“Since 2010, at least 944 guns have disappeared from police in the Bay Area and state and federal agents across California,” extras.mercurynews.com reports, “an average of one almost every other day — and fewer than 20 percent have been recovered.” Here’s the tally:

Guns lost in the Bay Area in the last six years (courtesy extras.mercurynews.com)

As the report rightly points out, the losses are the result of a dysfunctional police culture. One Golden State politician – a Democrat no less — wants to change that through legislation.

“This needs to stop,” said state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, who is sponsoring legislation that would make it illegal in California for a cop to leave a gun in an unattended car unless it is locked inside a hidden compartment or secure case.

I highly doubt his bill will see the light of day. And unless it makes cops personally, legally accountable for a lost or stolen firearm, as non law-enforcement officers are, it won’t do squat to alter the situation.

Lost or stolen guns in the Bay Area by department (courtesy mercurynews.com)

So what happens to these lost or stolen firearms? What do you think?

Stolen police guns have ended up in the hands of members and associates of notorious gangs like the Bloods, The Aryan Brotherhood and Norteños. One fell into the hands of a Reno pimp after a prostitute took a Kensington police officer’s Glock pistol and badge from his hotel room when he fell asleep. That gun was recovered when the pimp accidentally shot himself in the leg during an altercation.

The report chronicles high-profile murders where bad guys made use of former police firearms. And yet gun control advocates consider the police the “only ones” responsible enough to carry a firearm. Go figure.

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41 COMMENTS

  1. I’m betting at least half of those are comfortably residing in current and former police officer’s gun safes.

  4. But but but the liberal, left-wing media and their useful idiot toadies among the masses says cops should be the only ones with guns because of how trained and safe they are that us mere peons could never attain to. You know cause government is the solution to all of our problems………/sarc

  9. Tat’s nothing, in operation fast and furious, the obama admn. gave over 2,000 guns to the Mexican drug cartels. El chapo (Shorty) guzman got many of them and the cartels have killed a few hundred with them so far. The operate from Central America to New England with a major operation in CHICAGO, this year more murders in Chicago than in all the mass shootings in all America in the last ten years.

  11. Come on folks, knock off the double standard. TTAG commenters lose that every week in “tragic boating accidents.”

    • I’m currently building an AR, and it saddens me to think that as soon as I finish it, it will be lost into the depths of Lake Erie. If only I didn’t live in New York….

    • Unlike the kommiefornia po-pos, we know exactly where our lost guns are… at the bottom of our nearest lake. 🙂

  12. I was in the old-school military and back then, if you were issued a weapon and lost it, you were in deep doo-doo. Unless you were the victim of some highly unusual and provable circumstance, your career was basically over. I think any LEO who loses his gun out of negligence should lose his or her job, period. It would not take that many instances of that consequence and you would see this problem all but go away.

  13. CA PDs losing guns? Not a big problem. The people who stole the guns are probably shooting fewer hostages with them than the cops would.

    • In Pike County Alabama, we.never see.our.stolen.weapons.again. We havj: in pe heard.that there are active deputies and former county deputies with guns which were.reported.stolen but yet those.guns find thejr.ways to.criminal ‘)they’d.prefer.keeping. Personall guns.to.either .be.sold…stolen and.kept.for their personal colllections .I.personally have been missinfg a cz75 mm,.my.brother has three that were stolen from.his house.one being.a 1931 K31 swiss military rifle.

  14. I work with a gal who is undergoing a divorce from a local Police Officer (Mountain View, Ca). The cop had all his guns removed after he beat her up and is trying to orchestrate some kind of PTSD disability at taxpayer expense. My co-worker wanted one of the guns back(an AR type) as it was hers and asked the investigating PD(Santa Clara, Ca) for it back after all the dust settled. She was told that none of the guns were ‘registered’ in the state and could not be returned and would have to be destroyed. Seems mighty suspicious to me so I told her make certain she calls again, states that she distinctly remembers filling out the 4473 and wants her property back.
    I’m kind of curious as to the number of guns that might end up in the hands of police officers for their own use or maybe to the secondary market.

    • Filling out the 4473 is not registration in Cali.

      AR-pattern guns are required to be registered, if I recall correctly.

      If that was an AR-patten rifle she owned then she just admitted to owning a non-registered gun…

      • Since 2014? all long guns are registered at the point of sale in CA. AR’s are of 2 types in CA. The evil ones that had to be grandfathered and registered some years back and the CA compliant ones that are still sold today.

        One of my hunting partners just built himself one of the CA compliant ones to hunt yotes with. Fracking thing weighs as much as my 91-30. Without the charm.

    • This really makes me wonder if there is any paperwork from the company that destroys the guns for them that would be FOIA-able. If a person knew enough of the guns confiscated they could prove or disprove this.

  15. Hummm! I was under the impression that only law enforcement and the military were the only one’s responsible enough and well trained enough to responsibly use weapons of mass distraction.

    Maybe I was wrong?!

  16. Would be nice if even half of those involved were forced to reimburse their agency for government property lost while under their care.

  17. So the gun for fun to service the prostitute went off before the gun to service the government went off?

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