‘Hundreds of Guns Lost or Stolen’ From Bay Area Authorities

JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images
JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images

On Nov 16, NBC Bay Area released an investigative report showing that “hundred of guns” have been “lost or stolen” from police departments and federal agencies in the Bay Area since 2010.

And these are not simply semiautomatic handguns, but grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and M4 rifles–which are fully automatic military-grade rifles on the AR-15 platform.

According to NBC Bay Area, while it is common knowledge that a gun stolen from a Bureau of Land Management agent’s vehicle was later used by an illegal alien to kill Kathryn Steinle in July, there has still been no answer provided for how guns the BLM has lost.

But NBC did learn that “in the Bay Area alone, six local law enforcement agencies can’t account for at least 379 firearms since 2010 because of loss or theft.”

The weapons are known to “include military grade assault rifles such as AR-15s and M16s, sniper rifles, shotguns, a gas grenade launcher and hundreds of handguns. ”

Moreover, “the vast majority” of the 379 weapons “have never been recovered.”

In San Jose Police Department alone, “324 firearms [were] discovered missing during a 2010 audit of the department’s inventory.” Yes–324 firearms gone.

San Jose deputy chief Phan Ngo commented, “Back in 2010, we proactively did an audit of the range and we discovered that we have about 300 guns that are unaccounted for. Totally unacceptable.”

NBC noted:

The majority of the missing weapons from San Jose police were handguns issued to officers. But the department’s audit also discovered they were missing six sniper rifles, two M-16 rifles, 10 40mm launchers, and 49 shotguns. According to police records, only 16 of the lost guns have been located since the audit, which also found 2,448 of the department’s weapons were never registered with the U.S. Department of Justice.

On top of that, the California Highway Patrol had 35 guns lost or stolen since 2010, all but three of which were reported stolen. Those guns include “Colt rifles, Remington shotguns and the officers department issued side arms, Smith & Wesson .40-caliber tactical semi-automatic handguns,” according to NBC Bay Area.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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