SAN DIEGO — San Diego Police Captain Laura McLean opens up a locked door in a subterranean room deep inside of police headquarters.
Hundreds of white boxes with labels and dates line the walls. Inside the white boxes are the guns used in San Diego's most violent crimes over the past 99 years. The guns include those used in murders, sex assaults, officer-involved shootings, as well as thousands of others that police confiscated for safekeeping.
"We need to keep weapons used in murders, officer-involved shootings for 99 years to make sure they are not needed for any future court hearings, appeals, or for other purposes," said Captain McLean. "As for the firearms used in sex crimes, we'll handle those until detectives let us know that we can dispose of those weapons at that time."
Since 2018, police officers in San Diego have confiscated 13,252 guns, an average of 2,200 a year, according to records obtained by CBS 8.
Of the 13,252 firearms that were confiscated from 2018 through December 13, 2023, nearly 6,000 have been destroyed while others are held inside the locked and secure room.
Even for the most experienced such as Captain McLean, the rows and rows of boxed guns - some used in heinous and brutal crimes, others confiscated by the police to safeguard from owners who are deemed unfit to possess them, and others that were found abandoned - is unsettling to think about.
"It's a bit scary thinking that a lot of these guns were used in crimes," said Captain McLean. There are also a lot of ghost guns that were made by unknown subjects. So, yes, it can be slightly daunting to think how many we have that's a lot of guns, legal or illegal, that are out there."
According to data obtained by CBS 8 through a public records request, of the more than 13,000 guns that have been confiscated since 2018, 8,687 were handguns, 3,021 were long guns, a classification that includes assault weapons, and the remaining 1,544 were shotguns.
Of the more than 13,000 firearms that were seized or acquired by San Diego Police since 2018, the majority, 6,339, were taken as evidence in crimes whereas 4,961 were taken for safekeeping, whether because the gun owner was not fit to possess the gun due to mental health issues, or possibly turned over by concerned family members.
And while SDPD needs three rooms to fit those guns confiscated since 2018, Captain McLean says it is only a small fraction of the total number of firearms that are on the streets, or owned by responsible gun owners, an important reminder, says McLean about a growing number of illegal guns.
"We only have a very small fraction of what is out there," Captain McLean said. "Every day, my supervisors send me a list of just the ghost guns that are impounded every week, and that number goes up substantially. So it's it's kind of mind-blowing to know exactly what's out there that we don't even see."
Upon closer look at the data, there is a high number of high-powered assault weapons, those synonymous with mass shootings, that were confiscated by police over the past six years.
More than 22 percent of the guns that were seized were those classified as long guns which include automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
Of the more than 3,000 long guns that SDPD confiscated, 882 were used in some type of crime or are stored for evidentiary reasons while more than half of confiscated long guns, 1,539, were taken for safekeeping from those who were unfit to have them.