The Hidden Life of Guns: “Realco has been known as a leading seller of “crime guns” seized by local police, but a year-long Post investigation reveals the magnitude of Realco’s pattern and links the guns sold by the store to specific crimes. The Post compiled its own databases of more than 35,000 gun traces by mining unpublicized state databases and local police evidence logs. The Post investigation found that a small percentage of gun stores sells most of the weapons recovered by police in crimes – re-confirming the major finding of studies that came out before federal gun-tracing data were removed from public view by an act of Congress in 2003. For the most part, these sales are legal, but an unknown number involve persons who buy for those who cannot, including convicted felons such as Dixon, in a process known as a “straw purchase.” Such sales are illegal for the buyer and the store, if it knowingly allows a straw purchase. But cases are hard to prove. Law enforcement officials rarely prosecute gun stores, deterred by high bureaucratic hurdles, political pressure and laws that make convictions difficult.”