By David Codrea
“The submachine gun was a Heckler & Koch MP5 10mm,” the report elaborates. “An ammunition magazine for the weapon was also taken. Officials did not say how the weapon was secured.”
In other words, they don’t know where, they don’t know when, they’re not saying how, and they’re certainly not going to publicly identify who the public employee is, despite indications of personal negligence and an institutional history of chronic incompetence. And it’s not just a gun—it’s a National Firearms Act-controlled weapon, forbidden by California law to non-LEOs (with limited exceptions, like for the “anti-gun” movie industry). Do you doubt, had such a gun been stolen from your car, that not only would your name be widely spread (and smeared by gleeful antis painting you as a typical, irresponsible ammosexual), but that you’d be facing be serious criminal charges, and potential civil ones as well?
Such anonymity for fedgov offenders appears to be standard operating procedure, and unsurprisingly, that appears to be the way the establishment media likes it. Recalling the killing of Kate Steinle by an illegal alien and habitual criminal taking advantage of San Francisco’s “sanctuary city” policies, even the lawsuit filed by her parents refers to the negligent party who “left a loaded and government-issued .40 caliber SIG Sauer P239 handgun unlocked in an unattended vehicle … in a backpack in plain sight of passersby’s and within reach of someone smashing a window of the vehicle” as “a BLM Ranger.” Now that a judge has released the San Francisco from the lawsuit, the city is “doubling down” on providing a haven for unvetted foreigners, all the while doing everything it can to disarm the citizenry.
And it’s not like these are isolated incidents. Per a 2016 investigative report in The Mercury News, “Officers across the Bay Area and state are losing firearms at an astonishing rate.
“Nine-hundred and forty-four guns,” the report reckoned. “From Glocks, Sig Sauers and Remingtons to sniper and assault rifles … They used to belong to law enforcement officers across California, but a new Bay Area News Group investigation found hundreds of police-issued weapons have been either stolen, lost or can’t be accounted for since 2010, often disappearing onto the streets without a trace.
It’s also not like the problem is limited to the Bay area. Per The New York Times in a 2001 report:
An internal F.B.I. inventory has found that 449 firearms and 184 laptop computers, including one containing classified data, are missing or have been stolen…
Sometimes, the way the guns are “lost” is ridiculous, bordering on the hilarious if not for the wholly unnecessary danger created through inexcusable negligence. Cases in point: multiple examples of bathroom humor, “Only Ones”-style.
These are the people tasked with controlling your guns. Still, now may be the time to say “Welcome to the party, pals.”
“Beginning Jan. 1, the law in California changed,” Law Enforcement Today reported. “Depending upon the variables, this could be a violation of law, LET previously reported. That is because Senate Bill 869 requires anyone — including police and people with concealed weapon permits — leaving a gun in a vehicle to lock it in the trunk or in a container out of plain sight. Otherwise, they will face a $1,000 fine. Police won’t face sanctions during exigent circumstances.”
Perhaps that means “We the People” paying for FBI “services” will ultimately learn the name of our employee. Either that or get the lowdown on how his assigned weapon was “secured.”
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UPDATE: FBI refuses to say how stolen machine gun was stored in agent’s car in Contra Costa
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
If the forces of Law and Order were to be held personally and financially responsible got lost and or stolen equipment, firearms or anything else supplied to them, I suspect that the incidence of such losses or thefts would be sharply reduced, if not completely eliminated. does the foregoing sound bitter, perhaps however it also,tends to,get cold and uncomfortable in winter.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
People! People! People! CALM DOWN! I have the solution! I will just set up a Bay Area gun buyback and purchase the weapons back at that point with a $50 gift card to Alpha Beta, Kroger or Piggly Wiggly!
Or I will just use the BATFE’s gun tracking system that they utilized during the Fast and Furious sting operation that got fellow US Marine and US Border Patrol BORTAC Agent Brian Terry murdered!?!
I never knew so many weapons were stolen or lost like this. I just came across this site and thanks for the info. The Seth Rich Case may be related to something like this. An FBI SUV was left pasrked on a DC street a mile and a half from the murder or 6 mins. The FBI posted a 10k reward for the theft which took place between 12 and 2 am The murder took place at 419am Missing were a glock 40 cal and 22 cal bullets baton scanner and rifle pepper spray.. The theft was reported at about… Read more »
If I was an FBI agent the MG would be stored in my house and when I retired for the night it would be right beside my bed. Just in case someone tried to enter my home at which time they would have a big surprise.
One sees, on the internet, numerous cries for the auditing of the federal reserve, usually written as follows, “audit the fed”. Possibly this is something that needs to be done, possibly not. That said, there is a crying need seems a crying need for the most thorough audit possible of not only the FBI, up also the DOJ and ATF or more completely, The FBI, the ATF, more completely the BATFE, and likely the IRS too
The FBI does not have report stolen weapons or anything else to local law enforcement.
“ATF’s Milwaukee sting operation marred by mistakes, failures from jsonline.” What a CF.
Towards the bottom they mention the theft of a fully automatic m4.
The endless doubletalk, I here use a polite form of description, from government is truly amazing, and seemingly without end. How come or Why strike me as reasonable questions. Anyone care to bet on the possibility, for or against, of obtaining a reasonable answer??
@Rokflyer, I agree all police and federal agents should buy their own weapons and ammunition. That is the way that it used to be. Police agencies buying weapons for their personnel is just another way that the various governments exempt themselves from the legal burden that those governments have placed upon us.