Hundreds of guns seized in Alamance County

ALAMANCE COUNTY, NC (WGHP) — Alamance County law enforcement has seized hundreds of guns over the past year as they work to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

According to Alamance County and Burlington police officers, they have arrested more than 300 people.

“These have been taken from minors involved in shootings, drug dealers and convicted felons,” said Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson.

From August 2023 through August 2024, the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office seized 194 firearms. In the past 12 months, the Burlington Police Department seized 111 weapons.

“It is always better to seize an illegal firearm before it is used to kill someone than to investigate another murder,” said Burlington Police Chief Alan Balog.

According to Alamance County, petitions have been filed against six minors in connection with those firearms.

“What’s happening now is that many of our gang members, our cartels, are using this younger generation of people to commit their crimes because all they get is a slap on the wrist,” Johnson said.

“We are continually concerned that minors are increasingly involved in these types of crimes, not only as perpetrators, but more tragically, as victims,” Balog said.

According to Balog, the number of gun homicides in Burlington is down 66%, but the type of firearms they are seizing is a concern, such as pistols with illegal machine gun conversions.

“There has been an escalation in the types of firearms being seized by police officers in Burlington and Alamance County. Officers are now routinely seizing rifle caliber pistols, ghost guns, pistols with high capacity magazines and fully automatic handguns,” Balog said.

Both agencies work in conjunction with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, And Firearms

They say they have been able to reduce gun violence in part by using ballistic imaging technology to seize the weapons.

“Using criminal weapons intelligence, specifically since October of 2021, we have been working with the county sheriff’s office and the police department specifically to use NIBIN to give us intelligence that tells us when and where each of these criminal weapons were fired,” said Agent Jason Walsh of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

All guns seized by Burlington police and Alamance County deputies are entered into NIBIN’s database. From there, investigators can match leads to firearms and track them.