(AP) — Authorities in California’s agricultural heartland weren’t looking for a military assault rifle when they went to investigate the domestic assault case, but they found one.
It was one of 26 AK-74s stolen a decade ago from Fort Irwin, an Army base in the Mojave Desert.
The guns were among the at least 1,900 U.S. military firearms that an Associated Press investigation found were lost or stolen over the last decade.
The Pentagon and armed services note that missing firearms are a tiny fraction of the military’s stockpile. While 17 of the AK-74s have been recovered, some in the hands of street gang members, nine remain missing.
