News10NBC Investigates: City Council member asks "where are the guns coming from?"

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — This year the RPD has recovered, on average, two illegal guns every day. The guns are everywhere. And that’s why News10NBC is asking, where do the illegal guns come from?

Law enforcement will not share that background information. But today, News10NBC learned the city is compiling data that it will publish. It’s called gun trace data.

The data can tell us where a gun was made, sold, re-sold, reported stolen, or used in another crime. The city has an agreement to collect and publish that data.

And so, at the proclamation to make June gun violence awareness month, I asked a City Council member if he thought that the gun trace data should be public.

"Absolutely," answered Willie Lightfoot. "Which is the number one priority of the Roc Against Gun Violence Coalition this year."

He said the city, RPD, and the Brady United Against Gun Violence center, are working on a gun trace data report. He believes that the information will help to answer the question that the community has been asking for decades, where are the guns coming from?

"We have to answer that question and the community, as well as the victims of gun violence, deserve to know where those guns are coming from. Then, as a result of knowing where they’re coming from, accountability comes into play because now we can hold wherever they’re coming from accountable," Lightfoot said.

I compiled the make, model and serial numbers of illegal guns confiscated by Rochester police in the past two months and asked for the trace data. RPD and state police say that information belongs to the ATF. ATF says it belongs to local police. The data we asked for involves guns in open cases.