Florida second in gun smuggling category

Hugh Wiggins, who has been indicted in Mississippi for being an accessory after the fact in the Billings’ murders, smuggled the weapons used in the crime to a friend near Pascagoula. Since then, the feds have made several arrests involving illegal gun sales from Biloxi to Panama City.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns has published a report that traced 145,321 guns that were used in crimes in 2009 and found that 30 percent of them were bought in a different state than there the crime occurred. Florida is second behind Georgia in the total number of guns from the state that have been traced to crimes in other states–27.3 percent of Florida’s Guns have a short time-to-crime, national average is 22.6 percent. According to the report, the percentage of guns recovered in a crime within two years of original sale is a strong indicator of gun trafficking.

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