Russia flooded with up to 300,000 lost or stolen weapons

As of January 1, 2004, more than 162,000 weapons were officially listed as lost or stolen in Russia, including more than 64,000 with sawed-off barrels. This estimate was made public Thursday at a Russian Interior Ministry press briefing by Major General Leonid Vedenov, deputy chief of the ministry's Main Administration for Public Security. He also said that the actual figure is at least 100,000 to 150,000 weapons higher. He noted, too, that Russian citizens voluntarily turned in more than 34,000 weapons in 2003. 'One result of that, for example, was the decline of crimes involving weapons by 32% in the Khabarovsk area,' Vedenov said.