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Many stolen guns are never recovered.
Many stolen guns are never recovered. Photograph: Bloomberg News via Getty Images
Many stolen guns are never recovered. Photograph: Bloomberg News via Getty Images

Lax gun policies may be linked to stolen firearms in US, study finds

This article is more than 6 years old

Several cities have seen sharp jumps in gun theft reports and many resurface in connection with a crime, as states push to ease rules for carrying guns

Gun owners who carry guns outside their homes, stash them in their cars – or simply own lots of them – are more likely to have their guns stolen, according to a study published Monday in the journal Injury Epidemiology.

The study, by leading public health researchers at Harvard and Northeastern universities, is the first to delve into how different characteristics among gun owners can increase their risk of theft. The findings come as several cities have seen sharp jumps in gun theft reports, and as states push to ease rules for carrying guns.

Many stolen guns are never recovered, but when they do resurface, it’s often in connection with a crime or in the hands of someone legally barred from possessing one. In February, a man in Leesburg, Florida, was arrested on allegations he shot his wife and daughter with a stolen gun during a family argument. Last month in Sarasota, Florida, five teenagers were charged after a revolver stolen from an apartment days earlier was found on their middle school bus.

People who own guns for protection or had carried a gun on their person in the previous month were more than three times as likely to have experienced a theft in the past five years, the report concludes. People who owned six or more guns, stored their guns loaded or unlocked, or kept guns in their cars were more than twice as likely to have had their weapons stolen.

“There may be something about people wanting easy access to guns that makes them more susceptible to the theft of their guns,” said Deborah Azrael, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health and one of the study’s authors.

Despite the public safety risks, most states have failed to impose storage requirements that would make it harder for a thief to take a gun. An analysis by the Trace of police records from more than 100 large cities and counties in the US found at least 326,500 guns had been reported lost or stolen between 2006 and 2015.

Some law enforcement officials and gun violence-prevention advocates contend that laws encouraging people to carry guns outside their homes increases the risk that thieves will find and take them. People who keep a gun in their waistband when they are, say, out running errands could forget to bring it inside after parking their car at home.

Many states have in recent years watered down prohibitions on bringing guns in public spaces or using them against another person. In March, Arkansas became the latest state to open up college campuses to concealed-carry permit holders.

The study draws from a landmark 2015 survey of more than 1,600 gun owners by many of the same authors, which found that the gun stock had grown increasingly concentrated and that self-defense had replaced hunting as the primary motivation for gun ownership.

The new study also found that non-white gun owners were at nearly three times the risk of having a firearm stolen, though the authors noted that non-whites as a population are more often victims of burglaries and robberies in general.

Two-thirds of gun thefts occurred in the south, where firearm restrictions are generally more permissive, even though only 43% of all gun owners in the US live there, the study found. The north-east registered the lowest rates of gun theft.

The findings validate the warnings of law enforcement officials in several major cities where reports of gun thefts are increasing.

“Most of our criminals, they go out each and every night hunting for guns, and the easiest way to get them is out of people’s cars,” said Sgt Warren Pickard of the police department in Atlanta. “We’re finding that a majority of stolen guns that are getting in the hands of criminals and being used to commit crimes were stolen out of vehicles.”

The study authors previously found that about 2.5% of gun owners had lost a gun to theft in the previous five years, resulting in an estimate of between 300,000 and 600,000 guns stolen in the US annually. The study published on Monday refines that estimate to 380,000, a number that while on the lower end of the previous range still highlights theft as a major source of guns for the illegal market, the authors wrote.

Second amendment supporters argue that gun owners are forced to leave their weapons in vulnerable locations such as their cars because of rules limiting where they can carry. That is what happened in 2015 to John Gioffre, a real estate investor who left his .40-caliber Glock G27 pistol in the center console of his black Ford F350 because the Best Western Plus where he was staying in Austin, Texas, banned firearms. When he returned to his pickup truck the next morning, the passenger-side window was shattered and his gun was missing.

“That is insane,” said Gioffre, 27, after the Trace told him about the estimated number of annual gun thefts. “You can’t bring guns into certain situations for various reasons, but if you leave them, they are getting into the hands of people we don’t want them in anyways. So it’s kind of like a double-edged sword.”

The authors of the study said gun owners who own many firearms may be at an increased chance of theft because they make more attractive targets for burglars.

They suggested gun thefts could be curtailed with changes in laws that require guns to be locked and social norms surrounding gun storage.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Massachusetts is the only state that generally requires gun owners to keep all their firearms locked. Critics of such laws say they prevent gun owners from accessing their weapons in an emergency.

Gioffre says he has a concealed carry permit and often keeps his gun on hand because it makes him feel safer. But the theft of his Glock in 2015 prompted him to take greater precautions, such as spending $200 on a safe that attaches to his center console.

“I was pretty willy-nilly with it,” he said about his gun. “If anyone broke into my car, they would have stolen my gun. Now I’m a lot more conscious about it.”

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