410 guns have been stolen from cars in Richmond this year. One area has been a particular hotspot.
The Richmond Police Department said 410 guns have been stolen from vehicles across the city this year, with more than a quarter stolen from cars in Shockoe Bottom or Shockoe Slip.
People are “leaving guns in their cars when they go to the club,” said Richmond Police Chief Rick Edwards at a crime briefing Wednesday. “And those guns end up in the hands of criminals.”
Edwards said the 16-year-old who shot a Richmond police officer in the hand last month during a traffic stop near Fairfield Court used a gun stolen from an unlocked car in one of the surrounding counties.
“That child should not have had access to that gun,” said Edwards. “It’s frustrating to me, and I want our community to understand that the Second Amendment’s a right; it’s also a responsibility. Secure your guns.”
Edwards said most of the vehicles from which guns are stolen are unlocked at the time of the theft.
A May 2024 report from gun control group Everytown found Richmond had one of the highest rates of gun thefts from cars in 2022, outstripped only by Memphis, Atlanta and St. Louis. Portsmouth and Norfolk also ranked in the top 10.
Everytown found that “the rate of gun thefts from cars is triple what it was a decade ago.”
According to data provided by Richmond Police Department spokesperson James Mercante, there were 714 firearms stolen from vehicles in the city in 2022 and 644 stolen in 2023. Those figures reflect a spike that apparently began around 2018, when there were 2012 firearm thefts from cars.
During the last session of the General Assembly, Democratic lawmakers passed legislation that would have created a $500 civil penalty for leaving a handgun in an unattended vehicle if the firearm was visible to anyone outside the car. Supporters cited the Richmond data as an example of why legislation was needed.
The measure was vetoed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who said it “penalizes law-abiding Virginians for leaving a firearm in their vehicle, regardless of any other circumstances, punishing victims of crimes committed by another individual.”
