ONE gun store linked to 2,500 crimes in Washington, DC and Maryland
A single gun store in Forestville, Maryland has been tied to 2,500 crimes in the past 18 years, more than any other store in the region.
Police have recovered 86 guns connected with homicides and over 300 guns connected to non-fatal shootings, assaults and robberies from the Realco gun shop.
Realco has long been known as a leading seller of 'crime guns' seized by local police and police in the nearby Prince George district.
However, a year-long Washington Post investigation has brought to light the magnitude of the impact caused bey the store, even linking the guns sold by the store to specific crimes.
According to the investigation, the Post found that nearly one out of three guns traced to Maryland drug dealers came from Realco.
On average, police have seized more than 160 Realco guns annually from 1997 through 2008.
In 1999, The Post identified Realco as the source of 493 guns used in crimes from 1996 to 1998 - twice the number of any other dealer in the region.
The investigation also revealed that a small percentage of gun stores sells most of the weapons recovered by police in crimes.
Although the guns are sold legally they are often bought by someone on behalf of convicted felons who cannot legally purchase a firearm.
These sales, known as straw purchases, are also illegal, but they are difficult to prove and police rarely prosecute gun store owners.
Among the straw sales from Realco were a Taurus .40-caliber pistol sold in March 2004, which was used three weeks later when 20-year-old Robert Gaer Jr killed 22-year-old Kelvin Braxton.
The gun was bought by Gaer's girlfriend.
In 2007, 25-year-old convicted felon Erik Kenneth Dixon used a Realco .45 calibre Glock to kill another man. That gun was also purchased by Dixon's girlfriend.
As early as 2002, Prince George's state attoey Glenn Ivey asked law enforcement colleagues if there was any way to stop the flow of guns from Realco.
However, he was told that the gun store was following the letter of the law and not deliberately selling to known criminals.
But Joseph R. Vince Jr., who retired from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm's Gun Analysis Branch in 1999 said: 'If a gun store is bleeding crime guns, you have got to ask yourself what... is going on.
'I have no problem with somebody being in the firearms business. That is a legitimate business. But why can't the public be aware of where guns to criminals are coming from?'
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