“You can’t really write a policy that says you have to carry your gun with you all the time. That would be unrealistic. I think there could be a policy that says don’t keep it in your vehicle — that would pretty much solve or at least start to address the problem.” – Don Cameron in Thefts of officers’ guns raise questions about firearm security [at sfchronicle.com]
A very large percentage of guns recovered from crime scenes and arrests here in St.Louis had been stolen from vehicles.
Vehicle break-ins in the metro area have increased substantially since Busch stadium installed walk-through metal detectors. Criminals aren’t (completely) stupid; they know not only are people disarmed walking to and from “gun-free” areas but also their vehicles may contain a weapon.
If the laws really were about “safety” there would be NO place where the lawful would be legally required to disarm. It’s a relatively short list in St. Louis, but an unnecessary list nonetheless.
Any place where large numbers of people park to attend a “gun free” event is a logical place to try and find firearms to steal. Another big target are courthouse parking lots.
I think these places should be required to have separate lines for CCW, and provide lockers for the guns.
If Patrick Stewart can take your gun, then you have a serious retention problem.
Nice.
I know Patrick Stewart. I’ve met him (he’s very funny, charming, intelligent and down to earth. The guy in the picture is no Patrick Stewart.
No, I’m not gay. I just appreciate his talent and body of work – which in several instances have included significant “gunplay”.
I see that Sir Stewart is on the “Enemies of the NRA” list but can’t seem to find any supporting evidence that he has taken a position on the issue to justify being put on the list in the first place; however, the Huffington Post reported that “Sir Patrick Stewart, the British actor, wrote on Twitter that the NRA enemies list was “the most prestigious list I’ve ever made.” Makes me wonder about the chicken-or-egg paradigm – did the NRA label him in error but the act itself forced the issue and made him choose an anti-gun position?
So it would seem that the NRA may have forced the issue on Stewart, who only then made the statement that appears to agree with the assessment.
What can I say? I saw a passing resemblance and ran with it.
I actually like Patrick Stewart quite a bit as an actor.
I would like to see the NRA (or anyone else) “force me to take an anti-gun position.”
We ought to be making a point of vehicle thefts as respects GFZs. The GFZs create a parking-lot market-place for finding guns to steal. If off-duty cops are prohibited from bringing their guns to GFZs (such as sports stadiums) then the cops alone will supply enough guns to keep the criminals well-armed.
To some extent gun owners can help by buying and installing gun safes in their cars. However, there is a limit to the effectiveness of such an approach. If bike locks can be overcome then we have to assume that gun safes installed in cars can be overcome with enough brute force. Spending more and more money on a safe and installation can raise the cost of burglary, but it can’t stop burglary. Moreover, it’s unrealistic to expect a rising number of CWP-holders to invest $1,000 or $2,000 in a car-gun-safe to protect a $500 EDC gun.
“We ought to be making a point of vehicle thefts as respects GFZs. The GFZs create a parking-lot market-place for finding guns to steal.”
Oh, that’s bang on. I was just thinking this. Two problems here…
– With GFZs and restrictions on “carry” you encourage, nay require, people to keep their guns in a way that’s easy to steal. Really, why are they so invested in getting guns into the hands of criminals?
if you steal a gun from a car, you’re a criminal *before* you shoot anyone. GFZ’s and similar which put guns in cars, unattended, seems like selectively arming the people with no regard for law or others.
– Or to be a responsible gun owner, you leave it at home, because you’re gonna go to a GFZ eventually, and leaving the thing unattended in the car is too risky.
This is my take on “open carry”…
Of course I’m open carrying into a Starbucks. I’m grabbing a cup of coffee on my way to the range. Leaving it in the car is a riskier choice – have you seen how may casual break-ins happen in this parking lot? Or, what will wind them up even more, go in dressed in camo, on the way out hunting. It would be irresponsible to leave the rifle unattended in the car so … BTW, check out this mod I just made…
It’s almost as if the rules are intended to get responsible people to go about unarmed, without explicitly outlawing it, while selectively helping irresponsible people have guns to do irresponsible things with.
Almost…. ?
Pistolero Jesse wrote: “almost?”
I know, right? I mean, it couldn’t be that. That would be just evil and manipulative to “legislate by other means.” Or worse, creating a problem so you can push a “solution” that doesn’t help much, but pays off in other ways. Who’d do that? Think of the collateral damage, I mean the children.
I do not want to go full InfoWars here, but that’s Mr. Alinsky’s whole schtick. Bring it tumbling down to create a fertile field for the next thing. Who’d do that – cough – Lenin’s “Vanguard”, Cloward-Piven. They are latecomers, BTW. (I do wish more people were more broadly read.)
“Whatever it takes” also attracts people who just want to see the world burn, who don’t go away. If the glorious utopia actually starts arriving they caper and gibber and smash that, too because that’s what they like to do.
The people you recruit to do violence to make a point, don’t stop doing violence once the point is made, because for them the violence is the point.
As a City Magistrate in Birmingham, AL, when I was in law school, I knew a cop who couldn’t learn from experience. After his Beretta was stolen from his glove compartment, he replaced it with a .380. The .380 was stolen from the same car/glove box in front of his house. He replaced it with a .25 auto in the glove box. Managed to keep that, as far as I know.
Interesting idea, what if one started seeding vehicles with handguns designed to grenade upon use?
(I am not a lawyer. Don’t do this.)
So Hi~Point then? (ducks)
I’m surprised the locker idea hasn’t been tried. Another way for the stadium to gouge customers, some of the profit can go to paying for more cops/security to patrol car parks.
Of course we could use the opportunity to see if its a real safety vs lawyer safety issue. Make the stadium operators legally liable for loss in their car parks. I’d imagine it would be a case of guns suddenly becoming allowed with the cost of compensation for a small chance of a shooting vs the constant loss every week from vehicles. Unworkable long term but the threat may be enough.
I suspect it would more likely result in a guard in the CC parking lot.
You’re just now figuring this out? But you only figured it out halfway…
They know their Gun Free Zones create a parking lot marketplace of guns to steal. That’s the whole point… This is not a case of “liberals are stupid.” They know it. It’s by design… Just like barry-o is not stupid, he’s sabotaging the country on purpose… They follow the example, only pretending to be stupid.
Actually Barry may be stupid (still hasn’t released grades), but then others are pulling his strings anyway.
Here’s my response, for me personally – except for government buildings and airport security zones, where I have to walk through metal detector, I carry concealed. If I can’t, and it is my choice (like a ball park) as opposed to work (the courthouse), I just don’t go. Period. As for other places with signs, like shopping malls – Big Boy Rules.
As a retired LEO, it is my sad observation that LEOs are some of the worst/laziest gun carriers. Not a month or so goes by without stories of guns taken from cars parked in front of officer’s homes. I particularly like the stories of their SMGS/SWAT-issue guns being taken. If their own home is too unsafe to keep the gun, or they are too lazy to bring it indoors at the end of shift, go find another job.
Would you leave your wallet/purse in the car at the same parking spot? They why would you abandon a firearm?
Just change the name to; FGZ (Free Gun Zone”. Honest simple and relatively inexpensive. Problem solved.
You’re welcome.
Y’all are missing the greatest of all ironies. this article was published in the San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco has an ordinance, unsuccessfully challenged in Jackson v. S.F., requiring that handguns must be kept either ON your person, or unloaded and in a locked container. No exceptions. Thus, any SFPD or Sheriff who leaves his/her firearm inn unsecured vehicle is breaking the law.
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