KENNER, La. — Cake had been served and children were jumping in a big, inflatable castle when the birthday party turned to bedlam.
Clarence McGraw’s jaw dropped as he saw visitors coming, guns drawn. The screaming began.
Children ran everywhere in the courtyard of the apartment complex; adults fell to the ground. Bullets flew. The killers wounded three youngsters, but for reasons police can’t explain, it was 19-year-old McGraw they were after.
As McGraw lay in the center of the green square, the gunmen stood over him and fired again. He was shot 15 to 20 times.
The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.
Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public-records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database after they had been seized or connected to a crime.
The number of such tracings rose even while the federal assault-weapons ban was in effect and has continued to climb since its expiration.
Since 1993, the year before the ban took effect, the ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62-by-39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns recorded rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year.
Since 2005, the first full year after the ban’s expiration, the ATF has recorded an 11 percent increase in such tracings.
The ATF says the increases in the first half of the 1990s are partly the result of wider usage of its weapons database by local law enforcement agencies. But after that point, the numbers reflect a real increase in tracings of AK-type guns, the agency acknowledged.
The numbers corroborate what police chiefs around the country have been saying: AKs and other so-called assault weapons are terrorizing their communities and endangering their officers.
