Smith and Wesson handguns are displayed during the 2015 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Nashville, Tenn. Nashville had the fifth-highest reported gun theft rate in 2022, with 210 incidents per 100,000 residents. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A growing number of firearms are being stolen from parked cars, especially in urban areas, according to a new report that highlights a frequently overlooked source of illegally circulating guns.

The nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice released an analysis examining five years of gun theft data reported to law enforcement in 16 cities — both urban and rural — with populations over 250,000. The analysis found that while the overall rate of reported gun thefts remained steady between 2018 and 2022, gun thefts from motor vehicles rose sharply.

The number of guns reported stolen from vehicles increased by 31% over the five-year period, while gun thefts during burglaries of homes and businesses fell by 40%. In large urban areas, the overall gun theft rate jumped by 42% between 2018 and 2022, while rural areas saw a 22% decline.

The findings are based on data from more than 2,000 law enforcement agencies across the country that consistently submitted detailed crime reports to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System between 2018 and 2022. Together, those agencies represent about 25% of the U.S. population and 12% of all law enforcement agencies nationwide.

As gun violence continues to grip communities across the country, a growing body of research suggests that firearm theft — particularly from vehicles — is a key, but often overlooked, source of weapons used in crimes. While research remains limited, some studies show stolen guns are disproportionately recovered at crime scenes, and gun violence tends to rise in areas where thefts have occurred.

Yet national data on gun theft remains sparse and there is no nationwide system for tracking stolen guns. Even basic details — such as how many guns are taken in each reported incident — are often missing from official police reports.

With crime and firearm policy high on the Trump administration’s agenda, experts say more research is urgently needed to understand how stolen guns fuel broader cycles of violence.

“We really don’t have a full national picture of stolen guns,” said Susan Parker, one of the report’s authors and a research assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University. “It’s really difficult to think about prevention when you don’t know much.”

The report’s findings suggest that parked cars have become a major weak point in firearm security — one that could be addressed through policy, public education and better data collection.

Some states, including Colorado and Delaware, have recently passed laws requiring firearms stored in vehicles to be locked in secure containers. In recent years, several other states have considered similar measures, including legislation mandating safe storage and stricter reporting requirements for lost or stolen guns.

Currently, just 16 states and the District of Columbia require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement, according to the Giffords Law Center, a nonpartisan gun safety group.

“Where you store your gun really matters. We see that so many of the guns that are stolen are increasingly from vehicles,” Parker said. “That kind of shift in how we’re carrying guns should also maybe be accompanied by shifts in how we’re thinking about keeping them safe and out of the risk of being misused.”

Among the 16 cities included in the report, Memphis, Tennessee, had the highest rate of gun thefts in 2022 — 546 reported incidents per 100,000 residents. That’s nearly double the rate in Detroit, which ranked second at 297 per 100,000, and more than 10 times higher than in Seattle, which had the lowest rate at 44 per 100,000.

Kansas City, Missouri, had the third-highest rate at 234 per 100,000, followed by Milwaukee, at 219 per 100,000, and Nashville, Tennessee, at 210 per 100,000.

While residences remained the most common place guns were stolen from overall, the share of gun thefts occurring in parking lots, garages and on roads rose significantly. By 2022, 40% of all reported gun thefts involved a vehicle, up from 31% in 2018.

Vehicle break-ins resulting in stolen firearms nearly doubled in urban areas — from 37 per 100,000 people in 2018 to 65 per 100,000 people in 2022.

As parked vehicles have become a more frequent target for thieves, the locations of those thefts have shifted. In 2018, about half of all reported gun thefts from vehicles occurred at residences. By 2022, that share had dropped to roughly 40%, while thefts from vehicles in parking lots and garages rose by 76%. The report also found significant increases in gun thefts from vehicles on roads, highways and alleys — up 59% over the five-year period.

In the most rural areas, where gun ownership is often more common, the share of vehicle break-ins that resulted in gun theft rose from 18% to 24%. In urban areas, that figure increased from 6% to 10.5%.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Participants walk through the Broadway Townhouses in Camden, N.J., as part of a training program to help neighborhoods affected by violence. The Community-Based Public Safety Collective, which offered the training, is one of at least 554 organizations affected by the U.S. Department of Justice’s abrupt termination in April of at least 373 public safety grants. (Photo courtesy of Aqeela Sherrills)

Community-based violence intervention programs nationwide have long worked alongside law enforcement officers to deescalate conflict, prevent retaliatory shootings and, in some cases, arrive at crime scenes before police do.

In many communities, these initiatives have been credited with saving lives and reducing violence.

But the Trump administration last month abruptly terminated at least 373 public safety grants from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, pulling roughly $500 million in remaining funds across a range of programs, according to a new report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonprofit think tank. The cuts come just as summer is approaching — a season when violence consistently peaks.

The grants were initially valued at $820 million, but many were multiyear awards at different stages of rollout, which means some of the money has already been spent.

At least 554 organizations across 48 states are affected by the cuts, many of them small, community-based nonprofits that rely on this money. The rescinded grants supported everything from violence prevention and policing to victim advocacy, reentry services, research, and mental health and substance use treatment. Some of the grants also were cut from state and local government agencies.

Another new report from the Council on Criminal Justice dug deeper into local effects: It found that the Trump administration’s cuts also eliminated 473 minigrants — known as “subawards” — passed from primary recipients to smaller groups that often face challenges accessing federal dollars directly, such as rural government agencies and grassroots nonprofits.

About $5 million of those subawards was intended for state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies working to reduce violence in rural areas, according to the report.

Experts warn the timing couldn’t be worse. The summer months — historically linked to higher rates of violent crimes — are approaching, and the safety net in many cities is fraying. A growing body of research has found a correlation between spikes in temperature and violent crime, with studies suggesting that heat waves and sudden weather swings can inflame tensions and increase aggression.

“These programs are having to cut staff and cut services, and that will be felt in communities in states all over the country at exactly the time when they’re most needed,” said Amy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice and the lead author of the report.

Solomon also previously served as assistant U.S. attorney general in the Biden administration, where she led the Office of Justice Programs — the Justice Department’s largest grantmaking agency.

Many of the primary grants that were terminated contained no references to race, gender or diversity-related language, according to the report — despite claims from federal officials that such criteria were driving the cuts. Primary grant recipients received their funding from the feds directly.

‘Wasteful grants’

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the cuts in a late April post on X, stating that the department has cut “millions of dollars in wasteful grants.” She also signaled that additional cuts may be on the way. In her post, she specifically cited grants that supported LGBTQ+ liaison services in police departments and programs providing gender-affirming care and housing for incarcerated transgender people.

The Department of Justice’s cuts come amid a broader push by the Trump administration and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency to pull funding from a range of federal programs — a move they say is aimed at reducing spending and saving taxpayer dollars.

For some groups, the sudden withdrawal of funds has meant scaling back crime victim services or pulling out of some neighborhoods altogether.

Community violence prevention groups aim to stop shootings and other forms of violence before they happen by working directly with those most at risk. Staff — often with experience in the justice system — mediate conflicts, respond to crises, and connect people to support such as counseling or job training. In some cities, they’re dispatched to high-risk areas to deescalate tensions, often before police arrive.

And research shows that community-level violence prevention programs can contribute to drops in crime.

After a historic surge in homicides in 2020, violent crime in the United States dropped in 2024 to pre-pandemic levels — or even lower — in many cities. Preliminary 2025 data suggests that the downward trend is continuing in major cities, including Baltimore, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

But the progress hasn’t reached every community. Some neighborhoods are still grappling with high rates of gun violence and car theft.

Organizations that faced the toughest financial cuts had been funded through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative — the federal government’s primary mechanism for supporting this work.

Since the program’s launch in 2022, the federal Office of Justice Programs has invested about $300 million in community violence intervention efforts and related research. But nearly half of that funding has now been wiped out, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report.

“It’s really unprecedented to see these kinds of grants cut midstream,” Solomon told Stateline. “This was an effort that had bipartisan support [in Congress] and in the field all across the country.”

Impact on communities nationwide

In late April, Aqeela Sherrills received a letter from the federal Justice Department terminating a $3.5 million grant that supported the Community-Based Public Safety Collective. Sherrills is the co-founder and executive director of the national organization, which focuses on community-led approaches to preventing violence, including mediating conflicts, building relationships in high-risk neighborhoods and connecting people to resources such as housing, mental health care and job training.

The letter said the organization’s efforts no longer aligned with the federal Justice Department’s priorities, which include supporting “certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, and supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault.”

Until the end of April, the collective had an agreement with the Justice Department to provide training and technical assistance to 95 local groups — including community groups, police departments, city and county governments, and state agencies — that had each been awarded $2 million over three years to run community violence intervention programs.

But after the department cut $3.5 million, the Community-Based Public Safety Collective was forced to lay off 20 staff members.

“Without the significant funding … it destabilizes the organizations. People’s ability to be able to provide for themselves and their family is at risk,” Sherrills said in an interview. “We’re bracing for what could potentially be a high-violence summer.”

The deepest funding cuts hit states led by both Republican and Democratic governors, including California, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and Washington.

About $145 million in violence intervention funding was rescinded overall, along with an additional $8.6 million for related research and evaluation efforts, according to the Council on Criminal Justice report.

Some of the canceled grants funded studies and research on forensics, policing, corrections issues and behavioral health. Now, those projects may be left unfinished.

Some of the largest losses hit intermediary organizations, such as the Community-Based Public Safety Collective, that support smaller programs by providing microgrants, training and technical assistance.

For organizations such as the Newark Community Street Team in New Jersey, the loss of federal funding has left some areas of the city without coverage.

The funding had allowed staff to monitor neighborhoods and engage directly with community members to prevent violence. That included weekly community walks, where team members connected with victims of crime and people who may have witnessed violence, linking them to resources such as counseling or legal aid. The team also operates a hotline where residents can report crimes or alert staff to tensions that might escalate — allowing the team to step in before violence occurred.

Some of the lost funding also supported school-based initiatives, where mediators helped students resolve conflicts before they escalated into fights or other forms of violence.

Of the 15 Newark positions affected by the cuts, four employees were reassigned to other departments; the others were let go. Some of the team’s staff members are formerly incarcerated, a vital trait that helps them connect with residents and build trust in communities that are often wary of traditional law enforcement.

“We just have to continue working and serving our community the best we can,” said Rey Chavis, the executive director of the street team.

That work appears to be contributing to a decrease in the community’s crime rates.

City crime data from Jan. 1 to April 30, 2025, shows a significant drop in violent crime in Newark compared with the same period in 2024. The total number of violent crimes reported to police fell by 49%, driven largely by a 68% decrease in robberies, according to Stateline’s analysis of the data. Homicides dropped by 53%, while aggravated assaults declined by 43%. Rapes dropped slightly by 3%.

Stateline reporter Amanda Hernández can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.