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Missing police and home guard weapons a potential threat
Stephen Gadd
May 17th, 2017
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This article is more than 7 years old.
Since 2011, a number of fully-functional firearms have gone missing from the home guard, police, the nation’s intelligence agency (PET), and the armed forces
Let’s hope this one doesn’t go ‘walkabout’ (photo: Stave)
Experts are concerned that unaccounted-for weapons from various state bodies could fall into the wrong hands and be used either by criminals or terrorists.
Since 2011, at least 37 weapons have gone missing, 16 of which have still not been found, Metroexpress reports.
READ ALSO: Police find massive weapons cache in Copenhagen
Seven of the 16 are training models which cannot be used with live ammunition but look like the real thing, so there could still be a danger of them being used to threaten people.
The final nine are fully-functioning 9mm pistols or fully-automatic M95 and M96 rifles, which in the wrong hands, can cause a lot of damage.
The authorities involved were not prepared to comment on how these weapons were able to ‘disappear’ or what is being done to recover them.
However, it is known from previous incidents that weapons are sometimes forgotten during exercises, mislaid during storage or stolen – as was the case in 2009 where 200 weapons were taken from an army barracks at Antvorskov.
Lucky to get them back
Former PET boss, Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, says that it is usually purely by chance that the weapons are recovered and returned to their rightful owners. This can be “as a result of chance finds in connection with a raid on a biker gang or similar persons who have an interest in using weapons.”
From the political side, a member of Socialdemokratiet’s defence committee, Tina Bramsen, said “It is completely unacceptable that the Danish authorities loose weapons – and so many of them. We expect them to do something to tighten things up considerably in this area.”
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