The U.S. Military Doesn't Even Track How Many Weapons It Loses, And It Has Lost Thousands
A damning investigative report published by The Associated Press today details how over 2,000 weapons have gone missing from military arsenals between 2010 and 2019. While the data set was far from complete, what the outlet did obtain shows a worrying pattern of lost and stolen weapons, some of which ended up in the hands of criminals who used them in the commission of violent crimes, while others were even simply discarded in public parks.
The Associated Press's investigation states that, between 2010 and 2019, these weapons went missing or were deliberately taken from a wide variety of locations, including armories, warehouses, firing ranges, Navy vessels, or even while in transit. Reasons cited in the report included unlocked doors, burglary, security personnel falling asleep, or lapses in surveillance and other security systems. 1,504 weapons were reported missing or stolen from the Army, 211 from the Navy, 204 from the Marines, and 39 were categorized as "Other," which presumably includes the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Defense security forces like the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.
While the Marines and Navy offered their own figures about weapons lost or stolen throughout the last decade, the Army and Air Force did not willingly provide The Associated Press with exact numbers about how many of their weapons were unaccounted for, so the report instead relied on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for military criminal case files, as well as internal military small arms registries. One of those FOIA requests filed with the Army’s Office of the Provost Marshal General revealed 1,303 lost firearms from the Army alone. The AP reported the Air Force was less cooperative:
