Against a backdrop of rising gun thefts nationally, a stolen gun is recovered by authorities in Chico an average of once every eight days. And while nearly three-fourths of all stolen guns in the city are pistols, multiple stolen assault rifles are recovered each year.
That’s based on data from an 18-month investigation by The Trace, a nonprofit news organization, and more than a dozen NBC-owned television stations, which collected information on stolen guns from hundreds of law enforcement agencies and collaborated on a series of reports last year.
“American gun owners, preoccupied with self-defense, are inadvertently arming the very criminals they fear,” says The Trace’s Nov. 20, 2017, story.