Age Verification - NRA
www.nraila.org
The ATF claims that the National Tracing Center is only authorized to trace a firearm for a law enforcement agency involved in a bona fide criminal investigation. This sounds very official, but gun owners across the country have heard stories of police running a trace on a firearm during a traffic stop. The ATF provides trace counts by category, which one may consider the reason for the trace.
The most common reasons for tracing a firearm in 2020 were possession of weapon (89,905) and firearm under investigation (74,264). Each of those dwarfs the number associated with aggravated assault (16,142), firing weapon (4,158), homicide (10,299), robbery (4,841), and simple assault (6,312).