While I don’t have hard data to back this statement up, I speculate some of these “lost” fire arms were part of straw purchases and they know their friend or cousin or whomever has it. But when confronted with why they no longer have it in possession, they simply say it must have gotten lost. (When I get time I will read the PDF you link, maybe they expand on this.)
Though the other side of that would be maybe people at a skeet/rifle/pistol range who somehow when loading up everyone’s stuff left a gun on the rack. Similar would be it’s dark, you’re dressing a deer, and you left your rifle leaning up on tree when you drove off (I know someone who found a rifle that way.) Another would be leaving a pistol in the bathroom with all the CCW. One would think with the $$$$ and paperwork associated with some of those items (machine guns and silencers) people would be more careful, but peoples’ lives are on their phones now and they get lost lost all the time (also wonder in these two areas if they are cops or manufacturers.) Still out of ~80,000,000 owners a bit over 9000 lost is a really low rate (.011%)
And of course all those tragic, tragic boating accidents…
Clerical error where it wasn’t properly labeled?
