In my hands, moments ago, was a Mossberg Maverick 88.
It is owned by the woman who does all the inkwork on The Wife and I. It was stolen out of her closet two years ago and returned to her two weeks ago. The police took it off a 20-something small-time criminal. It is beat up, rusted on the barrel and mag tube, has deep scratches up and down both sides and the top of the receiver and gouges in the stock and front pump grip.
Since it is a shotgun, they thankfully can’t trace it to any particular crime. Luckily for her.
I’m going to try and get it looking a bit more respectable, if I can. If I can’t I’ll get quotes for refinishing and see where she wants to go from there. Right now she’s thinking of having it powdercoated pink. “What criminal would want a pink gun?” she said.
On a similar note….
I was informed by one of my co-workers last night that his son had his 1911 stolen out of his car last weekend while he and his girlfriend were in a bar. Luckily for him, the police recovered it off a known felon Monday night and returned it to him on Tuesday.
I don’t care if it’s a $50 lockbox you bought at the local hardware store. Lock down your guns. Tell everyone you know to do so too.
Annoyed at “report your stolen firearms within 24 hours or you’re going to jail” laws getting proposed/enacted? Lock down your guns. Tell everyone you know to do so too.
Pissed off at “safe storage” mandates being proposed/enacted? Lock down your guns. Tell everyone you know to do so too.
If we can lower the number of firearms being stolen and entering the black market, these proposals will begin to go away.
Stupid Storage = Stolen firearms.
No they won’t.
Report laws are about recovering guns. They are about closing off a possible legal defense against laws that forbid private sales.
If you forbid private sales, and discover an unpapered firearm, you have to prove it wasn’t lost or stolen to prosecute the original owner … unless not reporting the loss is now a crime.
Yes, locking up firearms when not in use is prudent. But don’t assume that will prevent this kind of gun control law.
The only thing that will prevent a new gun control law is berserk resistance on all fronts.
What K said. Can you give me ANY instance where the use of common sense forestalled the Nanny State? I can’t think of any. The Nanny State isn’t about doing the smart thing, or doing the moral thing, it’s about doing whatever will give the nannies more authority over your personal life.
Then, to both of you, take away their easy excuse. Make them come up with one that’ll make everyone who hears it say “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Instead, we get the media talking about stolen guns after colluding with some politician who just wrote up a bill about stolen guns, which, when he presents it to the legislative body makes him seem dignified and righteous.
Or, sit back, let people you know act stupidly and get their shit stolen. What’s it to you, right?
For that matter, encourage them to leave the keys to their cars in the ignition and not lock the doors to their homes. What’s it to you, right?
I’m talking about a sentence said to a friend, not about nagging on a daily basis.
Report laws are about blocking private sales? Are you drunk, or do you walk around and talk like that regularly? Who the fuck in their right mind is going to sell a gun to someone they know and later claim it was stolen? No one I’d like to know, that’s for fucking sure.
Report laws are about discouraging ownership, period. Make it too much of a pain in the ass to buy and own and half the war is won.
If you want “berserk resistance on all fronts”, wouldn’t encouraging the locking down said item be one of those fronts?
All I’m saying is talk to your friends who own and encourage them to lock their shit down. To not tlk about it only invites apathy. Sure, they may not listen, like my tattoo artist didn’t. Until she got her shit stolen. The week following the theft, she listened.
I seem to recall you preaching on this subject some time ago. It led me to think long and hard about how some guns I have are family heirlooms. How I can’t replace them and how I never want to think about trying.
So I sucked it up and made a gun safe my Christmas present. I sleep and breath so much easier now that I can’t put it into words. I have long had a pair of in car gun safes for our carry weapons and other valuables from a company I saw on the Geekwitha45, but never got around to buying a safe for the house.
And so my work here is complete, AoD.
For now.