenes in 2025 for local, state and federal agencies, Director Rob Cekada told police executives at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Orlando, the bureau said in a release dated October 28. The conference ran October 24-27.

That would be the most traces ATF has reported for a single year. The bureau’s trace data pages put the National Tracing Center’s calendar-year totals at more than 438,000 firearms in 2019, 484,000 in 2020, 543,000 in 2021, 599,000 in 2022, 630,000 in 2023 and 616,000 in 2024. Against the published 2024 figure, the 2025 count Cekada gave is up about 9 percent, and it tops the 2023 peak. The release does not say if the count is of firearms or of trace requests, and ATF cautions that not all firearms used in crime are traced and not all firearms traced were used in crime.

More than 10,000 law enforcement agencies in 52 countries have access to eTrace, ATF’s web-based system for tracing a firearm to its manufacturer and original purchaser. Recent trace data shows pistols remain the type of firearm most often tied to violent crime.

Cekada called tracing a time-consuming manual process and said there is no federal registry of gun owners that would let investigators skip the search for paperwork on specific transactions.

He also set out the bureau’s position on the dealers and makers it licenses. “ATF would only investigate a federal firearms licensee when there is evidence that they are in some way contributing to violent crime,” he said.

On the National Firearms Act, the federal law that sets registration and tax-stamp requirements for suppressors, short-barreled rifles and short-barreled shotguns, the release restated guidance ATF issued after the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law remains in effect, but ATF said it will not enforce certain approval, registration, tax-stamp and related requirements for those items and for certain concealable firearms classified as “any other weapons.” Cekada said the guidance is meant to make sure lawful owners understand their responsibilities while ATF keeps the tools to disrupt criminal misuse.

ATF usually publishes its full-year trace data, with state-by-state counts, the following spring. The release gave no breakdown of the 2025 figure by state or firearm type.