Guns stolen from vehicles have become the largest source of stolen firearms in the United States, with an estimated 40,000 guns stolen from cars in
U.S. cities alone, according to a report issued in May by the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety on basis of FBI crime data in 271 American cities, large and small, from 2020.
The Everytown researchers found that a decade ago, less than a quarter of all gun thefts were from cars; in 2020, over half of them were, highlighting the need to conduct more study to understand the shift, which has occurred as more states have adopted permitless carry laws and messages in gun-industry marketing have encouraged Americans to take their weapons with them for personal protection.
"In a country awash with guns, with more firearms than people, the parked car, or in many cases the parked pickup truck, has become a new flashpoint in the debates over how and whether to regulate gun safety," said The New York Times (NYT) on Saturday in its report of the data.
As the problem has grown, public health officials and lawmakers, including some in Tennessee, have proposed a rather prosaic solution: encouraging or mandating that gun-toting drivers store their weapons in their vehicles inside of sturdy, lockable gun boxes, said the report.
"Gun control advocates are hoping that the adoption of the boxes in cars will come to be seen as a solution that both sides of the gun debate can accept, much as both sides encourage the use of gun safes and trigger locks in the home," it noted.
But some experts say widespread adoption of the boxes may require a dramatic cultural change akin to the revolution in seatbelt use. And it may prove to be even more polarizing than seatbelts ever were, it added.
