A civilian picked up an M4 rifle that fell off a Delaware National Guard truck earlier this month as it drove toward a training center. When police tracked down the weapon the next day, the person who’d picked it up had yet to report that they’d found it.
Delaware officials did not say if the finder planned on keeping the gun and an investigation of the incident by state police ended in no charges being filed.
The M4 came loose from the Delaware National Guard truck somewhere along a 30-mile drive from New Castle, Delaware to the Smyrna Readiness Center, a guard spokesperson told Task & Purpose. The truck was carrying rifles belonging to nearly 300 troops who were prepping to “take possession of each weapon” before heading to DC for the Presidential inauguration, according to Delaware National Guard spokesperson Maj. Bernie Kale.
The Delaware guardsmen joined more than 7,000 other National Guard troops in and around Washington during the Presidential inauguration, officials said.
When guard officials realized a rifle was missing, they filed a police report. State police found the rifle the next day and identified the license plate of the person who had picked it up, Kale said. The civilian, police found, had picked up the weapon and “didn’t immediately report it,” Kale said.
Delaware State Police officials said they assisted the National Guard with locating the weapon.
A Delaware National Guard press release asking for the public’s help locating the M4 had been sent out Jan. 17, prompting local news coverage. However only a few minutes later, guard officials were notified that the rifle was found, Kale said.
In Delaware, a person can be charged with a misdemeanor for “receiving stolen property” and “intentionally” receiving, retaining or disposing of it “with intent to deprive the owner of it or to appropriate it, knowing that it has been acquired under circumstances amounting to theft, or believing that it has been so acquired,” according to the state’s criminal code. If the property is valued at $1,500 or more, it can be classified as a felony.
Delaware Guard and local law enforcement officials decided not to press charges against the civilian in question, according to Kale. State police officials said, “no one is being investigated for finding the weapon.”
The guard is looking into its internal policies to figure out how and why the M4 fell off the military vehicle. Officials are “still conducting a review” so it’s unclear if any troops will be punished for the mishap, Kale said.
But there are few sins in the military more egregious than losing a weapon. Military life is rife with examples of entire units — sometimes whole bases — being held at work for days, even over weekends, when a rifle, grenade or other controlled item disappears. The Delaware National Guard rifle is the latest incident of military property going unaccounted for. bureaucracy that keeps a close eye on its equipment worth millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
In January, three Humvees were stolen from an Army Reserve Center in Tustin, California and in June 2024, 31 pistols and optics were stolen from Fort Moore, Georgia – prompting Army officials to put out a $15,000 reward.
In June 2022, a loaded M4 rifle was left in an unlocked Texas National Guard vehicle at the Texas-Mexico border and found by the director of a butterfly conservatory who bragged on social media that she had nabbed the weapon.
“Guess the truck could’ve been mine, too,” she wrote.
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