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discussion on gun shop break ins

shootuadeal
about a month ago our store was broken into, an ar 15 and a cheap camo shotgun was taken. we figured it was local kids and thats what it turned out to be(two 15 year olds)the camo shotgun they took kind of gave it away as all young people HAVE to have a camo gun. the dad of one turned them in, but in the mean time i filled out all the paperwork,talked to atf and local pd, etc.

my question is: what are effective ways of finding stolen firearms?

i contacted the makers of the guns that were stolen, told everyone i came in identifying info on these guns and so on but what other things are there to do? any other dealers on here with info or anyone else with ideas please advise in case it were to happen again.

i also realize that prevention is the key, but things like this rarely happen here, we have certain measures taken but when they smash a window, run in and grab 2 guns its hard to prevent.
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Comments

9 comments

Date Votes
  • rufe-snow
    All the gun shops in my neck of the woods have either no windows, or heavy bars on the ones they do have. Also barricades in front of the entrance to the business to prevent anybody from just driving a pick-up through the front wall.

    These kinds of smash and grab burglaries, have been happening for years. You seem to have led a very sheltered existence.
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  • qsecofr
    I used to work for a law enforcement agency. One of my jobs was to keep track of all NCIC data. This included stolen property (i.e. guns). It is good for you to know that if you had the serial number and reported that to your local LE agency, they probably entered the firearm as stolen into NCIC. This means that if anyone comes across this gun and checks to see if it is a stolen firearm sure enough it will be returned to you. Lots of pawn shops will check firearms through their local LE to see if the one they are about to purchase is stolen. There are so many firearms floating around out there though that it is hard to say if anyone will ever find it. If I went to a gun show and bought one I doubt I would ever know if it was a stolen gun. I just am sure to always get a receipt from the person I buy from. That way if it does turn up stolen I can point LE back to the person I purchased it from.

    Also, this thread will be locked after you get 10 posts to it (just fyi.). So I hope my post helped.

    A buddy of mine always said "Either pay to protect, or pay to replace." If you have lots of stuff you don't want stolen then pay more to protect it.
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  • Underdog2264
    It sounds like you covered the bases on finding stolen guns, the only other thing I would do is contact NRA's legal team. They may have some ideas for your locality. As for prevention, bars on the windows and reinforced doors are a good investment, as are safes. I don't know how large your shop is, gun wise, but if you only have 40-50 a safe will work out. beyond that cable locking long guns and a safe for the hand guns will work. Your local LEO or State police could also be of some help in that area. I have a video system running 24/7 and cable all the long guns together at night and keep all handguns and high dollar guns in a safe. I have friends with shops that have done everything from alarm systems to dogs in the shop at night, but bottom line is if they REALLY want to get in they will, but even a few small measures will keep the would-bee's and crack heads out.
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  • iwannausername
    Not sure about recovering, but a (recently deceased) local shop owner had a rather interesting solution...

    http://www.afn.org/~guns/ayoob.html
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  • shootuadeal
    underdog, do you leave the cable lock in all day when you are open too? seems to me that would be a pain in the butt whenever some one wants to see a gun. we have about 125 in stock, three in store cameras with dvr, trigger locks. we also talked about getting a safe but thought it might be too much work to put them all away at night plus with a 1000 deductible is it worth spending the money on enough safes to store them? how many safes do you have? also we farm and haul fuel so when the other guy and myself are out its up to the two women who know very little about guns to sell them so they kind of need to sell themselves for several months out of the year
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  • dan kelly
    iwannausername, could you post this in the general discussion forum please....and thankyou for posting it here. it was excelent reading.[;)]
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  • ruger41
    One of our local shops after several break ins decided they had enough. They have a couple of huge safes in this back room and then had a steel cage built around the walls and roof-hoping the alarms will go of. The thugs were coming in from the roof with an axe. They lock up every gun every nite-ya a pain, but it has kept their inventory in tact so far. They also put in barriers in the front so that someone couldn't ram a van through the front door. If someone really wants to steal something they can.
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  • MBK
    After a home - gun burglary, I put flyers at local merchants to help put the heat on the thieves. They ditched my rifles and 7 were found 17 to 28 months later. I fixed all but one.
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  • River Rat
    I don't think I took a single breath as I read this story. What a guy! What discipline!

    Well written. Then -- of course -- I saw it was from the Ayoob Files.
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