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Last June an inspector auditing the books of a licensed dealer in Pekin, Ill., noticed that the dealer had sold 65 cheap handguns to a single customer named Donald Fiessinger. The inspector passed the tip to a special agent, who then ran the serial number of each gun through ATF's database. He found that one of the guns sold to Fiessinger had been recovered by Illinois state police from a different possessor during a traffic stop in May 1998. In requesting the formal police report on the incident, the agent talked to a state investigator, who mentioned that he had noticed a recurring newspaper advertisement announcing guns for sale and listing a telephone number. The agent checked with the phone company and found the number belonged to Fiessinger.
ATF launched a formal undercover investigation and on Thursday, July 1, executed a search warrant at Fiessinger's apartment, where agents found 27 guns and rudimentary sales records. Among the names of customers was Benjamin Smith. At the time, the name meant nothing.
The next day, Friday, shortly after 8 p.m., this customer allegedly drove into an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Chicago and began shooting. He wounded six men. Shortly afterward, he allegedly drove to Northbrook, Ill., and shot and killed Ricky Byrdsong, former head basketball coach at Northwestern University, as he walked with two of his children. By the time police cornered Smith, he had allegedly killed two men and wounded eight.
Later Fiessinger told police that Smith had talked about using one of the guns, a .22-cal. pistol, for hunting.
Last year ATF expanded the Yogi tracing studies to 27 cities. In February ATF added 10 more. Each Yogi city found unique patterns, but nearly all discovered the single biggest source of crime guns was the network of licensed dealers operating within their home states. The most important effect was to replace the hopelessness of the late '80s and early '90s with a confidence that the right measures aimed at the right targets could interrupt the flow of guns to the bad guys.
Suddenly the seemingly intractable debate over gun control became a debate over "crime-gun interdiction." The tracing studies had produced a new middle ground--the crime gun--a rhetorical species no one could love. "It really is a sea change," says Kennedy. "People are now asking the right questions. So when Ben Smith went crazy outside Chicago, they wanted to know where his guns came from. Guess what--they came from an illegal trafficker."