larryyellen's Blog

Our story Monday night showing the pipeline of guns from Mississippi to Chicago didn't have time to explore one of the reasons why Chicago gang members were willing to travel so far to obtain weapons. According to Chicago police, the Mississippi gun shops have no computerized records of guns sales, so it is much harder to trace multiple purchases. Investigators who traveled from Chicago to Clarksdale say the shops there handle all sales on paper or index cards, and tracing sales requires a lengthy, tedious check of all the paperwork. They say it's much easier to trace sales in Illinois, where gun sales records are entered into a computerized database.