The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars.

The growing number of firearms kept in vehicles has become a new point of contention in the debates over regulating gun safety.

NASHVILLE — On a Sunday in January 2022, a Glock 9mm pistol, serial number AFDN559, disappeared from a Dodge Charger parked near a Midtown Nashville bank after someone smashed in the rear driver’s side window.

Ten months later, Nashville police officers arrested three teenagers suspected in a series of shootings, and discovered a cache of weapons in a nearby apartment. Among them was AFDN559. Forensic analysts would later tie the Glock to three shootings, including an attack in August that wounded four youths and another that wounded a 17-year-old girl in September.

In a country awash with guns, with more firearms than people, the parked car, or in many cases the parked pickup truck, has become a new flashpoint in the debates over how and whether to regulate gun safety.

There is little question about the scope of the problem. A report issued in May by the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety analyzed FBI crime data in 271 American cities, large and small, from 2020 and found that guns stolen from vehicles have become the nation’s largest source of stolen firearms — with an estimated 40,000 guns stolen from cars in those cities alone.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/25/us/illegal-guns-parked-cars.html?unlocked_article_code=a5TzL8D7C57lS_Om2cS5KY-g2nU4xlYO2Hx9dEBBE81n3SGnnCVeY4RZrpVDe0giRojpKyS640J2_hvsvyruqmV_55SEDK5j5K0UP7yg0-lAjiGX1O90ZJJGuKvd18UCe18u_HERss5tOYH1cMJo0B1Qu8MmKVYae4pgdyT4QeKQKIix-VjfusD4v64yTlvuBC0KFiwq7iVb8pYbEptkvn7E23nBvj6gWHDk-QKzL1xGqBQ1zSWg9QmPPKMp8ydoA5Eramwl3Z1SwVV0ubHlmYQqEZV_Wl0z48Zt8Cgetck8vKBCsPZXNdmArF7ZfsC_ibd6GUuF3cP1hNZp2g&smid=url-share