In the past month, police have recovered 11 guns from the streets of Lewiston. Some were in the hands of adults, some in the hands of juveniles, stolen from cars and, sometimes, homes.

Since January, there have been 16 shootings in the city, including nine in April and three in May. Ten of the shootings involved juveniles, said Lewiston police Sgt. Corey Jacques.

Police said there’s no simple way to explain how these kids are getting their hands on the weapons. 

“I wouldn’t say there’s one specific pipeline,” police Chief Carly Conley said. “They get them in a variety of ways. They get them by stealing from irresponsible gun owners, or people who leave their cars unlocked. They’re getting them from what you’d call straw purchases where somebody who’s not able to get a gun will get their girlfriend or whoever to buy one. Then that gun gets traded through the drug trade. There’s no one nexus. There’s no easy answer.”

Tracing the history of a firearm can be difficult. If the weapon’s serial number hasn’t been drilled out, the original owner of that gun can usually be found. But that original owner is rarely the suspect police are looking for.

Guns get stolen. They get traded, sold off the books and passed around in any number of ways.

Lewiston police Lt. Derrick St. Laurent says they attempt to trace all firearms they recover. All shell casings from shooting scenes are sent to the State Crime Lab for analysis to see if those particular firearms have been used in any other crimes.

“Tracking a firearm can vary,” St. Laurent said. “Recently, some of these firearms have come back as stolen, while other times we are able to trace the firearms back to the original owners. In some cases, we find the firearms were purchased by someone other than the intended user — a straw purchase.”

According to national statistics, the federal ATF is successful in tracking the original retail purchase of a gun 70%-80% of the time if the serial number is intact. But the original purchaser is usually only the beginning of a gun’s history. The matter of who had that gun last is more dicey.

If police catch a juvenile with a gun, they will remove that gun and get it off the streets. But there are more guns out there and the kids seem to do whatever it takes to find them.