SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — When law enforcement finds a gun while investigating a crime scene, they can track its history on a national database called eTrace. A bill that passed both chambers of the statehouse would require all law enforcement agencies to use it.

Illinois law enforcement agencies have been encouraged to partner with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ software in the past. But now a bill on the governor’s desk would make that mandatory.

Law enforcement leaders like Kenny Winslow, the Executive Director of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, said many of the smallest departments didn’t have the resources to participate before.

“It requires a lot of staffing hours to try to back trace this,” he said.

Winslow said his organization is neutral on the final proposal. While the tool can be helpful for police to connect suspects to evidence and crime scenes, he said eTrace is not perfect.

“When people think that this is simple, that you put the information to a system that fits back all the information that you want, that’s not how it works,” Winslow said. “The trace system spits back information and potential, what we call hits, and then you fall off those heads on potential leads, and then those leads potentially lead you to somebody else that may have owned a gun.”

Even with the flaws Winslow feels the eTrace system has, law enforcement said it’s worth the effort to try to prevent violent crime in their communities.

“When you talk about gun violence, I think it’s important that we do every step we can in order to try to curb that violence,” Winslow added.

Gun control advocates said tracing guns is an important part to prevent gun trafficking.

“If we have data on these recovered crime guns about who the original purchasers are, we can use that as a deterrent and to hold these folks accountable so that these guns are not moved into a secondary illegal market,” Kathleen Sances, the President of G-PAC, said.

Sances added requiring more participation with eTrace will help it be successful.

“We’ll be able to do a better job solving these crimes, tracing these crime guns and keeping our community safe,” she said.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul was a major force behind the bill.

“We cannot truly prevent gun violence in our state unless we make sure all Illinois law enforcement agencies are using the best resources to trace crime guns,” Raoul said in a statement.

The Illinois Attorney General also runs a statewide gun tracing database called Crime Gun Connect. Sances said half of all law enforcement agencies participate in that database.

More information on eTrace can be found on the ATF’s website.