Blog: KPD News & Alerts

Concerning Trend of Guns Being Stolen from Vehicles

The Knoxville Police Department has continued to see an alarming trend of firearms being stolen from vehicles.

As of November 15, the KPD had received 103 vehicular burglary reports that included the theft of a firearm, according to the provisional data. Of those, the vehicle was either left unlocked or accessed via unknown means a vast majority of the time. The preliminary data indicates that in vehicular burglaries where a firearm was reportedly stolen, the vehicle was left unlocked or there was no sign of forced entry in upwards of 85 percent of those cases.

That is a concerning trend that unnecessarily puts the public at risk. Stolen firearms are often used in the commission of other violent crimes or dangerous felonies.

Vehicular burglaries, especially those involving the theft of a firearm, are largely crimes of opportunity and preventable through simple safety measures. An unoccupied vehicle should never be left unlocked for any amount of time, especially if a gun or any other valuables are left in the vehicle. Valuables should either be removed from the vehicle or secured and hidden away out of sight. Firearms should always either be removed from the vehicle or stored in a locked compartment of the vehicle when the vehicle is left unoccupied.

Gun owners should also keep record of the serial number for all of their firearms. If a gun is reported as stolen without knowledge of the serial number, it can make it difficult for law enforcement agencies to identify and recover that gun.

More often than not, if a vehicle is locked and there are no valuables in view, potential thieves will move on to easier targets. Criminals will take the path of least resistance. By simply removing valuables, including all firearms, from an unoccupied vehicle and locking the vehicle at all times, a crime with dangerous implications could almost always be prevented.

Posted by serland On 24 November, 2020 at 11:08 AM