ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOX) – St. Louis police say the gun used to shoot a financial aid counselor at a downtown business school last week had been stolen more than a year ago.

Police chief Sam Dotson says the Kel-Tec 9 semi-automatic pistol had originally been legally purchased by a St. John resident with no criminal history, but he was the victim of a home burglary in November 2011.

St. Louis Police say Sean Johnson used this type of gun in the attack.

“I’ve said repeatedly,” Dotson told KMOX. “It’s not the legal guns in the hands of legal people, it’s the illegal guns in the hand of criminals that are the problem.”

The serial number on the gun used by alleged the shooter at the Stevens Institute of Business and Arts had been filed off.

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34-year-old Sean Johnson is accused of shooting Greg Elsenrath, SIBA’s financial aid director, before turning the gun on himself.

Both survived their wounds.

Dotson says as a convicted felon with documented mental issues, Johnson should never have been able to get a gun in the first place.