Authorities in Montgomery County say nearly every day they are finding weapons in the hands of people who are legally not supposed to have them. They are recovering these guns during minor routine traffic stops and say while they can find out where the guns came from, finding who used them will take further investigation. NBC10’s Deanna Durante has more.
Police in Montgomery County have been finding illegal, untraceable and modified guns in the hands of people who are legally not supposed to have them every day.
In just the last two weeks police say they have found several loaded guns just in routine patrols and in some cases, they have been modified to fire bullets faster and to hold a lot more ammunition than what even police officers carry with them.
“We’re taking these guns off the streets now, sadly on almost a daily basis,” Lieutenant Steven Fink said.
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On one Sunday morning, an Abington police officer spotted a car with dark tinted windows and a tag that came back fraudulent. As the officer approached the car it took off without the officer chasing after it.
However, the driver crashed the vehicle in nearby Cheltenham Township.
There were three young men in the car, all under 21, and they ditched a backpack with three loaded guns in it at the time, police said.
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“All young men under the age of 21, the legal age to carry a firearm,” Fink said. “All three of these handguns were recovered from that backpack. As you can see, extended magazines [and] they were loaded at that time.”
Some of the guns that police have found have had the serial numbers scratched off or been ghost guns which are untraceable. Some have even had additions added to them.
Fink explained that if someone has an extended magazine and adds that to a gun with a fully automatic switch, it’s capable of shooting 30 rounds in about two seconds.
In all the cases, police say the guns are in the hands of criminals and being found during what is considered minor traffic offenses.
“We’re going to continue to stop those cars…you can see what a minor violation can turn into,” Fink said.
Once the guns are processed, they are being checked against a national database where investigators can learn a lot more about the guns and where they’ve been.
Just two weeks ago officers located a gun in a business in Abington Township that was found in a bathroom.
“That gun that was found in the business in Abington was used in two murders and four shootings in Philadelphia,” Fink said.
While police can trace where some of the guns came from and the crimes they were used in, finding the people who were using them takes further investigation.
The weapons have been swabbed for DNA and other evidence to find those people.
