ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this April 2, 2015, photo made available by the U.S. Air Force, a senior airman from the 49th Security Forces Squadron in charge of the armory, returns an M4 carbine to a rack at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M. The Pentagon used to share annual updates about missing weapons with Congress, but that requirement ended and, with it, public accountability has slipped. The Army and Air Force couldn’t readily tell AP how many weapons they were missing from 2010 through 2019.
Military weapons including pistols and submachine guns have been lost or stolen from bases in Alabama.
An Associated Press investigation into firearms missing from the U.S. armed services shows at least 39 guns disappeared or were recovered in Alabama between 2010 and 2019.
Most were associated with Anniston Army Depot, where a wall-to-wall inventory check of a Defense Logistics Agency warehouse revealed that 34 weapons were missing. The check began in January of 2016 and was completed that July.
According to an investigative file from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service that AP obtained, the unaccounted-for weapons included seven MP5 submachine guns, and various types of pistols made by Colt, Sig Sauer and Beretta. identified and the case was closed in 2018.
The weapons are among at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms that AP learned were unaccounted for during the last decade.
Intended for war, some guns ended up on America’s streets. Army pistols, for example, were used in violent crimes including shootings and robbery.
Military officials say missing firearms are a tiny fraction of their stockpile, and note that some are recovered.