Safe storage and thefts of firearms in Sweden: An empirical study

Abstract

Strict safe storage regulations are a cornerstone of the Swedish gun control legislation. The rationale is that, by limiting the number of guns a licensed gun owner may own and requiring them to have their guns locked up in gun safes when not in use, legal guns may be prevented from ending up in the hands of criminals through theft. This study, the first full population data study of gun thefts in Sweden, investigated all reported gun thefts in Sweden from 2003 and 2010 and in the county of Stockholm from 1995 to 2010. The analysis revealed that actual thefts from legal gun owners are very rare both in absolute terms and when compared with the number of gun owners, with legal guns and with burglaries. Most firearms that were stolen were properly stored in gun safes, a proportion that also increased to almost 100 percent during the period. The most common method of theft is to steal the entire gun safe. Further, the analysis revealed that official reports on gun thefts have serious errors; 16 percent of police reports on gun thefts referred to cases in which no modern firearm requiring a licence had been stolen.

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