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Alberta law enforcement agencies are alarmed at how often and how many guns they are coming in contact with in their day-to-day policing efforts.

More than 4,500 firearms have been stolen in Alberta’s RCMP districts over the past four years at a rate of more than three a day. Only a fraction of them are ever recovered.

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The number of firearms stolen has jumped 66 per cent between 2013 and 2016 and that doesn’t include guns stolen in the larger centres of Calgary and Edmonton.

Last year RCMP officers in Alberta alone came in contact with 7,957 firearms, including guns that were stolen, recovered, seized, used in crime or turned in for disposal, says RCMP Sgt. Jack Poitras.

Of those, 4,313 guns were seized.

“It’s very concerning any time you have that many guns stolen because you don’t know where they end up. The numbers we are encountering is growing,” Poitras said.

“That really puts into perspective that the likelihood of members out and about doing patrols coming in contact with firearms is pretty great.”