Want to trace how felons get their guns? Allow the ATF to computerize and modernize their system. They are forbidden by law from doing so. The NRA and its cronies in congress have ensured that tracing guns is as hard as possible. This article from the current issue of GQ lays it all out in excruciatingly frustrating detail:

"The National Tracing Center is not allowed to have centralized computer data. That's been a federal law, thanks to the NRA, since 1986: No searchable database of America's gun owners. So people here have to use paper, sort through enormous stacks of forms and record books that gun stores are required to keep and to eventually turn over to the feds when requested. They can use pictures of paper, like microfilm, as long as the pictures of paper are not searchable. You have to flip through and read. No searching by gun owner. No searching by name."

http://www.gq.com/story/inside-federal-bureau-of-way-too-many-guns