A gun safety group says The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) lacks the funding to put a meaningful dent in the ongoing crisis of gun violence in Philadelphia and other major cities.
on Thursday was intended to heal and talk about gun violence and trafficking that has led to mayhem in the city.Now the question remains whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is up to the work of cutting gun violence in the city.Her grieving mother fears gun violence will strike again.
"My children are good kids. Everybody's are good kids. We shouldn't have to live like this, it's fearful," Lendale Rodgers said during aAlong with police, it’s the role of the ATF to combat gun violence. The leader of a national gun safety group says ATF is not up to the job. Robin Lloyd of Giffords, founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords seriously injured in a shooting, says ATF does not have the resources to aggressively disrupt the flow of illegal firearms and hold gun traffickers responsible.
"More needs to happen on the front end so we prevent these firearms from even getting into the hands of people who shouldn’t have them," Lloyd tells FOX 29's Jeff Cole. Matthew Varisco leads the Philadelphia office of the ATF. He argues his agency works closely with police to pull crime guns off the streets, but admits ATF falls short on yearly inspections of Pennsylvania's 3,100 federal firearms dealers.