The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is offering jilted lovers a unique way to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, saying the holiday can still be fun “even if you broke up.”
In a tweet posted early Monday, the ATF encouraged individuals to report ex-partners – or current ones – who participated in the sale or purchase of illegal guns to the federal agency.
“Do you have information about a former (or current) partner involved in illegal gun activity?” the tweet read in part. “Let us know, and we will make sure it's a Valentine's Day to remember!”
Individuals with knowledge of any illegal arms purchases can call 1-888-ATF-TIPS or email ATFTips@atf.gov.
“We would love to meet and treat them to a Valentine’s Day surprise,” the agency’s post continued.
Because of its covert nature, the illegal gun market is hard to quantify – but most experts agree illegal gun trade remains a massive underground industry in the country.
According to the ATF, illegal guns typically start out as legal purchases, and make their way to the illegal marketplace in one of three ways: through private transactions, such as when a gun is purchased and later sold at an auction or gunshow to a potentially prohibited person; through “straw purchases,” or when a person makes a legal gun purchase and then give that gun to another individual and through the theft of guns from private owners or registered dealers.
One survey found that each year, there are around 30,000 attempted straw purchases; the investigation also found that one in five legal gun sellers were willing to sell the firearm to an individual who stated they were purchasing it for someone else, which means roughly 2,000 firearms dealers and pawnbrokers knowingly participate in the illegal sale of guns.
Guns are frequently purchased in states with less robust gun regulation and then are transported across state lines to areas with strict gun control.
President Joe Biden took a number of steps to reduce the illegal gun market in the U.S. at the outset of his time in office, including instructing the Justice Department to propose a rule to stop the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns,” an investment of more than $1 billion in evidence-based community violence intervention programs and a comprehensive report on firearms trafficking in the United States.
But the president’s efforts have hit a number of roadblocks, and he was forced to pull David Chipman, his nominee to head the ATF, last year after facing pushback from members of both parties.
Biden is facing renewed criticism on Valentine’s Day, which marks the four-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, to push through aspects of his legislation.
Dozens of advocates were set to rally outside the White House and unveil a website chronicling the 47,000 gun deaths and 42,000 gun injuries in the country since Biden was inaugurated. The tracker also lists the number of young people killed and injured as well as the number of mass shootings in the same time frame, and it includes a feature allowing users to publicly call on Biden and other administration officials to act against gun violence.
“As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to prioritize gun violence prevention. As president, Joe Biden has not,” said Igor Volsky, founder and executive director of the group Guns Down America.
The group is calling on Biden to stand up a national office to address gun violence and to make a new nomination to head the ATF.
Biden said in a statement before the planned protest that the movement to end gun violence is “extraordinary."
“We can never bring back those we’ve lost. But we can come together to fulfill the first responsibility of our government and our democracy: to keep each other safe," he said. “For Parkland, for all those we’ve lost, and for all those left behind, it is time to uphold that solemn obligation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.