The Real Source of Guns on the Street

| November 15, 2019

This came up on the news feed the other night: gun shops are repeatedly broken into and the merchandise – weapons of various kinds – stolen by the thieves.

The gun shops get robbed when the lights are out. This is expensive merchandise, even at wholesale prices for the shop owners, and while they may be covered for the thefts by insurance, leaving merchandise in view of thieves after closing is not a good idea.

So you have to ask, logically, by are the gun shop owners not more careful with their merchandise?  Just askin’, that’s all.

This report confounds the nonsensical and repeated whine that illegal guns on the street are straw purchases from Indiana and Wisconsin, or any other states. It is hogwash, and I knew that instinctively, but had to wait until the real source of illegal weapons was finally confirmed. Aside from stealing guns out of boxcars parked in the south side railyards, which has been going on for several decades, breaking into gun shops after hours is the obvious source.

https://wgntv.com/2019/11/14/easy-targets-why-thieves-steal-from-gun-stores/

Note: no phased plasma rifles at 40 Watt range available yet. Just what you see, pal.  (The late Dick Miller is the actor playing the gun shop owner.)

 

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists, Guns

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5th/77th FA

Most of the shops down here beef up their buildings fairly well to slow this type of crime down. Notice I said slow it down. Roll doors/windows or heavily barred. Had some take backhoes and knock a wall out to get in. Glad to see some are admitting that stolen gunz by crooks is where it’s coming from v citizens buying gunz to commit crime with.

Wonder if anyone thought about giving longer/stiffer sentences to these dirtbags that are commiting crimes to keep the crooks off the streets? /s/

David

My previous local store had a stolen F-250 driven through the door and video of the 4 perps trying to ransack the store. Obviously, if they cased the joint, they missed watching the employees carefully load the store’s firearms inventory into the two 8 foot safes in the back every day at closing.

Graybeard

Not knowing what the gunshop owners are doing, it is hard to say what could be improved, but there is a point where there are no more reasonable steps that can be taken to prevent theft.

A sufficiently motivated and equipped thief (especially in an organized gang) can defeat any preventative measures taken – including an armed guard.

Perhaps – just a suggestion – having the judges actually throw the book at those who are caught might have an effect on the number of thefts.

Graybeard

Yep, I knew that is an issue in Chicago and other (D)unce controlled regions.

At least the AG of the USA has directed that existing laws are to be enforced now. Getting the judges to actually do their jobs will be a speedbump, but methinks the CiC is working on that.

Jus Bill

Unfortunately the problematic judges that need a “knuckle rap” are at the local level. The iDiots keep electing them. And when they are finally exposed to violence caused by both groups, they scream long and loud for “MOAR LAWZ”.

UpNorth

Not to mention, places that elect prosecutors that won’t prosecute.
In West Michigan alone, there have been 10-15 gun store B&Es in the last 18 months or so.
Finally, some of the stores have finally started installing burglar bars, or, actually putting the guns in gun safes. And, Chiraq is just a quick trip away on I-96 to I-94 and the South Side.

UpNorth

Forgot to add that the thieves also do a lot of the cell phone store B&Es, gots be able to talk to your buyers, yo!

Fjardeson

Isn’t stealing firearms a Federal crime?
IV. STOLEN FIREARM, AMMUNITION OR EXPLOSIVE:
18 USC §§842(h); 922(i), (j) & (u). Punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.
A. May not receive, possess, conceal, store, pledge or accept as security for a loan, barter, sell or ship or transport across a state line any stolen firearm, ammunition or explosive.
B. May not steal or unlawfully take or carry away a firearm from the person or premises of a firearms licensee.

A Proud Infidel®™

if availability of guns is the source of gun crime like libtards say, then why don’t the places with less gun laws have the crime rate that Chicongo does?

ArmyATC

I have blueprints for a variety of guns, to include full auto submachine guns. They aren’t nearly as hard to make as some seem to think, especially if one isn’t overly concerned with accuracy. Even then, button rifling isn’t that hard to do.

David

Not sure I would be entirely happy tripping off 50,000 psi near my face using hardware store parts.

ArmyATC

As long as the bolt and barrel are of the appropriate hardened material there’s really no problem. Some of the best SMGs were made of stamped sheet metal. The AK is nothing more than stamped sheet metal as are the CETMA M58 and G3 rifles.

ArmyATC

“CETMA?” CETME!!!

Cameron Kingsley

Unfortunately, some people (Quora is definitely a place where you can find them and you typically see this with Europeans and even some Americans whom many can’t seem to understand why we other Americans don’t like putting our lives in the hands of the police or other government security forces. I have mentioned previously my reasons for why I believe this is already very foolish and potentially dangerous in the Guns in Merrie Old Englande post, and plus it’s something which all of you (accept for one certain specimen who I will not name) already know, understand, and appreciate through your many life experiences which is what I like about this site.) refuse to take this scenario into consideration. A motivated criminal will find a way to obtain what they want and if they’re careful enough, they don’t get caught until later or in some cases too late or they will use something else more readily available like a knife, chemicals, homemade explosives, or a vehicle (maybe a combination of this one with explosives added) depending on what it is they are planning on doing. How did those clowns that attacked Paris smuggle those AK-47s in and keep them there unnoticed or the ones that attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine? I just don’t understand why many people don’t get this even when reality smacks them in the face. I shall get off my soapbox now.

Cameron Kingsley

And I mean no disrespect to any of you.

Cameron Kingsley

And some of these twits wonder why many of us prefer to have our borders secured. So crap like that doesn’t happen or at least makes it harder for it to happen as rare as it may be (which doesn’t matter to me how rare it is, even one attack where people are not able to adequately defend themselves or there is no adequate security is too many in my opinion).

rgr769

The nice thing about the EU for criminals and terrorists is once they get their weapons in one country, they can drive them anywhere in the EU without anyone searching their vehicles.

Jus Bill

And to prove your point, I understand that many of the London Police now are routinely armed on patrol because of the many armed “law-challenged individuals” that they encounter on a daily basis.

Cameron Kingsley

No surprise there Jus Bill. And to think there are those who would rather bury their collective heads into the sand and say “Problem? What problem? I don’t see no problem.”. Yeah, I think the UK has plenty of their own problems that they should be worrying about rather than worrying about what we in the US choose to do. They should really clean up their on house before they criticize ours.

ArmyATC

You are correct that guns aren’t needed for mass murder. In that beacon of anti-gun utopianism, Japan, arson was the cause of the two largest mass murders. The 2001 Myojo 56 building fire killed 44 people. The 2019 Kyoto Animation attack killed 36 and injured an additional 33.

Cameron Kingsley

Damn, I had forgotten about that attack on Kyoto Animation that happened this year and I currently live in Yokosuka. Only saw the blurb on Facebook.

Roh-Dog

I’d like to report that my firearms have not committed any crimes in 6,383 days.
Just in case, I’ve taken measures to ensure my success in suppressing their evil nature, to include; locking them up, strapping them to my body, feeding them well, and the occasional bath.
Wish me luck.

26Limabeans

“The late Dick Miller”

Obviously

Berliner

“Three Peorians (one a felon) are charged in federal court for their alleged involvement in gun thefts from Tac Shack in Monmouth and Farm King in Galesburg two months ago. The trio allegedly took 98 guns in the two break-ins.”

I’m retired on the left coast now but the corn and soybean fields of Monmouth, IL is where I grew up. I spent some time as a Recruiter in Peoria and Chicago. I’m betting the guns hit the pipeline to Chicago gangs pretty quickly.

MI Ranger

So the Nanny State wins again!
“It is not necessary to punish those who do wrong, instead we will inflict the pain on those who can afford it and enable it by doing that fowl thing called capitalism. We must not dissuade our simple minded brothers who espouse only their basic understanding of socialism by attempting to better distribute these instruments of destruction to other who might use them.
These Capitalists, who nothing of the saving graces of socialism, must be forced to bind their ill gotten goods which they horde from others and attempt to reap profit from our hard working sons and daughters. These fowl instruments which will only impede our just enforcers, must be made unreachable or they will temp our brothers and sisters to believe they are something more than equal and instead aspire towards this sin of capitalism!
What say thee?!”

rgr769

In Commiefornia if they just steal a couple of cheap guns worth less than $950, it isn’t even a felony. The cops are required to just write them a ticket.

rgr769

Criminals prefer stolen firearms. They are cheaper. They don’t have to pass a background check. And most importantly, the gun cannot be traced back to them.

ArmyATC

And if the “crime gun” can be hidden long enough it can be turned in to law enforcement for destruction at the next no questions asked “buyback.”

gitarcarver

From the article:

Illinois is actually ahead of the curve on this issue. A new state law will take effect next year requiring gun shops to have state licenses along with stricter security and record-keeping in order to do business in the state.

Some firearms dealers are taking their own action and have launched “Operation: Safe Store,” sharing best practices and security strategies for gun sellers

The first is the absolute wrong answer to this issue.

The second answer is the right answer.

Perry Gaskill

This is a weak story. It’s based almost entirely on limited anecdote and supposition, and not on any validated statistics. Senator Dick Durbin saying gun-store thefts are a “huge problem” because gun stores have a lot of inventory is also a logical fallacy. There’s no evidence that having a larger inventory equals more thefts.

If the reporter had been doing his job, he would have at least related what figures the ATF has available on gun-store burglaries. This should have been done even if no actual figures are available, which seems unlikely. The reporter also neglected to mention that gun-store owners have an acute interest in protecting their inventory from theft because firearms are expensive.

It’s also apparent to me that the reporter didn’t actually want to get a handle on the gun-store theft issue; he wanted to write an hysterical political explainer about how Dick Durbin is doing something– anything– about guns.

Perry Gaskill

Ex, I’m not beating up on you for running the post, I’m merely pointing out lazy reporting by WGN9. According to the story, there are 63,000 licensed gun dealers in the country. How many of those were the target of thefts last year? Simply displaying a few surveillance videos doesn’t define the extent of the problem. Without relevant statistics, it’s cherry picking for the sake of drama.

Again, the reporter either needed to quote ATF statistics to get some perspective, or reported that the ATF didn’t have such statistics available. He did neither. He’s also reporting it as a “nationwide problem” with limited evidence to support the fact outside the Chicago area.

rgr769

Last I heard, there was not a big gun store break in problem in say Wyoming or Montana. I haven’t even heard about one in Commiefornia. Of course, the D-rats are committed to driving every gun store out of business, step by step.

Docduracoat

I would be surprised if gun store theft is a problem here in Florida.
Just about every parked car has a gun in the glove compartment.
Want a gun?
Break into a car