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EAGLE MOUNTAIN — It’s a Sunday in late October and a Utah County man has discovered that his car has been broken into.
The alleged thief has taken a wallet and some other items, including a rifle. Later, a debit card inside the stolen wallet is used at an Eagle Mountain store. That helps investigators track down, through security footage, an image that leads to an arrest.
According to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office, the individual, a 17-year-old male, was booked into a juvenile facility in relation to a theft case. Most of the stolen property was recovered, including the gun, authorities said.
Stolen firearms aren’t uncommon, but what should a firearm owner do in the scenario that their gun is lost or stolen?
“Absolutely report it,” said Sgt. Spencer Cannon of the Utah County Sheriff's Office. “The real concern is what is someone going to do with it? Sometimes they’re doing it because they want to pawn it, sometimes they do it because they need a weapon to commit a crime with and it can’t be traced back to them. The concern is maybe they’ll use it in a crime against somebody and somebody will be injured or killed.”
Each firearm has a serial number and it’s important that lost firearms are reported to the proper authorities as soon as possible, Cannon said.
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), all lost or stolen firearms must be reported within 48 hours of that discovery. Those serial numbers are then logged into the National Crime Information Center database and stay there until the case is resolved.
“So if it shows up anywhere, there’s a national record of it and the potential charges and jail or prison time are much more consequential than (other forms of theft),” Cannon said.
The ATF suggests that individuals call their local law enforcement and report the loss before contacting the ATF and filling out an ATF form.
A little more than 6,100 firearms were stolen in the U.S. in 2015, according to the ATF. Nearly 95 percent of those cases came from burglaries and larcenies. In all, 14,800 firearms were reported lost or stolen.
Utah had some of the fewest cases among U.S. states with just 36 total documented cases of either stolen or missing guns. Comparatively, Arkansas led all states with 2,951.
Since these serial numbers can be tracked and stealing firearms may result in a federal crime, Cannon said many thieves may even bypass guns during home and auto break-ins. However, that’s not a guarantee.
“Some guys don’t care — they’ll steal them,” he said. “They’ll pawn it or whatever and often times that’s how they are found. Sometimes they’re just kept for personal use.”
Cannon recalled a case from the 1990s where police came across teenagers doing an illegal activity with firearms and discovering one of the rifles had been reported stolen in Wyoming 20 years prior. As it turns out, the gun was a gift from a relative and the rifle had been acquired by that relative from a one-time employee of his.
“It was a stolen rifle but both connected parties that we knew were connected to it had it innocently,” he said.
In addition to reporting all stolen or lost firearms, Cannon said he “strongly recommends” that owners should not leave their firearms in vehicles.
“If you do leave it in a car, secure it some way with a secure lockbox of some kind — at the very least have it secured so it can’t be fired,” he said.
He added that gun owners should also never leave their gun in places such as a closet without a trigger guard.
“We recommend you leave it in something like a gun cabinet or even better, a gun safe. That is much more secure,” Cannon said. “It keeps them from being stolen more easily and it keeps them away from children who might be injured by them.”
