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ATF loses control of thousands of guns

Office of Inspector General report here.

"In August 2019, a former contract security guard stationed at the ATF facility in Martinsburg was sentenced to 14 years in prison for stealing thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition from the NDB [National Destruction Branch, the unit which destroys firearms] facility from 2016 to 2019. The events that led to this conviction triggered two internal ATF inspections of the NDB facility and an OIG investigation that resulted in the identification of several vulnerabilities that enabled the thefts to occur undetected, as well as recommendations for corrective action by the ATF's internal inspection groups."

So, three years later, how well is the agency complying?

"We found that NDB staff does not consistently adhere to established operating procedures in place to mitigate risk of firearms being lost or stolen. Specifically, we observed NDB staff: (1) propping open doors into secure areas of the facility solely for the sake of convenience, (2) allowing visitors to enter the facility through doorways other than the main entrance and drive their cars into the facility to unload firearms, and (3) permitting unauthorized individuals to access NDB vault storage spaces. Failure to strictly adhere to established operating procedures not only undermines the NDB's security protocol, but unnecessarily places firearms in NDB custody at risk of loss or theft."

"The NDB uses a log to track these firearms held in long-term storage; however, we found that the NDB does not track firearms stored in its vault on a temporary basis. The NDB should know the whereabouts of all firearms in its custody and should track firearms held both in long-term and temporary storage."
"We identified blind spots in the NDB's surveillance camera coverage of both the interior and exterior areas of the facility that could be exploited by an individual seeking to conceal illicit activity. We also found that the low resolution of some of the surveillance video does not allow the viewer to identify individuals or discern activities conducted within certain secure areas of the facility. In addition, we found that 1 of the 13 cameras covering the facility was not functioning. This issue went unnoticed until we pointed it out to the ATF's Physical Security Programs Branch, indicating that the ATF is not regularly inspecting surveillance cameras at the NDB to ensure they are functioning."

"ATF policy requires that all evidence in ATF custody be stored in a vault or other secure facility. We found that the NDB stored firearms in its custody, including evidence from the ATF's "Operation Fast and Furious" investigation, on top of its temporary vault, despite having space for the items inside the vault, as shown in Figure 5."

This is, of course, the same agency that will revoke a dealer's license for errors in record-keeping.