Another attempted gun store burglary

[.455_Hunter]

Now the Centennial Gun Club was hit unsuccessfully last night. Not sure if the MO was the same based on the initial news story.

Isn't that five shops in the past week now?

As a society, we pool resources to pay to things that provide a common benefit, including LE operations. I guess it's a wackjob idea that maybe this string of crimes is worth the use of some public money to attempt a proactive arrest of the perps in the act. Maybe, for a defined term, stopping this activity needs to be a priority operation for a broad spectrum of LE agencies, not just the local PD. Or, should we just keep responding retroactively to shops being targeted, one every other day or so, for the rest of the summer?

Security guards might be a nice deterrent, but it's now at the point that deterring is just kicking the can down the road to another target.

And yes, nothing here reduces the shops need to make sure they are not an "all you can take" gun buffet for a smash & enter robbery team, otherwise the ATF and the insurance companies will be making decisions for them.

[TFOGGER]

Can't we just shoot the bastards?

[Skip]

Which of the hundreds of gun stores in the Denver area should they stake out? Do you know for sure that there hasn't been a stakeout at any of the gun stores in the Denver area?

Hundreds? I wish!

[Martinjmpr]

Put the guns in a vault at night or when closed. Problem solved.

Every time I see one of these that's the first thing I wonder: Why were the guns not in vaults or other secure areas?

Yes, I know it takes time and costs money (maybe you have to pay your employees an extra hour of wages to get them to come in early or leave late) But you know what? I'll bet it doesn't take as much time or cost as much money as they lose when they get one of these smash-and-grab break ins.

[Dave_L]

Every time I see one of these that's the first thing I wonder: Why were the guns not in vaults or other secure areas?

Yes, I know it takes time and costs money (maybe you have to pay your employees an extra hour of wages to get them to come in early or leave late) But you know what? I'll bet it doesn't take as much time or cost as much money as they lose when they get one of these smash-and-grab break ins.

So an extra 2 hours (open and close) for at least one employee to take them out and put them back away every business day (about 260 days). If you're paying roughly $12/hour to that employee, that would cost about $8,000 per year (I rounded up to $30/day expense because of payroll taxes and stuff makes that 12/hour actually more). So an extra $8,000 per year paid out, which means really you need to gross about 12,000 each year extra to pay for that. Not to mention, the cost of all the extra safes they'll have to buy, install, etc.

Or they just maintain their insurance premiums, pay their $1,000 deductible and move on *if* it happens to their shop. Again, insurance companies will dictate what the shops are willing to do. Gun shops have to watch the bottom line like any other business and why add cost if insurance will make you whole again?

I don't know all the exact numbers in the real formula but I'd assume what I presented is why more isn't done at some of these shops.

[Martinjmpr]

So an extra 2 hours (open and close) for at least one employee to take them out and put them back away every business day (about 260 days). If you're paying roughly $12/hour to that employee, that would cost about $8,000 per year (I rounded up to $30/day expense because of payroll taxes and stuff makes that 12/hour actually more). So an extra $8,000 per year paid out, which means really you need to gross about 12,000 each year extra to pay for that. Not to mention, the cost of all the extra safes they'll have to buy, install, etc.

Or they just maintain their insurance premiums, pay their $1,000 deductible and move on *if* it happens to their shop. Again, insurance companies will dictate what the shops are willing to do. Gun shops have to watch the bottom line like any other business and why add cost if insurance will make you whole again?

I don't know all the exact numbers in the real formula but I'd assume what I presented is why more isn't done at some of these shops.

Well, first of all, this is assuming that there is a need for these shops to have their guns on display the way they do. Look at jewelry stores, many of them put their high-dollar items in the vault at night and yet, they somehow remain in business. Seems to me that there are ways of displaying firearms that would allow for them to be more easily secured (just an example: You have 10 Glock 17's: Do they ALL need to be on display? Why not just display ONE and if that one gets sold, take another one out of the vault.)

I shop at the Buckley AFB BX sometimes and they have a gun section there - and at 6:00 every night, the gun section is locked up and every firearm - every single one - gets taken out and put into a vault. And this is INSIDE the base exchange, which is inside a shopping center which is inside a secure Air Force Base.

Second, we're not just talking about monetary costs here, guns getting into the criminal market is something people have a right to be concerned about. As .455 hunter said above, the gun shops can either take measures to reduce the chances of such thefts or they can wait until the ATF makes that decision for them.

EDITED TO ADD: Or they can just wait for someone to get killed by a stolen gun and for the victim's family to sue them for a few million dollars for negligence. After all, with "smash and grab" gun thefts occurring a couple times a week, they can't legitimately say they 'didn't know' about the potential for such thefts and the fact that they didn't take measures to mitigate the risks looks very bad for them in civil court.

[hurley842002]

Why pay anybody for an extra hour at the beginning or end? You simply stagger a couple of employees schedules, so they come in an hour early, and leave an hour after closing time, that way they are only paying for a straight 8, and guns are being secured properly.

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[Dave_L]

So if someone breaks into your house, steals the gun and commits a murder, you're ok with the homeowner being held responsible? Maybe we should have some storage requirements for everyone before you're allowed to buy a gun. You know...for public safety.

I 100% understand the concern. I just don't know what the "reasonable" solution is?

With guns, You have to hold the gun, see how it feels in your hand, fondle it, etc. It helps sell guns. I thought about a similar system where only minimal stock is kept out front and extras in back but most gun shops dont really carry a ton of inventory of one gun, do they? They always seem to have various styles and configurations and maybe have 1-2 of each exact model in stock, max.

Id assume most of these shops already lock up the real high dollar stuff and most of whats left out is your standard equipment but I havent seen a list of whats been stolen. My guess would be glocks, standard AR's, etc.

This is just a mess. Let's try not to burden down good people because bad people are committing crimes.

[MrAK]

So if someone breaks into your house, steals the gun and commits a murder, you're ok with the homeowner being held responsible? Maybe we should have some storage requirements for everyone before you're allowed to buy a gun. You know...for public safety.

I 100% understand the concern. I just don't know what the "reasonable" solution is?

With guns, You have to hold the gun, see how it feels in your hand, fondle it, etc. It helps sell guns. I thought about a similar system where only minimal stock is kept out front and extras in back but most gun shops dont really carry a ton of inventory of one gun, do they? They always seem to have various styles and configurations and maybe have 1-2 of each exact model in stock, max.

Id assume most of these shops already lock up the real high dollar stuff and most of whats left out is your standard equipment but I havent seen a list of whats been stolen. My guess would be glocks, standard AR's, etc.

This is just a mess. Let's try not to burden down good people because bad people are committing crimes.

My thoughts exactly, especially regarding your last point. Also, I spent roughly 5 years working in gun shops in the Denver area, with procedures at two of them calling for firearms to be moved at close. It sounds like a great idea aside from the leg work, until "Carl", the new guy, dings the shit out of all your merchandise and people expect a discount on blemmed firearms.

The other issue to me is that it's all about making yourself or your shop a less attractive target. If every shop in Colorado winds up securing their guns in safes at the end of the day, then what's to stop theieves from stealing tow trucks or random boom trucks to ram stores and then drag out the safes?

[Martinjmpr]

what's to stop theieves from stealing tow trucks or random boom trucks to ram stores and then drag out the safes?

Well, the fact that doing what you described is orders of magnitude more difficult, time consuming and likely to result in the thieves getting caught maybe?

And that's my point - it's all about making yourself a "hard target." Thieves look for low hanging fruit to pick. It's a lot easier to smash-and-grab from a strip mall gun store when the guns are just sitting in the display cases waiting to be taken, than it is to put together an "Ocean's Eleven" crew to pull off a sophisticated heist at a National Guard Armory.

Hopefully local gun shops are taking these measures into consideration and re-evaluating their security practices.

I don't like heavy-handed regulations any more than any of you do, but simply shrugging our shoulders and saying "ain't it awful?" is not really a viable option. There are measures that can be taken to make this kind of theft less attractive to the thieves and I would hope that the smart business owners are doing just that.