( CNN ) -- The fight against gun-related crime has taken a hit from budget cuts , as a federal agency has laid off nearly a hundred contract workers at its facility dedicated to tracing firearms used by criminals . Ninety-eight contract employees at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco , Firearms and Explosives ' National Tracing Center lost their jobs as of March 31 because of the forced budget cuts known as the sequester . The Justice Department confirmed the layoffs with CNN and offered a written statement : . `` ATF was forced to cut its budget by $ 82 million across the board , including its firearms program and , as a result , 98 contractors in its Martinsburg , West Virginia , facility firearms program have been laid off so far . '' Those 98 were among 380 contract workers and 185 full-time federal employees at the Martinsburg facility . Neither the agency nor the Justice Department would speak on the record about the layoffs . `` Laying off employees at the National Tracing Center is a big deal , '' said David Chipman , a former ATF special agent who once headed the agency 's firearms program . Now , he 's policy adviser for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg 's gun safety group , Mayors Against Illegal Guns . `` Getting information on purchasers to law enforcement as quickly as possible is a critical need . '' The firearms bureau hired the contract workers because requests for gun traces kept rising while the bureau 's budget for full-time positions did not , Chipman told CNN . When there 's a gun-related murder , or when a police officer is shot , the agency 's goal is to trace the purchaser or the owner of the gun within 24 hours . `` My understanding is , they will still do whatever possible to meet that deadline , though now it 's going to be much harder , '' Chipman said . `` They 've had to take resources from other sections to do it . '' He said those other sections deal with tracing stolen firearms and keeping records that help police investigate firearms trafficking . `` It 's not that things wo n't be done , '' Chipman said . `` It 's just that things wo n't be done as quickly , '' a potentially major problem because , `` some crimes , time is of the essence . '' On top of it , ATF has a labor intensive method of gun tracing . Because of federal laws aimed at preventing a federal gun registry , much of the ATF 's record keeping is done by hand , rather than by computer . So the labor cuts hit that much harder .
98 contract employees have been laid off from the National Tracing Center . The center traces guns used in crimes . Tracing guns `` as quickly as possible is a critical need , '' a former ATF official says .