A man parked his Toyota Prius at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center in March and left his gun bag in the car.

Inside the bag was a $2,000 stainless steel handgun with white ivory grips.

It was an unseasonably warm afternoon with a light breeze and no surveillance cameras around. Someone busted out the rear window, reached in, grabbed the gun bag and took off.

This type of crime — stealing a gun from a car — used to occur less than once a week in Springfield, police say.

Now it's more like every other day.

And those thefts can come with fatal consequences.

In April, a month after the car break-in at the Nature Center, that stainless steel handgun with white ivory grips was in the hands of a dangerous man wanted for parole violations.

Greene County sheriff's deputies were chasing him through a wooded area when he raised the gun toward them.

He had just shouted: "I got a full clip, m-----f-----."

Two deputies fired, riddling the man's body with bullets.

He died at the scene.

The News-Leader requested data from the Springfield Police Department and found that the rate of guns stolen from cars has quadrupled in recent years.

From 2011 to 2014, the rate had been holding steady. The annual numbers bounced between 41 and 50.

Then it crept to 62 in 2015, climbed to 98 in 2016 and jumped to 185 in 2017.

As of Oct. 8, 123 guns had been stolen from cars in 2018 — putting the city on pace to hit 160 by year's end.

Those are just the thefts that get reported to police. The real number of guns stolen from cars could be higher.

According to the Giffords Law Center, an organization that researches gun violence in America, 11 states have some form of a law that requires owners to file a report if their firearm is stolen.

Missouri is not one of those states.

Police Chief Paul Williams said he doesn't think Missouri or Springfield needs a law or ordinance like that.

“We have a lot of responsible gun owners," Willams said. "I don’t think we have a lot of unreported gun thefts.”

He said the rising number of guns stolen from cars is "not surprising."

Williams said that more Missourians have been choosing to carry guns since a law went into effect in 2017 that no longer requires residents to have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Those people are subsequently leaving those guns in glove boxes and center consoles, Williams said, then leaving those cars unlocked.

According to Williams, crime analysts at the police department have looked at the numbers, and it does not appear that thieves are targeting cars specifically for guns.

To get a better picture of the issue in Springfield, the News-Leader requested the 10 most recent police reports of firearms being stolen from cars.

One man parked a pickup truck near O'Reilly Automotive headquarters and left a spare key in the fender well. A thief spied the key and scooped the 9-millimeter handgun left in the glove compartment.

A woman put her shotgun in her trunk and kept it covered with a blanket, but she parked her car downtown and left it unlocked.

Guns were stolen from cars parked at both CoxHealth and Mercy hospitals. One was stolen outside the nightclub Midnight Rodeo.

One woman reported her light blue Glock was stolen in a parking lot at Missouri State University.

"I have a door that doesn’t lock on the passenger side so I never lock my doors," the woman wrote in her report. "I always have my gun in my glove box or middle console I have classes on campus 3 days of the week where I leave my car unlocked and unattended."

When asked if he found this particular case frustrating, Chief Williams said it was "absolutely frustrating."

He said gun owners should be securing their firearms, locking their cars and writing down the serial numbers of their guns in case they get stolen.

Of the 10 incidents, police reports indicate there were only three instances of thieves forcing entry into the cars. Nine of the stolen firearms were handguns.

The guns were mostly kept in glove compartments or center consoles, police reports say, and none was secured under lock.

David Chipman said this problem is not specific to Springfield.

Chipman was an agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for 25 years. Now he's a senior policy adviser at the Giffords Law Center.

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He said he attended a conference this month in Orlando, Florida, for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the issue of guns stolen from cars was specifically discussed. Chief Williams was there, too, though he said he was not aware of any sessions that discussed this issue.

“Theft of firearms from cars has been an emerging threat we’ve been talking about,” Chipman said. “It’s a real problem.”

Chipman, a Michigan native, explained the problem like this: A man from the suburbs of Detroit wanted to bring his gun with him when he went downtown to see the Red Wings play at Joe Louis Arena.

However, the arena didn't allow firearms inside, so people were forced to leave handguns in their cars.

"Criminals know that," Chipman said. "...This is an urgent, national issue.”

As Americans increasingly carry concealed weapons for self-defense, Chipman said, those guns are often left in cars unsecured — and perfect for the taking.

Chipman said there's an easy fix for this.

Gun safes for cars can be purchased for as little as $20, he said.

The owner of Cherokee Firearms in Springfield, Nick Newman, said he doesn't sell car-specific gun safes. Instead, he sells safes that come with cables that can be attached to car seat frames or a sturdy part of the car.

“Over the last few years, we’ve sold a lot more of them than we used to," Newman said. "And they’re not expensive.”

He said prices range from $30 to $200.

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Newman said he's not surprised by the growing rate of guns stolen from cars. He said Cherokee Firearms advises its customers to plan ahead if they want to carry a firearm.

"It's a problem that's easy to fix," Newman said. "Carrying a gun is a big responsibility."

Chipman, the former ATF agent, said a new parent would never drive his or her child around without a proper car seat. The same mentality needs to be in place when it comes to firearms in cars, he said.

"We need responsible gun owners to not even consider leaving a gun temporarily unsecured in their vehicle," Chipman said.

In Missouri — and most places in the country — it's legal to keep an unsecured gun in a car.

But just because it's legal doesn't mean it's smart, Chipman said.

According to the Giffords Law Center, only one state "generally requires that all firearms be stored with a lock in place" — Massachusetts.

Massachusetts also has the lowest rate of firearm deaths of any state, 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people, according to 2016 numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC says Missouri has the sixth-highest rate of firearm deaths at 19 deaths per 100,000 people.

The News-Leader reached out to the owner of the stainless steel handgun with the white ivory grips to see if he had made any changes to the way he stores firearms.

The owner declined to comment.

As the rate of guns stolen from cars has increased, police data show the rate of general gun theft in Springfield has risen, too — though not as dramatically.

In 2011, 294 guns were stolen. The annual number increased some over the next three years, then climbed to 397 guns in 2015 and 515 guns in 2016.

Technically, more than 1,300 guns were reported stolen in 2017, but about half those guns were stolen in one night, when a crew of men allegedly targeted UPS trucks filled with guns bound for Bass Pro Shops.

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As of Oct. 8, there were 470 guns reported stolen in 2018, putting the city on track for about 610 by the year's end.

The number of general thefts from cars has not had a clear trend over the same time period.

The total number of reports in 2011 was 3,582. The low point came in 2014 with 2,900 reports.

That number steadily climbed, spiking in 2017 at 4,931.

But through 2018, the number has dropped precipitously.

As of Oct. 8., there were 2,635 thefts from vehicles, putting the city on track for about 3,423 by the year's end.