According to complaints registered with the PSP, at least one firearm is stolen in Portugal every three days. CM The PSP said that between January 1, 2019 and June 30 of this year, there were 437 reports of theft of 580 guns. These are legal weapons (some would be illegal but for the death of the owners) and most, according to police, are of the B1 (6.35mm semi-automatic pistols and .32 caliber revolvers) and D (.32 type shotguns, such as semi-automatic, magazine or shotguns). According to an official PSP source, “most of the crimes are committed in residential buildings (households).” The guns are not the target of these thefts, but are found outside of safes where they are legally required to be kept, and they become a desirable asset for the burglars, who then keep them or sell them, with some of them ending up being used in crimes like robberies. Another police source stresses CM the importance of storing guns in safes, as required by law. But also that they are not left in vehicles – for example by hunters – because “a significant number of gun thefts occur in ‘regular’ van and car robberies.” In the first half of this year, 27 firearms were stolen – half of the 58 stolen in the first six months of 2023.