Even in states that obligate owners to tell police if their gun is stolen, enforcement is lax. Research suggests that many owners never report losses and thefts to police – and in most states, they aren’t required to do so. There is no publicly accessible repository of information about weapons stolen from cars, nor has anyone carried out a systematic effort to find out what happens once they go missing. In other words, owners who are carrying firearms for self-protection are arming the very people they fear. These weapons, which are overwhelmingly handguns, are moving directly from legal to illegal possessors. In many of the cities, including Austin and Las Vegas, the rise in thefts came as state leaders or courts tossed out restrictions that blocked carrying guns in vehicles, or leaving them there. (The pool is made up of the 25 largest US cities that responded by press time to records requests made in July and August.) In 14 of the 15 cities that also provided 2014 data, the number of stolen guns increased year over year by an average of 40%. In 2015, the 25 police departments in our sample received reports of about 4,800 guns stolen from vehicles. “It used to be the day of the radio and electronics, but there’s not a market for that any more,” said Richard Roundtree, the sheriff of Richmond County, Georgia. Thieves have apparently caught on to this trend. ![]() In interviews, gun owners said they took their guns with them when they travelled by car – and because they felt empowered to do so, or because they underestimated the risk, they left them there when they worked, shopped or played. Many states, including Georgia, have passed laws spearheaded by the National Rifle Association to expand the number of people legally allowed to carry guns in public, and the number of places where they may carry them, including vehicles. Some police officials say thieves are breaking into vehicles for the specific purpose of finding firearms. That’s enough firearms to provide a weapon for every instance of gun violence in the country each year – several times over.Īn examination by the Trace of data from police departments in 25 large American cities found that thousands of firearms were reported stolen from cars last year, and that in most cities, the numbers are on the rise. At the high end, that’s more than 1,600 guns stolen every day, more than one every minute. ![]() Privately owned firearms are stolen in America with alarming frequency: between 300,000 and 600,000 every year, according to a new survey of gun ownership by researchers at Harvard and Northeastern universities.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |