When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sent undercover agents into Virginia gun shops to sniff out illegal sales earlier this year, he had one point to make — Virginia’s guns are ending up plenty of other places, where they have contributed to a number of killings. Predictably, Virginia officials were incensed at Bloomberg’s interstate investigation, issuing the equivalent of a cease-and-desist letter and pushing a local gun rights group to organize a “Bloomberg Gun Giveaway” in protest. A story in the Post today might prove that Bloomberg’s worries were well-founded, and that he might not be the only one who has them.

According to the Post, federal officials have found that thousands of guns in states as far north as New York and as far south as South Carolina originated in Virginia, making it the second-leading source of guns for many states on the East Coast. Surprisingly, though, of the almost 1,100 guns recovered in the District last year and traced, only 277 came from Virginia — less than the 289 from Maryland.

So what can we make of the report? Well, there’s clearly some reason that all those guns are coming from Virginia. While some gun rights activists claim that Virginia’s gun laws are stricter than those of some of the states that are complaining, the numbers make it clear that getting a gun in the commonwealth — whether for yourself or someone else — can’t be that hard. And while Bloomberg’s way of tracing the source of the guns in his city may have stepped on some toes, Virginia officials might want to step up the investigations themselves — after all, having that many of your guns found in other states isn’t a distinction someone’s going to win an award for.

Maybe the bigger news for the District is that a total of over 1,800 guns were recovered in 2006, 47 of which were linked to homicides. And while that number may seem to prove what city officials have claimed all along — guns are killing people, so we need fewer of them out there — it may also give credence to activists fighting to have the city’s gun laws overturned. After all, aren’t the criminals getting the guns illegally at an advantage? Why should they be the only ones that have guns?