Police Say Numbers of Stolen Guns Spike During Holidays
By: Lauren Trager, KARK 4 News
Updated: November 19, 2012
Police officers in Arkansas are very concerned about the number of stolen guns on the street and they say it's something you should be concerned about too.
The closer we get to the holidays, police say, the worse it gets.
The reason they say this time of year is so bad: the number of car break-ins go up, and often, people leave their guns under the seat or in the glove-box for criminals to find.
But police, and other community members are cracking down.
"I like guns, but if weed eaters were selling, I would have 1200 weed-eaters," said Mark Carter, owner of World Wide Weapons in Bryant.
Carter wants to make a sale. His store takes in all kinds of used guns.
But to ensure his clients are on the up and up, he follows the law, logs all serial numbers online, requires a background check and full paper trail.
"We have records of what gun they bought and when they bought it," said Carter.
He says people rarely try to off-load stolen guns here.
Police agree; it's not often the pawn shops that are the problem.
"Just in general, the guns getting into the wrong hands," said Sgt. Brian Dedrick with the North Little Rock Police Department.
Sgt. Dedrick says each year they recover upwards of a thousand guns a year without rightful owners.
And that's the ones they know of.
A national study reports 80% of stolen weapons are never found.
Criminals, Sgt. Dedrick says, trade them on the streets, or even over the internet.
Gun-owners can help curb crime, Sgt. Dedrick says, know your numbers.
And, he adds, "Put those guns up."
Even though his store is always hopping, Carter says he simply won't sell a stolen gun.
"People buy from us, they are honest, they can get guns," Carter said.
Pawn shops and police say they have a good working relationship with each other.
North Little Rock Police alone melted down more than 600 hundred guns this year. They didn't have owners to claim them, and of course, they weren't going back on the streets.
A national study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics says between 2005 and 2010 about 1.4 million guns were stolen across the country.
The majority of those thefts occurred in the South.
For more information on that study, click here.
The closer we get to the holidays, police say, the worse it gets.
The reason they say this time of year is so bad: the number of car break-ins go up, and often, people leave their guns under the seat or in the glove-box for criminals to find.
But police, and other community members are cracking down.
"I like guns, but if weed eaters were selling, I would have 1200 weed-eaters," said Mark Carter, owner of World Wide Weapons in Bryant.
Carter wants to make a sale. His store takes in all kinds of used guns.
But to ensure his clients are on the up and up, he follows the law, logs all serial numbers online, requires a background check and full paper trail.
"We have records of what gun they bought and when they bought it," said Carter.
He says people rarely try to off-load stolen guns here.
Police agree; it's not often the pawn shops that are the problem.
"Just in general, the guns getting into the wrong hands," said Sgt. Brian Dedrick with the North Little Rock Police Department.
Sgt. Dedrick says each year they recover upwards of a thousand guns a year without rightful owners.
And that's the ones they know of.
A national study reports 80% of stolen weapons are never found.
Criminals, Sgt. Dedrick says, trade them on the streets, or even over the internet.
Gun-owners can help curb crime, Sgt. Dedrick says, know your numbers.
And, he adds, "Put those guns up."
Even though his store is always hopping, Carter says he simply won't sell a stolen gun.
"People buy from us, they are honest, they can get guns," Carter said.
Pawn shops and police say they have a good working relationship with each other.
North Little Rock Police alone melted down more than 600 hundred guns this year. They didn't have owners to claim them, and of course, they weren't going back on the streets.
A national study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics says between 2005 and 2010 about 1.4 million guns were stolen across the country.
The majority of those thefts occurred in the South.
For more information on that study, click here.
