Guns Stolen From Cars At Triple The Rate From 10 Years Ago

WASHINGTON — The rate of guns stolen from cars in the U.S. has tripled over the last decade, an analysis of FBI data by the gun safety group "Everytown" found.

The rate of stolen guns from cars climbed nearly every year and spiked during the coronavirus pandemic along with a major surge in weapons purchases in the U.S., according to the report, which analyzes FBI data from 337 cities in 44 states. 

The information states that on average, at least one gun is stolen from a car every nine minutes in the United States.

The stolen weapons have, in some cases, turned up at crime scenes. In July 2021, a gun taken from an unlocked car in Riverside, Florida, was used to kill a 27-year-old Coast Guard member as she tried to stop a car burglary in her neighborhood.

Nearly 122,000 guns were reported stolen in 2022, and just over half of those were from cars, most often when they were parked in driveways or outside people’s homes. That’s up from about one-quarter of all thefts in 2013 when homes were the leading spot for firearm thefts, the report states.

Stolen guns have also been linked to tragic accidents, such as when a 14-year-old boy in St. Petersburg, Florida, killed his 11-year-old brother after finding in an alley a gun that had been stolen from an unlocked car a few days before.

The report analyzes crime data from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, which includes details about what was stolen and where it came from. Guns stolen from cars led car theft trends overall. The rate of other things stolen from cars has dropped 11% over the last 10 years, even as the rate of gun thefts from cars grew 200%, Everytown found in its analysis of FBI data.