WASHINGTON, March 30 - Two Democratic members of Congress have pressed the Commerce Department to provide a detailed accounting of U.S. exports of semi-automatic weapons, arguing that firearms lawfully exported from the United States are appearing in criminal violence and fueling cartel armaments throughout the Western Hemisphere.
In a letter sent Sunday to Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Gregory Meeks of New York invoked oversight authority under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. The lawmakers, who serve as the top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee respectively, requested comprehensive information on semi-automatic firearm export licenses approved since January 2025.
The inquiry, addressed to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, covers semi-automatic rifles, pistols, shotguns and related accessories. Warren and Meeks asked the agency to disclose the number of licenses granted, the destination countries for those exports, the categories of purchasers authorized to receive them, and any monitoring or compliance activity conducted to prevent diversion of the items into illicit markets.
The letter sets a deadline for a response and requests a full briefing to the two committees by April 13.
To support their request, the lawmakers cited figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives showing that legally exported U.S. firearms account for nearly 20% of crime gun traces in Central America and more than 37% of such traces globally outside North America. The lawmakers framed the data as evidence warranting fuller transparency on export approvals and oversight mechanisms.
The request follows other recent actions by Senator Warren. In early March she introduced legislation aimed at preventing an Army-owned ammunition plant in Missouri from selling military-grade rounds to civilian purchasers, asserting that some of those rounds have been diverted to Mexican drug cartels and have been used in more than a dozen mass shootings in the United States.
The Commerce Department previously took action in 2023 to pause export licensing of most civilian firearms and ammunition for several months while assessing the risk that U.S. exports could be diverted to entities or activities contributing to regional instability, human rights violations, or criminal violence. The current letter from Warren and Meeks seeks updated and detailed licensing data in light of continuing concerns.
The lawmakers noted U.S. companies that sell firearms, including Sturm Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson Brands, in the context of the broader export and monitoring discussion. The letter aims to clarify how many transactions have been authorized and what safeguards, if any, accompany those approvals.
Requested briefing date: April 13. Requested scope: licensing totals, recipient countries, purchaser categories, and monitoring details related to semi-automatic firearm exports since January 2025.