Difference being it was lost....not stolen.
Kinda gray on that point. It was accidentally left behind, not abandoned in the true sense, and Buckingham returned shortly after to retrieve it and then made a well-publicized effort to recover it. I don't know how finders/keepers laws work exactly, but it would be hard to argue that he abandoned the gun for someone else to take possession of.
On the other hand when Bo-Whoop did resurface, did anyone contend that it was stolen property? I wonder if the statute of limitations had run at that point.
