The Low-Tech Way Guns Get Traced (spoiler: it's by hand)

[Robb]

That's right, hand-search.

That means that if it's a gun maker or seller who's gone out of business, the workers here have to painstakingly leaf through these documents one page at a time looking for a match to the gun they're trying to trace.

"The idea that we have a computer database and you just type in a serial number and it pops out some purchaser's name is a myth," Houser says.

They don't have that searchable, central database because the National Rifle Association and the gun lobby have successfully blocked that through Congress. They argue that a database of gun transactions would be a dangerous step toward a national gun registry.

So tracers comb through page after page of records as they stand amid boxes stacked head-high. ATF gets more than 1 million of these out-of-business records every month. And when they open those boxes of paperwork, who knows what they might find....

Read More: http://www.npr.org/2013/05/20/185530763/the-low-tech-way-guns-get-traced