Cop deaths show struggle of keeping felons gunless

It is not unusual that parolee like Mixon would be armed. From October 2007 to October 2008, the ATF referred 403 cases of felons in possession of firearms for federal prosecution in Northern California and Nevada, plus additional cases for state prosecution.

But going after felons in possession of weapons is only the first step in stemming the tide of guns on city streets.

To stop the flow of guns to felons, officials said the weapons need to be cut off at the source–the trafficker. And building those cases takes time.

Informants are one way law enforcement agents learn who is selling guns illegally. Another strategy is gun traces, in which the history of a gun's ownership is followed from manufacturer to the last legal owner.

If investigators can trace guns used in several different crimes back to the same owner, or they notice patterns like one person buying several guns of the same model over a short period of time, trafficking is often suspected.

Over the last five years, ATF referred over 10,600 cases and 18,800 defendants for prosecution on suspicion of trafficking more than 336,000 weapons.

In one of California's best known recent cases, Philip Fonsworth-McCorvey of Phoenix, Ariz., pleaded guilty in 2007 to purchasing dozens of guns in Arizona for a San Francisco man who prosecutors said illegally sold them in the Bay Area.

Twenty-eight of the 68 guns McCorvey illegally bought were recovered in the Bay Area, most of them at crime scenes, according to the U.S. Attorney's office in Phoenix, Ariz.

"Once a gun finds its way into the illegal market, it never comes back into legal commerce," said Delgadillo of the ATF.


