Westminster arms gets robbed

[Aloha_Shooter]

John the owner posted this on Facebook.

"Thank you everyone for the well-wishes. We are working through this latest challenge, and we will be back to "normal" in short order. We are not commenting on how many/ or if ANY firearms were taken during the break in. No customers firearms or NFA items were taken, and that is the extent of information that we are comfortable with providing to social media, or the media in general. Please respect that we have a lot of work to do, and would appreciate not having to answer prying questions by those without a need to know. I can tell you that we secure our shop, and our inventory, and also that we have state of the art security and 24 hour surveillance. No, I am not interested in unsolicited advice about how you would handle the situation. Thanks~
Sincerely,
Westminster Arms"

That's a pretty good response and about all he should say in public. I'm sure this is a massive pain in the arse for him even if nothing were taken.

[Grant H.]

Boiled down, guns aren't really any different than any other retail item. Dealerships don't lock up cars. Actually, I can't really think of any retailer that takes any precautions with their indoor products beyond locking the doors.

High value, easy to carry, easy to move on the street illegally.

Cars? Not really easy to carry, not really easy to move as a stolen item, and they lose a tremendous amount of their perceived value when chopped up.

As Hunter .455 pointed out, Jewelry and Precious metal dealers, that also deal in high value, easy to carry, and easy to sell when stolen, items lock their inventory up beyond just locking the retail store door.

Pot shops... Another prime example. They spend a small fortune on security, including safes to lock up their inventory and cash...

I'm not sure. I see large safes inside of jewelry stores, but I can't remember having walked past any after hours that were small enough where you could see the jewelry from the outside. Either way, I bet the entire stock of jewelry or precious metals could fit inside two large duffel bags (not that they could be carried anywhere. That's not a lot of additional space needed to lock it all up at night.

Seems like a display case that can be secured to the floor/wall, and then the guns locked to the case would be the middle ground answer.

I feel like I am picking on you, and that isn't my intent. I promise.

This isn't the movies, they don't pour the diamonds and jewelry into bags to store it over night. The trays that they display the items in are moved into the safe. So, despite the small nature of the valuable item in the case of a jewelry or precious metal store, they still take large safes to make moving them in and out easier.

Largely, this boils down to the shop owners willingness to risk losing valuable items balanced with their willingness to spend the extra money/energy to further prevent losing said items. Some believe they are secure enough as is, some believe in taking the extra steps to prevent all but the most determined thieves from getting their products.

As someone else said, you can't prevent all thefts, but you can make it take longer than the thieves are comfortable waiting to get their hands on your valuables. This is true in the business sector as well as the private home sector.

I work Saturdays at a local range/store. We put our stuff away every night, and it takes us well over an hour between that and cleaning the range.

Lo and behold, we got broken into a while back and the thieves got absolute dick from us. We've since beefed up security even more, but the dividends of locking everything away more than paid off. That hour each day is worth the fact that those two minutes didn't result in deaths, audits, or additional headaches.

Point and Case, right here.

[spqrzilla]

You are going to do that which your insurance company makes you do.

[Irving]

High value, easy to carry, easy to move on the street illegally.

Cars? Not really easy to carry, not really easy to move as a stolen item, and they lose a tremendous amount of their perceived value when chopped up.

As Hunter .455 pointed out, Jewelry and Precious metal dealers, that also deal in high value, easy to carry, and easy to sell when stolen, items lock their inventory up beyond just locking the retail store door.

Pot shops... Another prime example. They spend a small fortune on security, including safes to lock up their inventory and cash...



I feel like I am picking on you, and that isn't my intent. I promise.

This isn't the movies, they don't pour the diamonds and jewelry into bags to store it over night. The trays that they display the items in are moved into the safe. So, despite the small nature of the valuable item in the case of a jewelry or precious metal store, they still take large safes to make moving them in and out easier.

Largely, this boils down to the shop owners willingness to risk losing valuable items balanced with their willingness to spend the extra money/energy to further prevent losing said items. Some believe they are secure enough as is, some believe in taking the extra steps to prevent all but the most determined thieves from getting their products.

As someone else said, you can't prevent all thefts, but you can make it take longer than the thieves are comfortable waiting to get their hands on your valuables. This is true in the business sector as well as the private home sector.



Point and Case, right here.

Like I said, not much different than any other retail item.

[Rucker61]

I remember seeing a comment in an earlier discussion about gun shops and after hours storage where the point was made that moving guns back and forth every morning and night risks damage to firearms, especially those with expensive wood stocks, and if break-ins are rare enough the cost trade-off says to leave the guns in place.

That theory could be changing.

[BPTactical]

A couple sections of Jersey barrier (that you can get for free) would have prevented the entire issue and this thread would be unnecessary.....



....jus sayin

[DOC]

So sad. I've bought from them before.

[SideShow Bob]

A couple sections of Jersey barrier (that you can get for free) would have prevented the entire issue and this thread would be unnecessary.....



....jus sayin

But is this allowed by Westies building codes and by the property owners ?

[BPTactical]

But is this allowed by Westies building codes and by the property owners ?

If not it's movin time...

[DOC]

Is there any chance the silencers that they kept in the glass case was left out the night they were hit?