Lynn Langton

November 8, 2012    NCJ 239436

Presents findings on the theft of firearms during household burglaries and other property crimes from 2005 through 2010. The report examines the number of property crime victimizations involving the theft of one or more firearms, the number of firearms stolen each year, and the characteristics of property crimes involving stolen firearms. It presents data by the amount of loss, the percentage reported to police, the percentage of items recovered, and the characteristics of households experiencing the theft. The report also presents trends from 1994 through 2010 on the number of victimizations involving firearm theft. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes, reported and not reported to the police, against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households.

Highlights:

• About 1.4 million guns, or an annual average of 232,400, were stolen during burglaries and other property crimes in the six-year period from 2005 through 2010.
• On average, firearms were stolen in an annual average of about 4% of the 2.4 million burglaries occurring each year, in 2% of the 529,200 robberies, and in less than 1% of the 13.6 million other crimes involving theft from 2005 through 2010.
• From 2005 through 2010, 86% of burglaries and 75% of other property crimes involving a stolen firearm were reported to police.

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