The burglar known as "white boy" cut a hole in the roof of a Virginia gun store last July and took 40 weapons.
Within a month, some of those guns began showing up on the streets of Baltimore - 100 miles from the tiny Shenandoah Valley town of Washington, Va. Police seized the first on West Lombard Street in August. A suspect fleeing from police tossed away another on Hollins Street in September.
A third gun from that burglary garnered the most attention - a West Baltimore gang member used it in a series of daylight gunfights with police in April. One officer was struck in the thigh; the suspect is recovering under guard in a hospital.
"Most of those guns on the street are stolen from somewhere," said Sgt. Richard A. Willard, a supervisor in Baltimore's police gun task force. "These guys need an outlet to sell their guns."
And many of these weapons are imported from Virginia and other states.
A new analysis of violence in Baltimore by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives shows that trend: 44 percent of the guns used in Maryland crimes last year came from over the state line. That makes Maryland one of the largest importers of guns that are recovered by police at crime scenes, according to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Experts said Maryland's tough gun control laws likely explain why so many of those guns come from elsewhere.
"Maryland is doing a pretty good job. It is making it much harder for criminals to get guns," said Daniel Vice, senior attorney at the Brady Center.
Only seven states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S Virgin Islands, import more guns, according to the center's data.
Vice said he hopes that data will help persuade lawmakers that tighter gun regulations work, but other researchers in the field don't think that will happen.
Jens O. Ludwig, a University of Chicago professor who studies illegal gun markets, doubts that new federal laws will be passed. So, he says he thinks policymakers need to focus on enforcement rather than legislation.
"The state borders are porous," Ludwig said. "It is hard to regulate your way out of it. You are an island of tight gun control in an ocean of lax laws."
But local authorities say that building cases across state borders presents enormous challenges. Coordination is needed between multiple law enforcement agencies, and Congress has created barriers that prevent individual cities such as Baltimore from seeing federal data about problem gun stores or individuals.
