Federal authorities are working with the Christian County Sheriff's department to determine why some of the department's fully automatic weapons are unaccounted for.
The Springfield News-Leader reports that interim Sheriff Dwight McNiel says in a 19-page report that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is working with the department to account for the missing weapons. The report says the weapons may have been legitimately transferred to another agency or authorized firearms dealer.
It's unclear how many weapons and specifically what types of automatic weapons are involved.
The report says the ATF inventoried the sheriff's department, leading to the discovery of the missing automatic weapons. The ATF's Springfield office didn't immediately return a call seeking comment early Wednesday.
