For the second time in less than five months, a gun used to kill a New York City police officer has been traced back to Georgia.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the gun used in Saturday's fatal shooting of NYPD Officer Brian Moore was stolen in an October 2011 burglary at Little's Bait & Tackle Pawn Shop in Perry, some 30 miles south of Macon.
Eight other guns taken in the 2011 burglary have also turned up in New York City, where gun ownership laws are more restrictive than in Georgia, the Times reported.
No arrests have been made in the Perry burglary. A total of 23 guns were taken in the heist.
Like the Taurus five-shot revolver that police said was used to kill officer Moore, the Taurus 9mm handgun used in the Dec. 19 shooting death of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu was also tracked to a Georgia gun shop.
Unlike the weekend shooting, the gun from the December cop slayings was purchased legally in 1996 from Arrowhead Pawn Shop in Jonesboro.
That gun was sold again in 1998, but the nation's patchwork of gun laws made it difficult for authorities to determine how it eventually got into the possession of convicted felon Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who police said killed Ramos and Liu before turning the gun on himself.
“We may never know how Mr. Brinsley got it into his hands,” said Aladino Ortiz, assistant special agent in charge of the Atlanta office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Times reported that as recently as 2010, Arrowhead Pawn Shop was the leading out-of-state source for guns recovered in crimes by the NYPD.
As Perry police Chief Stephen D. Lynn told The Times, the movement of guns from Georgia to New York is lucrative.
“If you’re willing to take the risk and engage in this illegal activity, the payoff is greater,” Lynn told the newspaper. “If you stole a $500 gun in Georgia and sold it in Georgia, you’re probably going to get less for it.”
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