The report found higher rates of gun thefts from cars in cities within states with the weakest gun safety laws.
Firearm thefts from vehicles in the United States have tripled over the last 10 years, making cars the largest source of stolen guns, according to a new report.
According to the Everytown for Gun Safety report, which analyzed FBI data from 337 cities and 44 states, the rate of gun thefts from cars increased nearly every year and spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when weapon purchases also surged.
In some cases, stolen weapons are discovered at crime scenes. In July 2021, a firearm stolen from an unlocked car in Riverside, Florida, was used to kill Caroline Schollaert, a 27-year-old Coast Guard member who was trying to stop a car burglary in her neighborhood.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) director Steve Dettelbach said the trend highlights the need for Americans to safely secure their guns to keep them from getting into the hands of dangerous people. He said his agency, which was not involved in the Everytown report, has found links between stolen firearms and violent crimes.
“People don’t go to a mall and steal a firearm from a locked car to go hunting. Those guns are going straight to the street,” Mr. Dettelbach said. “They’re going to violent people who can’t pass a background check. They’re going to gangs. They’re going to drug dealers, and they’re going to hurt and kill the people who live in the next town, the next county, or the next state.”
More than half of the nearly 112,000 guns reported stolen in 2022 were taken from cars, and most often, they were parked in driveways or outside homes, the report found.
“A decade ago, roughly a quarter of gun thefts were from cars; in 2022, over half were,” the report stated.
In 2013, the report found that about 38 percent of firearm thefts were from home burglaries or other buildings, while roughly one in four were from cars.
Nearly every nine minutes, on average, at least one gun was stolen from a car in 2022, the most recent year for which the data was available. The actual number could be higher since no federal law requires people to report stolen firearms, and only a third of states require a report.
“Every gun stolen from a car increases the chances it'll be used in a violent crime,” said Sarah Burd-Sharp, senior director of research at Everytown.
Stolen guns have also been linked to tragic accidents, such as one involving a 14-year-old boy in St. Petersburg, Florida. The boy killed his brother using a gun he found in an alley. The weapon had been stolen from an unlocked car a few days earlier.
Cities With Highest Rates of Gun Theft
The report also found higher rates of gun thefts from cars in the cities in states with the weakest gun safety laws. “In Memphis, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia, there were an estimated 3,315 and 2,499 guns stolen from cars in 2022, respectively,” the report said.
Memphis had the highest rate of gun thefts from cars, followed by Atlanta. St. Louis, Missouri, was third highest, followed by Richmond, Virginia, and San Antonio, Texas had the fifth highest rate.
Everytown analyzed crime data from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System between 2013 and 2022, which includes details about what was stolen and where it came from.
Guns stolen from cars bucked car theft trends overall. The rate of other things stolen from vehicles has fallen 11 percent over the last decade, even as the rate of firearm thefts from cars surged 200 percent, the researchers found.
Last month, city leaders in Savannah, Georgia, passed unanimously an ordinance requiring residents to secure firearms left inside cars after more than 200 guns were reportedly stolen from unlocked cars in 2023. People are also required to report stolen firearms under the new law, which carries maximum penalties of a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail.
However, Republican state Attorney General Chris Carr said in a letter to Savannah officials on May 3 that the gun ordinance is an overreach of government.
“Because the General Assembly has expressly designated the regulation of firearms as an issue of general, state-wide concern, no local ordinance can regulate firearms,” Mr. Carr wrote.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, a former police officer, said the city’s ordinance is not intended to infringe on citizens’ rights to own or carry a firearm.
“We certainly encourage our citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Mr. Johnson said in a statement on May 6, “but this ordinance remains in effect and will continue to be enforced.”
The ATF said separately that more than 1 million guns were reported stolen between 2017 and 2021 with the vast majority of gun thefts involving thefts from individuals.
The agency is prohibited by law from publicly releasing detailed information about where stolen guns end up, but it can share the information with law enforcement officials who are investigating a crime.
