Most gun safes are Faraday cages when closed and locked. This means that not all guns are locatable at any given time, and the majority of non-locatable guns would be entirely legitimate.
And as counterexample to your claims, I propose the smartphone. Every smartphone, intrinsic to its normal operation, is locatable with a high degree of precision to a single building, yet most smartphone thefts are not ever prosecuted, nor any attempt at recovery ever made. The carriers themselves have even resisted efforts to remotely deactivate those stolen phones, even though it would be trivial from a technical standpoint.
Clearly, GPS beacons do not prevent, deter, or reverse thefts. I have no reason to believe that cops would be any better at catching tracked-gun thieves than they are at catching smartphone thieves.
And as counterexample to your claims, I propose the smartphone. Every smartphone, intrinsic to its normal operation, is locatable with a high degree of precision to a single building, yet most smartphone thefts are not ever prosecuted, nor any attempt at recovery ever made. The carriers themselves have even resisted efforts to remotely deactivate those stolen phones, even though it would be trivial from a technical standpoint.
Clearly, GPS beacons do not prevent, deter, or reverse thefts. I have no reason to believe that cops would be any better at catching tracked-gun thieves than they are at catching smartphone thieves.