https://youtu.be/QjTMy9c_cq4
My father used to say “if you want to shoot ducks, go where the ducks are.” Common sense, right? If you want to steal guns, go where the guns are. Unguarded freight trains! Gun stores! The Florida Gun Show! No background check required! This simple principle accounts for the demonstration video above and the fact that bad guys may well target . . .
your house. Yes, there is that. If you have NRA, gunmaker-branded or other firearms-related bumper stickers on your car, SUV or truck, it behooves you to check to see if anyone’s following you on your drive home. Or, better yet, don’t put them on your vehicle in the first place. And maintain OPSEC (Operational Security) at the gun store, gun range and online. As for November’s Texas Firearms Festival, we have PLENTY of security for ticket holders and secure storage for manufacturers. Just sayin’ . . .
So THAT’s the gun show loophole….now I see what they’re always talking about….Obviously we have to close that loophole immediately!
Right? The whole argument makes so much more sense now.
If you were selling guns in a gun show, would you want to leave them in an unguarded building at night?
“If you were selling guns in a gun show, would you want to leave them in an unguarded building at night?”
Nope!
My question too!
I can’t believe they were that lax in the first place. My favorite gun show takes place in a large single building, and it has always had metal over every entryway and a police car outside, usually by the main entrance (city cop, county sheriff, and state police play tag team, so you never know who will be there), plus volunteer armed security. I can’t believe a gun show as large as the Florida one didn’t at least have a pair of private rent-a-cops!
I worked at an electronics plant that also did security consulting (main product was security cameras and related systems), and any time someone had items attractive to thieves they recommended at least two cameras covering every spot, so if there was a break-in faces would always get caught. For something like this, we would have had motion-sensor lights with cameras linked in to cover all possible entrances, inside and out, as a minimum (I loved some of the products for hidden cameras, from imitation phone line posts to fake downspouts to fake buttresses for pole-lamp arms).
I know I’m a few days late on this, but I worked for the company these were stolen from for several years. The Orlando show always has an off duty Florida Highway Patrol officer providing overnight security. I have been waiting to hear where they were. The show often covers several buildings in the complex, so he may have been checking one of the smaller buildings, walking patrol, or just in his car asleep. No word yet that I’ve seen to explain his absence.
Always thought the gun stickers on the backs of cars was stupid. Ditto the NRA stickers on the house
Taking a calculated risk in the course of exercising your First Amendment rights is not necessarily stupid. Our nation was founded by people who took much greater risks for the sake of liberty.
Besides, if someone decides NOT to commit a carjacking or home invasion because of a window sticker, it could save a life.
It could cost you your whole family too, especially since now they know you are armed!
So if the bad guys know you aren’t armed, that makes you a target, and if they know you are armed, that makes you a target?
The open carry debate is on another page.
>ahem<
The comment wasn't about open carry, it was about open NRA membership, as in stickers and license plate frames.
@Roymond – think bigger – its the same concept.
No sticker = conceal carry
Sticker = open carry
but just to be clear.
No sticker *could* mean no gun too
Sticker could also mean no gun too.
The big difference is that open carry isn’t an invitation to wait until you’re gone and then steal your gun(s), which is the claim being made about stickers and such. Another difference is that I don’t open carry because I’m proud to be armed, but I do have an NRA Endowment Member license plate frame because I’m proud to be a serious NRA member; I don’t open carry because I want people to know I have a gun, but I do have that license plate frame because I want people to know I’m in the NRA. And in my experience, I’ve been substantially safer because of the gun on my hip, while the contention is that having the “advertisement” that I’m an NRA member is actually reducing my safety — or at least reducing the safety of my property.
It’s something I’m pondering, and I think I’m going to have to investigate the history of firearms theft around here. I know at this point of four cases, none involving any advertising of gun ownership; one was by a guy who’d learned the owner had a gun when the owner took the guy fishing; one was by a known thief from a known thief, one was “accidental” when some tweakers grabbed a heavy brass box to sell for the brass and it turned out to be a homemade handgun safe; and the other was when two hunters stopped at a highway rest area and left their rifles on the vehicle seat.
A gun show has no option of pretending to not have guns, but a private citizen does. The question is how much the parallel of a criminal knowing there are guns to be had is a factor in attracting the theft of guns (though I was once accused of being a gun show by a fairly new friend when he dropped by at a time I was reorganizing my gun storage; to him, slightly more than a dozen firearms in one place was astonishing).
NRA house stickers — along with police association and Marine Corps stickers — on a house used to deter crime; I don’t know if that’s still the case; it probably depends on if it’s evident that someone is home. I have NRA Endowment Member license plate frames, though only the front one is mounted since the small bolts holding the back plate on my current truck are rusted solid and I’ve never bothered to deal with that. Maybe I should just leave the back one off.
Depends on how you park at home. What part of your car if any, is exposed to the street traffic? If you head in the driveway, and the back of the car is to your rear, then I’d leave it off.
The less people know about you the better off you are. Large “Beware of dog” signs might be the exception.
I went to a gun show recently. They had a large sign just inside that said, “No loaded firearms allowed.” I immediately turned around and left. I cannot think of a more attractive location for violent criminals than a gun show with lots of guns where everyone is unarmed. Talk about stupid.
Looking back, I should have simply removed the cartridge from the chamber of my handgun and then proceeded into the building with it concealed. After all, it would not be loaded at that point and they didn’t have any signs saying that unloaded guns were prohibited.
Yet there has been, to my knowledge, never been a criminal shooting, robbery or a mugging inside a gun show.
Out in the parking lot is another matter.
Most gun shows have this requirement. It actually makes sense for the most part. If someone were to set down their carry piece on a show table and someone else were to pick it up and ‘dry fire’ it, it would be bad business. I always let them zip tie my carry gun but I keep a loaded mag in my pocket. It would take less than 10 seconds to get it loaded.
*shrugs* these things happen. Eventually someone will roll well enough on their stealth roll to get out the door like that.
LOL
You don’t need a very high roll to succeed in a place with that lousy security!
From now on, if I see a couple guys rolling d20’s in the parking lot….. >_>
Orlando is such a vacation paradise. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-kidnapping-arrests-federal-agent-20150814-story.html Wonder if this is the same gang who stole the firearms, I mean group of “friends” who stole the firearms.
Glass doors protecting firearms, seems safe to me…… Right up there with screen doors on submarines.
…or if you live in a country with a firearms registry and the registry is easily hacked or infiltrated (or corrupt officials sell the data). In Australia, in New South Wales, there have been persistent concerns about the security of the firearms registry, and that the large number of thefts in that state are directly caused by that lack of security. I know that in Canada there were similar concerns for the LGR when it existed. Why, it’s almost as if a registry is designed to allow someone to take away all the guns on it.
I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often at that gun show, since it is held at the county fairgrounds (ie. lousy security), right smack in the middle of what the locals call “Crime Hills (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pine+hills).”
‘Nuff said.
Easy plunder for thieves! Everyone in the gun culture knows the main sources of illegal weapons are stolen from home and vehicle burglaries. Attempting to assert they are from gun shows with no background check is preposterous.
It’s outrageous to have such lax security for that type of event. It’s inconsequential that it’s the first theft of this type. It shouldn’t have ever occurred!
Yes, but you must understand, the promoters wife is pregnant (again) triplets this time, and his “old” 2014 SUV has developed and oil leak, and must be replaced by the new $60,000 model!
I mean, how’s this poor dude gonna afford all this sh*t, if he has to pay for decent security, at some old gun show?
Sonny, Deshawn, and Quantavius.
Hmm.
The only place my NRA sticker has been stuck to is my toolchest, which if you can see, you can see the gun rank on the other side of the room, plus all the gun accessories around. I thought a while about putting the reverse sticker on my truck, but decided OPSEC is more important.
Our gun shows have a very high level of security. The dealers set up their tables on the Friday night and conduct trading with each other. This is when the items that are too good for mere mortal gun owners are traded. In addition to the venue security, many of the dealers sleep in their alotted area.
Show attendees have to enter and exit through metal detectors. Receipts for purchased items must be presented for examination on exit. All firearms at the show if not in locked cases are tied down with steel cables.
I personally don’t go to the shows. There are no bargains worth the drive to the venue and it is the same stuff every time, just a bit more rusty with a higher price tag.
Not to cast aspersions on race, but the Central Florida Fairground is in the black area of Orlando. The area is Pine Hills, which we locals know by the infamous moniker, Crime Hills. Black on black shootings happen all over, all the time. This grand larceny will just about guarantee that these guns will be found at murder crime scenes as more black yutes are killed by other black yutes.
According to federal authorities, a guy charged in a series of robberies in Michigan showed his companion a rucksack filled with weapons. The friend then reportedly went to the police in exchange for a reward payment. According to a criminal complaint submitted on Wednesday, September 14 to the Eastern District Court of Michigan, the two-night string of robberies started at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 11. According to the lawsuit, a stolen Kia smashed through the front of a gun store in Westland, Michigan. According to federal police, seven people jumped out of the automobile, barged inside the amazon copywriting service , and stole roughly 50 firearms before running away on foot. About the same time, a stolen Dodge drove through the front of a gun shop in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, federal officials said. Three people got out, grabbed about 22 firearms, and left, court documents said.