ALBANY, Ga. – Military weapons including assault rifles and pistols have been lost or stolen from bases in Georgia.
An Associated Press investigation into firearms missing from the U.S. armed services shows at least 37 guns disappeared or were recovered in Georgia between 2010 and 2019.
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Locations included Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany and Fort Benning, where in 2016 a soldier lost an M4 assault rifle during training. According to an investigative summary obtained by AP, Army criminal investigators reviewed surveillance images and interviewed witnesses but couldn’t locate the missing weapon.
At Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, five warehouse workers took lie detector tests after two inoperable Beretta M9 pistols disappeared, according to a 2014 Naval Criminal Investigative Service file.
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.