Tens of thousands of guns go missing from dealer inventories each year

[Robb]

The problem of guns disappearing from gun stores is a substantial one. Between 2004 and 2011 ATF discovered nearly 175,000 firearms missing from dealer inventories during compliance inspections. In 2011 alone ATF discovered that 18,429 guns were unaccounted for during the course of 10,416 firearms-compliance inspections. Additionally, about 50 percent of gun dealers were found to be in violation of at least some federal regulations in 2012.

And these numbers likely account for only a small portion of the guns that are lost or stolen from dealers each year. As explained in more detail below, ATF is only able to inspect a fraction of the nation’s gun dealers each year. In 2012, for example, ATF inspected only 19 percent of gun dealers. There are likely tens of thousands of additional firearms missing from the inventories of dealers who have not recently received an ATF inspection.

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High-profile examples of when guns go missing from gun dealers

In addition to these aggregate numbers, there are many noteworthy examples of gun dealers failing to maintain control of their dangerous inventory.

Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, Tacoma, Washington

In 2002 John Allen Muhammad, the “Beltway sniper,” terrorized the Washington, D.C., metro area when he and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, gunned down 10 people over the course of several weeks. The Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle used in the attacks was one of 238 guns that disappeared from the inventory of Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply over a three-year period....

Read More: "Lost and Stolen Guns from Gun Dealers," http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/civil-liberties/report/2013/06/18/66693/lost-and-stolen-guns-from-gun-dealers/