ATF Report: Over 12,000 Guns Stolen From Gun Stores in Two Years

More than 12,000 handguns, shotguns, and rifles were stolen from gun stores between 2013 and 2015, an increase of 28 percent, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

More than 1,100 federally licensed gun dealers were robbed, according to ABC News.

"We know from experience that as soon as those guns are stolen, we have a very short period of time between when those guns go from the legal market into criminal hands and then are being used in crimes almost instantly," ATF resident agent in charge, Scott Fulkerson, said in the ABC News report.

Guns from a burglarized gun store in Rapid City, South Dakota were allegedly found with Stephen Ray Schuster, a suspect in an armed carjacking in Aurora, Colorado.

Powhatan, Virginia gun dealer Kevin Penrose noted that he has increased his store's security using a light alarm. "As soon as anything is broken, everything goes off," Penrose said.

Federally licensed arms dealers can maintain electronic records of sales without getting approval from the ATF, thanks to a rule that took effect April 29, according to The Trace. Previously, gun owners were required to use their own servers if they wanted to use electronic record keeping.

Many sellers still use "bound books," paper records that require time-consuming physical searches by investigators, according to the Trace report.

Sacramento's CBS 13 reported that in the capital city of California, a gun dealer was coaching people on how to make rifles untraceable. He is awaiting sentencing for helping to create untraceable weapons.

The ATF said that Arkansas had more lost firearms than any other U.S. state in 2015, according to the Baxter Bulletin. The ATF reported that the state had 2,754 lost firearms in 2015, six times more than any other state.

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