Brazen gun heists on the rise

HOUSTON -- Authorities in Houston said Thursday they've made several arrests in a smash-and-grab robbery at a gun store.

It was as brazen as it was brief -- after using a truck to rip off the doors, ten thieves rushed inside this gun store, smashed glass cases, grabbed guns by the sackful, and rifles by the armful -- all in under two minutes.

They got away with 85 weapons.

"I would say it shocked me, more than it surprised me," said Robert Elder with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

While the number of guns reported stolen or lost has decreased, Elder said agents are seeing more of these types of bold burglaries. As stores beef up their security measures, criminals up their game.

Thieves used a backhoe to tear down the wall of a gun store in a Houston suburb last year. In Ohio they used a minivan -- in Tennessee, a stolen car.

CBS News got inside the ATF gun vault in Houston. It's filled with recovered weapons, the concern is the ones they haven't tracked down.

"That's what's really scary about this. Now you got this high number of firearms on the street, possibly trafficked to other criminals," Elder said.

The burglary in Houston was so well-planned that after the they hit the store, the thieves jumped into a second getaway car waiting a block away.