Donald Oakgrove was walking in his south Minneapolis neighborhood, his baggy clothes and hat signifying rank in the Vice Lords street gang, when a man got out of a car and approached him.
"Hey," the man said, "do you want to buy a burner?"
Displayed in the stranger's open trunk was a mini arsenal of handguns and shotguns, more than 20 firearms in all, and soon Oakgrove found himself in possession of a new 9mm pistol. He paid $125.
"I'd carry it everywhere. I'd take a shower with it. I really would," Oakgrove said. "When I held it in my hand it was just, it gave me so much power."
Oakgrove, 24, was released from prison in December after serving a term for illegal weapons possession.
Danny Evans was 13 when he got his first gun from his cousin in south Minneapolis. It was an antique four-shot derringer.
"As soon as I got the gun in my hand my ego just shot through the sky," said Evans, now 25, who's serving a prison term for illegal weapons possession.
To get other guns, Evans said, he would ask people he knew. They would get them from family members or rob a house. At age 15, he paid $60 for a .22 pistol.
