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A federal judge on Monday stripped away a key element of Chicago’s gun ordinance, ruling that it is unconstitutional to prohibit licensed gun stores from operating in the city.

U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang found that the city failed to convince him that banning the sale of guns by licensed dealers was necessary to reduce gun violence.

The ruling also would make it legal for individuals to transfer ownership of a firearm as a gift or through a private sale as long as the recipient was at least 18 and had a firearm owner’s identification card.

Chicago, the last city to allow residents to have handguns in their homes, once had one of the strongest handgun crackdowns in the country, making it a primary target of the National Rifle Association.

Overturning the ban on retail gun stores and private gun sales was the last major hurdle gun rights groups faced in their hard-fought battle to dismantle Chicago’s tough firearm prohibitions.

The latest court ruling in the long legal fight came one day after Illinois, the last state to approve a concealed carry law, began accepting applications from residents who want to carry concealed firearms in public.

But gun shops won’t likely be showing up in Chicago any time soon, since Chang delayed his ruling from taking effect to allow the city time to appeal.

Roderick Drew, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, said in a written statement Monday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel “strongly disagrees” with the judge’s decision and has instructed city attorneys “to consider all options to better regulate the sale of firearms within the city’s borders.”

“Every year Chicago police recover more illegal guns than officers in any city in the country, a factor of lax federal laws as well as lax laws in Illinois and surrounding states related to straw purchasing and the transfer of guns,” the city’s statement said. “We need stronger gun safety laws, not increased access to firearms within the city.”

Since the U.S. Supreme Court forced the city to rewrite its firearms ordinance in June 2010, the city has faced a series of legal blows from the lower courts.

Gun rights advocates said they feared the city would stall the process, using zoning and other regulatory measures to make it difficult for businesses and individuals who want to open a store. After the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Chicago’s ban on gun ranges in 2012, the city rewrote the law but added restrictions that made it difficult to find a location in the city to open a range, gun advocates said. That case still has not been resolved.

Todd Vandermyde, Illinois lobbyist for the NRA, said Chang rejected all of the city’s arguments in his 35-page decision.

“The city is going to have to allow retail gun shops to operate and they are going to have to allow individuals to transfer firearms in normal transactions,” Vandermyde said. “So the question now is: How much more money does Rahm (Emanuel) want to spend fighting it?”

Mark Walsh, campaign director for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said the financially powerful NRA has systematically fought to water down gun laws in Illinois and across the country.

“That’s the NRA’s game plan. They keep filing suits and filing suits to chip away laws and get to their ultimate goal of a complete armed citizenry,” he said.

Though the 7th Circuit Court has ruled favorably for the NRA in recent cases in Chicago and Illinois, Walsh said other federal appellate courts have not followed suit.

“All too often the narrative is that the NRA is this monolithic machine that is winning everywhere, but that really isn’t the case,” he said. “There has been the fear mongering by the NRA and gun manufacturers, but it does not necessarily translate.

“What we have seen is people, not just in Illinois but across the country, are successfully passing laws aimed to keep gun violence down.”

Chang found that the city’s “blanket ban” on sales and transfers of firearms violated the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

He acknowledged that Chicago has a serious problem with gun violence but said the city had not demonstrated how allowing the sale of firearms would pose a “genuine and serious risk” to public safety.

“Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes the ordinance tries to serve,” Chang wrote.

The city argued that banning guns shops deterred criminals from getting weapons, in part because gang members were less likely to travel to suburban stores. The city also said gun stores are frequent targets for burglars and accused the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of poor oversight when it comes to firearms dealers.

But Chang rejected those arguments, citing statistics that showed criminals rarely buy their weapons from legitimate dealers. The judge also said regulation and licensing could alleviate most of the city’s concerns without keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.

“The stark reality facing the city each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun,” Chang said. “But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: Certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment.”

The ruling stems from a 2010 lawsuit filed by three residents and an association of Illinois firearms dealers. In addition to challenging the ban on gun sales, the suit alleged the city improperly allowed residents to have guns inside their houses but not in their garages, back porches or outside steps. The suit also challenged the city’s restrictions on the number of firearms a person could legally have in a home.

Last year, the city amended its laws on carrying firearms in public and on the number of guns allowed in a home, and those aspects of the lawsuit were dropped.

Eugene Kontorovich, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University, said the judge recognized in his ruling that if you have a constitutional right to own a gun, you also have an inherent right to be able to obtain one. The city’s blanket ban on gun sales violated that principle, he said.

“This is part of a broader package strategy to slow-walk gun rights,” Kontorovich said Monday. “It’s been a shotgun approach. …They could have been a lot smarter and said we will allow gun sales but we’re just going to regulate the heck out of it.”

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, said the ruling sends a clear message to the city.

“You would think they would get the message, but they don’t,” he said. “Law-abiding citizens have the right to own firearms if they use them legally.”

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The gunman, who killed himself, had 125 rounds of ammo, a machete and Molotov cocktails.

A heavily armed teenager who fired a fatal shotgun blast at a fellow student at a Colorado school before killing himself was a “murderer” who intended to claim many more victims, Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said Monday.

The lone victim, 17-year-old Claire Davis, was shot point-blank in the face while she sat in the hallway of Arapahoe County High School on Dec. 13.

The high school senior, who was apparently a random victim, died eight days later.

Robinson, providing reporters in Centennial, Colo., with additional details on the shooting, said the entire incident lasted only about 80 seconds, The Denver Post reports.

The shooter, 18-year-old Karl Pierson, also a student at the school, shot Davis in the hallway where she was sitting then went to a nearby library where he killed himself as a unarmed security guard — a retired deputy sheriff — closed in.

“No question the person who entered the school is a murderer,” Robinson said. “He intended to hurt (a) maximum amount of people.”

The sheriff said Pierson, who was armed with a 12-guage shotgun, carried more than 125 rounds of ammunition strapped to his chest and waist on a pair of bandoliers, a machete and Molotov cocktails.

He said the shooter apparently intended to track down a librarian who had disciplined him and to whom he had made verbal threats months ago.

Robinson told reporters that Pierson had written on his arm the names of several classrooms that apparently were intended as targets. He had also written a Latin phrase that, translated to English, reads: “The die has been cast.”

Pierson was still in the planning process as recently as 30 minutes before the shooting and had bought additional ammunition.

“He took time to have a meal … went bowling alone,” Robinson said. “No question it was a very deliberate and planned event.”

Robinson said the school door that Pierson entered is supposed to be locked but rarely is because it is inconvenient.

The sheriff acknowledged that the shooting would forever change the community.

“It’s up to us to decide whether it changes us for better or worse,” Robinson said. “We will be better for this. There is no question.”

Contributing: Associated Press
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A nurse embroiled in a custody fight with his ex-wife killed his current wife before shooting his former in-laws and his onetime boss in a rampage that spanned two parishes in Louisiana, leaving three people dead and three wounded. He then fatally shot himself in the head, authorities said.

All three survivors remained hospitalized Friday, two in critical condition, Brennan Matherne, a spokesman for the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, said in an email. He said deputies are still investigating the motive.

Preliminary evidence shows that Ben Freeman, 38, first killed his wife, Denise Taylor Freeman, 43, before he went on a rampage and shot the others Thursday, Maj. Malcolm Wolfe, of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, wrote in an email.

Denise Freeman’s body was found in a bathroom of their house, and an autopsy showed that she suffocated and drowned, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Jerry Larpenter said Friday.

According to investigators, Ben Freeman then drove to his former in-laws’ home in Lafourche Parish, about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans. With a shotgun, he killed his former mother-in-law, Susan “Pixie” Gouaux (pronounced “go”), and wounded her husband, Councilman Louis Phillip Gouaux, and one of their daughters, Andrea Gouaux. His ex-wife, Jeanne Gouaux, apparently wasn’t at the home.

About 20 minutes later, Freeman arrived at the home of Milton and Ann Bourgeois. Milton was the longtime CEO of Ochsner (OX-ner) St. Anne General Hospital in nearby Raceland, where Freeman had worked as a nurse until two years ago. Freeman shot Milton Bourgeois at close range, killing him, and shot Ann Beourgeois in the leg. She was in stable condition Friday.

Both Louis and Andrea Gouaux were in critical but stable condition following surgery Friday in New Orleans, Matherne said.

Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said Freeman had been fired from St. Anne. He said police previously had been called to the hospital after Freeman damaged a room. Freeman told officers he would seek mental help, Webre said.

But in a teleconference later Friday, Ochsner officials said Freeman had resigned voluntarily, citing personal reasons. The officials said he had worked at the hospital from May 1998 to April 2011, and that he was considered an on-call employee for another five months after that.

Freeman also had worked at two other hospitals, which along with St. Anne had been placed on lockdown for a time on Thursday.

Susan Gouaux — “Pixie” to her friends — was a teachers’ aide at Holy Savior Elementary School. She also was a talented needlewoman and knitter who designed the state bicentennial quilt square for Lafourche Parish and made scarves for all her friends, Parish President Charlotte Randolph said in a telephone interview.

Randolph said she went to school at one time or another with Philip and Susan Gouaux, and that Susan Gouaux had taught her grandchildren. The couple has six adult daughters.

Gouaux called 911 around 6:40 p.m. Thursday from his home in Lockport, telling dispatchers he had been shot in the throat, The Courier newspaper in Houma reported. Freeman was divorced from Gouaux’s daughter Jeanne, whom he married in 1997.

Jeanne Gouaux — also a nurse — had filed several protective orders against Freeman, who had pleaded guilty to harassment charges and was allowed only supervised visits with their four children, Webre said. The last protective order expired less than a month ago, he said.

“Clearly, there has been a very difficult and complicated divorce/custody issue going on,” Webre said during a news conference late Thursday.

Freeman pleaded guilty on Oct. 23 to one of two criminal telephone-harassment charges brought on a complaint filed June 19 by Gouaux and her father, Lafourche Parish Clerk of Court Vernon H. Rodrigue said. He was given a deferred sentence of a $250 fine or 10 days in jail, put on unsupervised probation for a year, and the second count of criminal harassment was dismissed, Rodrigue said.

On Nov. 27, Ben Freeman was issued a citation for simple battery domestic violence against Denise Freeman, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. A court date had been scheduled for Jan. 16, 2014.

Court records show Freeman agreed in June to pay Jeanne Gouaux $22,560 in overdue child support payments dating back two years. A settlement filed the following month showed the couple would sell three adjacent lots near her parents’ house and split the $25,000 in proceeds; Freeman also agreed to pay Gouaux $39,000.

Jeanne Gouaux and the children lived with her parents for a while after the divorce, said Rita Bonvillain (BAHN-vee-yenh), 83, a neighbor of the family for nearly 30 years. She said Andrea Gouaux, a nurse like her sister Jeanne, was visiting from Texas.

Whenever a holiday came, she said, children filled the house and yard. A trampoline, soccer balls and a swing hanging from a big oak in the front yard testified to that.

Bonvillain choked up and held back tears several times as she talked about the Gouauxes. Since her husband died, they regularly have stopped by to ask if she needs groceries or other errands run. The councilman once told her, “If you ever hear a sound at night and want someone to check it out, call me,” she said.

Ben Freeman was found dead around 10:45 p.m. along U.S. Highway 90 near Bayou Blue. He had shot himself in the head.

At Denise Freeman’s house, a man who did not give his name demanded that an Associated Press reporter leave his sister’s property.

Others in the neighborhood of quaint middle-class, ranch-style houses in Houma, the Terrebonne Parish seat, said the house was originally hers.

She had only recently married Freeman, but she and her son Josh — of elementary school age — had lived there for years, said Glenn Cradeur, who has owned his house, two down from hers, for 28 years. He said he believed the boy was not home when his mother was killed.

Cradeur said he saw no signs of trouble until about two weeks ago, when he saw police vehicles outside the home, responding to what he believed was a domestic dispute.

He returned from a visit to out-of-town relatives to find emergency vehicles outside the house and stunned neighbors gathered nearby.

“It’s shocking, and it’s sad,” he said.

———

Associated Press writer Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans and researcher Judith Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

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Jefferson Parish LA Dec 26 2013 Christmas Eve got off to a sour start for University of Southern Mississippi student Randolph Driscoll when he awoke Tuesday morning to find the back passenger window of his Chevrolet Trailblazer shattered by a pellet rifle. Glass covered the roadway in front of his aunt’s Ellen Drive home in Marrero, and his vehicle wasn’t the only overnight target.

Residents as early afternoon Tuesday reported 166 vehicles with windows shot in several West Bank neighborhoods, including Hillcrest, Oak Cove and Oak Forest, according to Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.

“Those victims who were vandalized had to wake up and face having to get their vehicles fixed the day before Christmas,” Fortunato said.

he suspects only shattered windows. No one was injured and residents did not report any stolen property. Authorities aren’t sure when the shootings occurred, but most residents discovered the damage at daybreak.

Driscoll, 24, who was just visiting for the holidays, said he parked his truck on the street Monday night with no damage. He overheard some dogs barking around midnight and said he suspected the culprits may have come through around that time.

Two other neighbors in the same block of Ellen Drive also woke to find their windows shattered. “It’s like nobody has anything better to do,” Driscoll said.

He spent most of the morning on the telephone with an auto glass shop trying to schedule a repair. “There was so many of them, they couldn’t fit me in,” he said.

A few Blocks away, Safelite Autoglass technician Ryan DuVernay worked to replace the back windshield of a minivan on Lemans Drive. He and coworkers had expected Christmas Eve to be a short, easy day.

“We planned on all of us eating a big lunch over at our office and then we were going to call it a half-day,” DuVernay said.

He had already replaced five windows in the neighborhood by 12:45 p.m. and was headed to one more residence before returning to the office where co-workers were swamped with damaged cars.

“Right now we’re at 28 vehicle glasses installed for today, and we have Thursday and Friday already booked solid,” said Bruce Cuquet, manager of the
Safelite located at 2000 Lapalco Blvd., Harvey.

Most of the damage has been to rear windshields, Cuquet said.

Victims who may already be low on cash because of holiday spending now find themselves reaching for their wallets again to pay for pricey window replacement. Repairs can cost anywhere between $200 to $1,000, Cuquet said. The jobs become more expensive if the windows include defrosters and alarms.

After combing through video from the department’s mounted crime and automated license-plate recognition cameras, Sheriff’s Office investigators released a still frame from surveillance footage that shows a silver Ford Escape they say may be linked to the crimes.

If the above car is spotted, witnesses are asked to contact JPSO Auto Theft Detective C. Dear at 504.874.4349.

Anyone with information about the Christmas Eve pellet gun-shooting spree on the West Bank is asked to call the Sheriff’s Office investigations bureau at 504.364.5300. The public can also call Crimestoppers at 504.822.1111 or toll-free at 877.903.7867. Tips can be texted to C-R-I-M-E-S (274637); text TELLCS then the crime information. Callers or texters do not have to give their names or testify, and can earn a $2,500 reward for information that leads to an indictment.
NOLA
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SAN JOSE CA DEC 16 2013— A San Jose high school marching band and color guard is persevering a day after being robbed of thousands of dollars at its weekly Bingo fundraiser event, a color guard director said Thursday.

An armed man with a ski mask on came into Oak Grove High School, located at 285 Blossom Hill Road, around 9:25 p.m. Wednesday, went to cash handlers of a Bingo fundraiser event and demanded money, color guard director Teresa Moura said.

Moura said the man took roughly $5,000, and “most people didn’t know it was going on.”

A security guard chased after the suspect, but a parent alerted him the man had a gun and the pursuit ended, she said.

“It’s sad to lose the money, but we’re just glad nobody got hurt,” she said.

As a result of the incident, Moura said staff and some parents are holding an emergency meeting to discuss added security measures.

In the 25 years of the marching band and color guard’s existence, there had not been an incident until Wednesday night. But Moura said she highly doubts the Bingo event, which is conducted weekly, will be cancelled going forward.

The fundraiser funds the band and color guard’s day-to-day operations. Oak Grove High provides anywhere from $200 to $500 a year for the program, and the Bingo event funds 85 percent of the annual funding for the band program, she said.

Moura said she and her husband, marching band director Chris Moura, have been working with the Oak Grove High band and color guard for 19 years.

Police said the suspect remains at large Thursday. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call San Jose police.

CBS News
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The US Senate has approved a 10-year extension of a ban on plastic guns invisible to metal detectors but has rejected tougher restrictions called for by gun-control advocates.

The bill was approved by a Senate voice vote one week after it passed the House of Representatives.

Democrats had aimed to require a gun’s firing mechanism to contain at least one undetachable metal piece.

The ban has gained new relevance with the spread of at-home 3D printing.

‘Common sense’
The proposed 10-year extension of the Undetectable Firearms Act now goes to President Barack Obama for his approval.

Without further Congressional action, the 25-year-old law was scheduled to expire on Monday.

Senate Republicans failed to approve what Democratic Senator Chris Murphy described as a “common-sense” provision requiring plastic guns to contain a detectable metal component.

“If anybody in the Senate is so concerned about what they consider to be loopholes in the law, this obviously should have been done through hearings and the introduction of legislation long ago,” Republican Senator Charles Grassley subsequently told the media of the Democrat-led provision.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), America’s largest and most powerful gun lobby group, had issued a statement prior to the House vote on 3 December opposing any expansion of the law.

Analysts had previously said the NRA’s lobbying power left it unlikely the law would be broadened before next year’s mid-term election.

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Fifteen years ago, on November 30, 1998, the FBI flipped the switch on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, a provision of the 1993 Brady Act that requires background checks on individuals purchasing firearms or receiving them through some other means.

The goal at the time was to disqualify any transfers of firearms to ineligible individuals while at the same time ensuring timely transactions for eligible individuals. Today, as the FBI-run background check system marks its anniversary, successes are seen daily and in real-time on both fronts.

Since its inception, the NICS has processed more than 177 million background checks requested by gun sellers, or federal firearms licensees (FFLs). On its busiest days, the system processes more than 10,000 automated checks an hour across 94 million records in FBI criminal databases, including the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the Interstate Identification Index (III), and the NICS index of 11 million individuals who fall into certain categories that prohibit them from receiving firearms (see sidebar). Nine out of 10 NICS determinations are instantaneous, so FFLs know immediately whether to proceed with transactions or deny them. To date, NICS queries of criminal databases have resulted in 1,065,090 denials, with 88,479 in 2012 alone.

“The statistics for denials can stand on their own with regards to how well the system works in keeping firearms out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them,” said Steve Fischer, a spokesman for NICS, which is run by the Bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division in West Virginia.

The most common reasons for denials are prior criminal convictions, domestic violence, drug history, and fugitive status.

In 37 states, NICS background checks are conducted by the FBI when purchases are initiated at one of the country’s 46,895 licensed gun sellers. The sellers contact the NICS online through an electronic system or through one of three call centers, which run the names against the databases. Thirteen states perform their own background checks by utilizing the NICS.

While most NICS checks return immediate dispositions of “proceed” or “deny,” about eight percent are delayed, usually because of incomplete criminal history records. By law, the NICS section must make a determination within three days or the transaction may be allowed to proceed. It’s during that period that NICS staff research missing information to update the records and create a clearer picture of applicants. Last year alone, the NICS section filled in the blanks on more than 34,000 incomplete criminal history records and then shared the information with state agencies.

Records are not kept on individuals whose transactions are approved to proceed. By law, they are purged within 24 hours. NICS has an appeal process in place for individuals whose transactions are denied.

In addition to firearms, the Safe Explosive Act of 2003 requires background checks as part of the licensing process for individuals shipping or receiving explosives. The requests are submitted to NICS by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the ATF makes the final determinations. To date, NICS has processed more than 700,000 explosives background checks; in 2012, NICS processed 148,856 checks and denied 3,077.

NICS employs nearly 500 people and operates 17 hours a day (8 a.m. to 1 a.m.), 364 days a year (closed on Christmas). The system can—and does—routinely process more than 80,000 requests a day. Last December, NICS processed 2.7 million background checks—177,170 in a single day on December 21. According to a 2012 NICS report, the highest volume of background check requests usually occurs on the day after Thanksgiving.

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Shoppers eager to take advantage of early Thanksgiving deals brawled late Thursday as retailers across the country prepared for more crowds on what was expected to be a bumper Black Friday.

After buying a big screen TV, a Las Vegas shopper was shot at around 9:45 p.m. local time (12:45 a.m. ET) late Thursday as he tried to take his purchase home, Lt. David Gordon of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told NBC News.

“As the victim was walking through his complex he was approached by a suspect who fired warning shots which caused the victim to release the television,” he said.

As the thief tried to load it into a vehicle the victim approached him to try and get it back, Gordon added.

“The suspect fired two more shots and the victim was struck in the leg,” he said. “He was not seriously injured.”

Early Friday shoppers started arriving at a Chicago-area Kohl’s store just hours after a police officer shot the driver of a car that was dragging another officer responding to a call of alleged shoplifting which came in at around 10 p.m. local time (11 p.m. ET).

An officer chased a fleeing suspect to his car when “the car started to move as the officer was partially inside the car,” Romeoville Police Chief Mark Turvey told NBC station WBCD. “The officer was dragged quite some distance.” A backup officer then shot the driver of the car.

Both the driver and the dragged officer were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. Three people were arrested, police said.

At least three people got into a fight in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Rialto, Calif., because shoppers were cutting in line, Sgt. Nicholas Borchard told NBC Southern California. Two were taken into custody after the fight at around 7 p.m. local time (10 p.m. ET), he added. A police officer suffered a minor unknown injury.

A man in Claypool Hill, West Virginia, was slashed to the bone with a knife after threatening another man with a gun in an argument over a Wal-Mart parking spot, Tazewell County Sheriff Brian Hieatt told NBC station WVVA. Both faced charges after the incident that happened at 6:30 p.m. the station reported.

Another shopper was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer after getting into an argument with a New Jersey Wal-Mart store manager about a television set, police told NBC New York. Officers arrived at the scene at 6:39 p.m. and once they had pacified the customer they also charged the shopper with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, Garfield police told the station.

Stores have braced themselves for the Black Friday rush despite a Consumer Reports poll this week that found 56 percent of Americans had no plans to shop at all this weekend.

Because Thanksgiving fell on Nov. 28, the latest possible date, there are six fewer shopping days this holiday season than last. The most common reason — named by 70 percent of respondents — was a desire to avoid the crowds.

A Gallup poll this year found that 53 percent of Americans are very or somewhat likely to do their shopping online, the highest share since Gallup started asking the question in 1998.

However Wal-Mart President and CEO Bill Simon told TODAY that the company had a “terrific night” Thursday and expected a busy Black Friday too.

He also defended the decision to open on Thanksgiving.

“We’ve been opening since the eighties,” he said. “We’re in the service industry.

We open when our customers want to shop.”

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ATLANTA — Georgia is second in the nation for reported gun thefts.

A Channel 2 Action News investigation discovered that most of those guns are never recovered and wind up being used to commit more crimes.

In 2012, criminals stole about 13,000 guns from Georgia gun owners, and law enforcement officials told Channel 2’s Erica Byfield it’s only getting worse.

“That feeling, that dread, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” said Jack Knobloch.

It was a Thursday evening in 2013 when Knobloch felt choked by dread.

He was watching an ultimate Frisbee game at Atlanta’s Coan Park.

“We had a game of the week under the lights, so there was a whole group of 50 to 75 of us kind of out here watching the game,” Knobloch told Byfield.

A short time later he walked to his car.

“All my stuff was everywhere, except for the things that were no longer there,” Knobloch said.

Six people’s cars were broken into. Knobloch lost an iPod and GPS. Later in the evening an Atlanta police officer arrested Todd Hogens.

Police found a loaded .45-caliber Kimber Ultra Carry 2 in Hogens’ front pocket.

Within a matter of hours, investigators discovered it was the same weapon a former Henry County deputy reported stolen out of his personal truck 18 months earlier.

“It’s kind of scary knowing that it was a cop’s gun and it could have been used in a crime,” said Knobloch.

Channel 2 Action News gathered data from August 2012 to August 2013.

Byfield found hundreds of stolen weapons still on the streets of four metro counties.

At the top of the list was the City of Atlanta with 805 stolen guns, then Gwinnett with 337, DeKalb with 296, Cobb with 231, and Fulton with 191.

“Every gun has a story,” said ATF Atlanta Field Office Supervisory Special Agent Sonny Fields.

Fields told Byfield that last year alone, 12,602 guns were reported stolen in Georgia.

The most common guns snatched were pistols, revolvers and rifles.

“In the state of Georgia since 2010, just in the state of Georgia, there have been approximately 268 linkages between guns that were recovered and shooting incidents that occurred,” said Fields.

The most notable stolen gun in 2013 is probably the AK-47 that Michael Brandon Hill used at a school shooting in DeKalb.

Days after the shooting, which sent children running from their classrooms, police announced that Hill stole the weapon and 500 rounds of ammunition from his roommate.

Atlanta police are using the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, to track recovered weapons, linking them back to crimes they were used in.

“They have been used in robberies, homicides; a lot of times someone who purchases a gun may not know that it was stolen, so that’s always something there,” said investigator Jennings Kilgore.

Atlanta police gave Byfield exclusive access to their gun vault.

Officials said there were about 10,000 guns in the vault.

Tags and black sharpie markings on the guns made it easy to spot the stolen ones.

Kilgore has test-fired and run at least 6,000 shell casings through the NIBIN system.

“The potential for linking a homicide to some other case and solving a homicide, that is the ultimate goal,” he said.

Channel 2 Action News wanted to know where most stolen guns are recovered and found a surprising answer.

In 2012, it was Marietta and Atlanta.

Most stolen guns in Georgia aren’t recovered for at least three years.

Police said it’s difficult to know just how many crimes are committed using stolen guns.

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BALTIMORE MD Nov 15 2013 – Baltimore City Police are turning up the heat as they crack down on a number of suspects wanted for murder and several shootings across the city.

Police continue to dismantle a notorious gang they say is terrorizing the city with crime. For the second time, police gear up and raid several homes in East Baltimore, taking associates of the Black Guerrilla Family into custody.

Rochelle Ritchie was with officers as they raided the home and took one of their targeted suspects into custody.

Baltimore City Police are not playing any games. They are taking down suspected criminals and BGF gang members and their associates across the city one at a time, any day at any hour.

Early Tuesday morning, WJZ rode along as officers conducted 11 search and seizure warrants in the Eastern District.

All of the search warrants were carried out at the same time. Of the 11 targets, two of them were wanted for murder.

Teamed up with undercover investigators, WJZ cameras roll as neighbors on Rutland Avenue are awakened to a loud bang, not from gunshots, but from a police ram rod.

The raid is a success. Police find their intended target. He’s placed in custody and taken to jail. Police say his fate is the same fate they plan to hand out to other wanted criminals.

Since 2010, the Oliver community has suffered through the loss of 11 lives due to gun violence and an additional 16 incidents in which people suffered non-fatal gunshot wounds,” said Dean Palmere, Deputy Commissioner, Baltimore City Police.

Six people were taken into custody during Tuesday’s raids.

The numerous raids across the city are in response to the bloodshed that has terrorized neighborhoods from east to west.

Just last week, the State’s Attorney’s Office handed down indictments to 48 alleged members of the Black Guerrilla Family, a gang who police blame for much of the senseless violence.

“In many areas of the city, BGF is known to fuel and reinforce its existence and dominance through the sale and distribution of narcotics, acts of violence and intimidation, the use of firearms and other serious crimes,” said Gregg Bernstein, State’s Attorney.

Tuesday’s raid turned up several drugs, including heroin and cocaine.

“The individuals that are within the community that are distributing the heroin and cocaine grew up in this community and are being influenced by BGF,” said Palmere.

City Police say the raids will be conducted at random until all those suspected of committing or assisting in crimes across the city are behind bars.

The State’s Attorney’s Office has indicted 68 people in the last five days.

WJZ

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