***Between April and July last year, at least 35 brand-new guns were stolen as they sat in boxcars in the city’s South Side rail yards,***
40 years ago Mike Wallace had a 60 MINUTES report on freight car break ins. While interviewing some black gang members they admitted that they had found lots of items to steal from the freight cars.
Wallace asked what was the last thing they had stolen and they answered...”meat”.
Wallace then asked what was the biggest heist they ever made. The answer was...”GUNS”.
When asked what they did with the guns they refused to answer.
After 1968, in the panic after Bobby Kennedy was murdered, the government REQUIRED all gun shipments by rail to have a large colored tag on that read “GUNS”.
The gun dealer I bought from said that many of the freight car conductors were in league with criminals and at certain rail crossings they would open the car door and throw the packages marked GUNS out to people waiting there.
Skeeter Skelton, a writer for SHOOTING TIMES shipped an engraved Browning HI-Power to the magazine company in Peoria, Ill to have it photographed. It disappeared somewhere in transit and was never found.
About the same time, my father shipped a .250 savage model 99 through Chicago to have some work done. It was stolen.