Reader OneIfByLand1776 writes:

Given the spate of recent gun store burglaries and the NSSF’s emphasis on helping retailers defend against thieves, how secure is reasonably secure for a retail gun store? Should firearms sellers be required to keep all firearms in a safe at night? Is it just common sense to do so, unless the building itself is hardened against break-ins? What about trigger locks?

Arguably, that might be difficult/impossible for larger gun stores, but running a cable through the trigger guards of firearms might make it that much more difficult for a thief (or thieves) to walk off with firearms easily. Any delay in securing the loot, might just discourage them or let police arrive in time. I don’t know what the answer is, but it seems that long guns hanging on pegboard hooks and pistols in a glass display case is just just too easy.

If you owned a gun store, how would you secure it at night?

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130 COMMENTS

  1. Windowless concrete building and reinforced armored shutters over the interior doors. Good luck kiddies, you’re going to need a blowtorch or some C4 to get in here.

  2. Have you had a look lately at a jewelry store after hours? Where are all the goodies? In their sales cases? In the windows? Why do gun store owners think they should not use common sense like the jewelers? Gun stores sell safes, and don’t use them. Such an endorsement for owning a gun safe, eh? If you don’t use what you sell, you are proving you do not believe in your own products.

    Any location that displays dangerous weapons (both knives and firearms) should be required, by law if necessary, by insurance provision at the least. If you contribute to illegal guns on the street, you should be held just as accountable as if you were selling them illegally on the corner.

      • “You forgot cars and trucks, Socrates.”

        You think jewelry stores in strip malls do not face the same threats? What is the purpose for all those concrete poles I see in front of places in dodgy places? If you (gun stores) cannot prevent theft of dangerous weapons, the stores should be put out of business. About the only thing I can see an exemption from personal liability for poor security is using explosives to destroy the entire edifice and contents.

        • Wow, you really ARE that intellectually challenged, huh? We wasn’t suggesting that cars and trucks could be used to force entry into stores (though they ARE used for that, there are systems in place to protect against that as you point out). he was pointing out that you assertion about “Any location that displays dangerous weapons (both knives and firearms)” would and should also logically apply to cars. They are just as (if not more) deadly as a firearms (see any of the recent spate of mass vehicular homicide terrorist attacks, or the several-times-higher-than-deaths-caused-by-firearms rate of homicides attributable to vehicles) and there are car dealerships in virtually every town in America where their inventory of hundreds of potential murder machines is just left out in the open. Yet for some reason you’re non apoplectic at that idea?

          • Since this is a meeting place to discuss firearms, diverting attention to the hundreds of other dangerous places and things is a waste of time. It is not necessary to solve every other harmful tool or situation in order to gain credence to discuss firearm safety.

            However, if you like, people who own cars are vulnerable to law suits for not taking serious measures to prevent theft. Those people should “harden” their garages and vehicles, or pay the charge for liability insurance to pay the damages. The fact that this is not something much discussed does not put gun and storage safety out of bounds for discussion.

            Stay on point, here, if you please.

        • “…people who own cars are vulnerable to law suits for not taking serious measures to prevent theft. Those people should “harden” their garages and vehicles, or pay the charge for liability insurance to pay the damages.”

          In America, they most certainly do NOT.

          The *only* way I am held liable for my vehicle’s theft would be if I pulled up at a store, exited my vehicle while the keys were in it and the engine running and walked away from it.

          I am *fully* covered for theft if a vehicle’s keys were not in the ignition when stolen. Gun stores are covered (to the terms of their particular insurance policy) if the business is forcibly broken into and theft occurs.

          2Asux, you’re really off your game on this one. I’m rather disappointed in the lack of quality in your argument. Are you feeling well?

          By your logic, if an attractive woman was home asleep with her front door locked and an intruder breaks in or if she was walking down a street in a mini-skirt and was violently raped, she was “just asking for it”.

          Blaming the victim of a crime is not something a supposedly civilized society does.

          We blame the criminal who committed the theft or rape…

          • “Blaming the victim of a crime is not something a supposedly civilized society does…”

            Actually, I am not “blaming” the supposed “victim”. I am “blaming” the contributor, the accomplice, as it were. If one is irresponsible (your keys in the car sort of thing), leading to subsequent damage, injury, death, one is liable for such. Liability laws being what they are, it is only a matter of time before an precedent is established regarding insufficient care in securing dangerous items such as firearms and motor vehicles. Something people with “common sense” are seeking in states across the nation.

            If you negligence starts a chain of events that result in unnecessary injury, you are morally, and should be legally, liable to some degree (to be sorted in the courts). In the current conversation, everyone who had serious doubts about the stability of the murderer should be held accountable for doing nothing.

        • There are no dangerous weapons. Only dangerous people.
          Thief is solely responsible for theft, never the victim.
          “If we made it just little more difficult for criminals, they would not commit crimes (or if they still did the police would stop them)” is stupid idea pushed by simple minded.

    • But, compared to a jewelry store the gun store has lower margin items that are more prone to being damaged (dinged up) from frequent handling. It also means they need to have as much as 2 times the floor space to store all those guns. This adds up to “not cost effective”.

      All the gun stores I’ve been to have some variation on cameras plus heavy steel doors, and the ones that own their location also generally have heavy bollards in front of the door. I’d call that good.

      • First, I appreciate your civil response, and conversational tone.

        You note that moving firearms might result in damage or bruising to the items, and that sensibly securing the inventory isn’t “cost effective”. I would argue that “cost effective” should not have play in discussing protection of firearms from theft, but that is for another day. Damage and bruising of the display items is a risk relevant to securing jewelry, as well.

        Bollards are not quite enough, as they generally are situated outside the main entrance, leaving windows and the back doors unprotected. Not to mention, though I shall, the roofs. I’m afraid “close enough” is a beggars excuse for not taking sufficient action to make firearm theft from gun stores a seriously rare event..

        • Who cares? It’s not my problem or any of your business. You know what would make firearms thefts incredibly rare? Summary execution of anybody caught with a stolen firearm.

        • Here I was, thinking that securing gun stores is one thing, while cars and trucks have minimal security. I’d lock up gun thieves in prison, increase border security, and punish criminals instead of victims.

          Cost effective might not mean anything to you, but it means everything to the small business owner.

          • “Cost effective might not mean anything to you, but it means everything to the small business owner.”

            Then as a small business owner, anything that cannot be turned to cash relatively quickly is to be eliminated as not being “cost-effective”. I believe the term is relative. For instance, if you, as a gun store owner, decided that a closed and locked glass door is “cost effective” and are faced with a ruinous law suit (one does not even need to lose in order to be on the wrong side of the ledger on that one), the plain lock and glass door are still “cost-effective”?

            If you are selling tools of intended death and destruction, and you cannot afford to make your depot virtually break-in proof, should you really be in that business?

        • “I would argue that “cost effective” should not have play in discussing protection of firearms from theft…”

          The problem here isn’t cost efficiency. It’s that in the vast majority of cases the cost of using safes or other similar methods is cost prohibitive, that is, unaffordable.

          Consider an example: I have a fairly large gun safe. Currently, packed to the freaking gills, it holds 26 long guns and somewhere on the order of 15 hand guns. Overflow from that safe has made it’s way to my father’s gun safe.

          Now, that safe is a decent one and it costs around $1200. For a gun store that has, say, 200 long guns, it would take them something like eight of these safes at $1200 a piece or $9600 plus installation costs. However, a gun store with 200 long guns is actually a pretty small store so we run into the question of where are they going to start putting eight or more gun safes that they can’t sell? The problem becomes even bigger with larger stores.

          Long story short, what we come down to here is that were there to be some sort of requirement like this a great many gun stores would have to close because they simply couldn’t afford the retrofit. The only answer to this would have been to design the store for “proper storage” from the beginning. That’s not something many smaller stores can do because they rent their retail space.Those who own their property could theoretically retrofit a special room to be significantly reinforced as a “vault” to store guns when the store is not open. That’s a remodel job that would run from tens of thousands to potentially six figure numbers and criminals would eventually figure out how to defeat the security on that room.

          The comparison to a jewelry store is specious at best. I could fit thousands of pieces of jewelry in my gun safe. Guns, well they’re a lot larger and usually kind of an odd shape, especially when you start attaching scopes, bipods etc so you’re simply not going to be able to fit that much merchandise into each safe.

          • If “difficulty” of being secure is the overarching issue, perhaps one should not exceed the capacity of “reasonable precaution”. If you safe cannot hold all you can purchase, and a greater number of safes is not within one’s resources, perhaps a bit more discipline in acquisition is called for.

            For small gun stores who are surviving only by the skin o’ their teeth, then they are in the wrong business.

            Do not overlook the part where my commentary identified liability insurance as a surrogate.

        • “If you are selling tools of intended death and destruction, and you cannot afford to make your depot virtually break-in proof, should you really be in that business?”

          *30,000* die on American roads each year, alcohol involved in a large percentage of them.

          *Every* drink-drive traffic injury or death has three ingredients –

          1 – Alcohol. Guinness or Glenfiddich, it matters not. ETOH is alcohol and it impairs safe operation of the vehicle any way you cut it.

          2 – 1 or more motor vehicles.

          3 – The intoxicated driver in control of the motor vehicle.

          Who is held responsible for the crash? The driver, of course.

          BTW, I saw this on the news recently, is there any chance that was your can of refreshing Stella Artois lager? :

          http://nypost.com/2017/09/21/passenger-spots-beer-can-in-planes-cockpit/

      • While I am not privy to the insurance ins and outs of owning a gun store…
        I AM privy to the insurance ins and outs of owning my own business…
        It would seem to me that any insurance company that insures a gun store would take into account the practices and situations of said store.
        If the guns are left out at night, premiums go up.
        If the store isn’t hardened against break-in, premiums go up.
        Past experiences of break-ins would raise premiums if appropriate steps are not taken to reduce the threat.
        Deductibles would also reflect security practices.
        IMO, insurance companies are far more able to assess security measures, and provide a monetary incentive for such measures, than a government agency that has no ‘skin in the game.’
        I have to wonder if the insurance policies some gun shops have include theft. I know not all do, from personal experience with business insurance. Just like auto insurance (which has, in the US) legal minimums, beyond that there’s a buffet of additional coverage offered, all at a cost of course.

    • Ok mr illogical. I live near mackeys landing who has apx 10,000 guns on display in about 25k square foot store. His shotguns and rifles are on racks that are locked, however I am flabbergasted at people like you that think he could possibly put all these weapons in a “safe” or something..ludicrous. Criminals are responsible for their actions not objects(guns) or other people…gueeez I sure hope nobody ever steals your car and kills someone with it while on the run, because YOU are the one that should be held accountable. Sound about right using your logic doesn’t it?

      • “I sure hope nobody ever steals your car and kills someone with it while on the run, because YOU are the one that should be held accountable.”

        Got it covered, mate. Serious liability insurance premiums, just for that purpose. If you read carefully, I noted that absent taking care to put away the firearms, a significant personal and business liability insurance policy should be required. It seems an excellent characteristic of America that those things you do not wish to do yourself, one can purchase a surrogate.

    • I’m glad to see that you agree that Obama and Holder should be under felony indictment for Fast and Furious.

      • Unfortunately, I do not have clean sources for all of that. Granting full credence to pro-gun owner websites and news outlets, Fast-‘n-Furious appears close to a criminal enterprise. I can have an opinion either way, depending on who has reliable sources. The test would be a law suit before a federal judge.

    • Um… no. Anybody who advocates violating the 2nd amendment should be dragged into the street, beaten, and publicly flogged.

    • I can only compare businesses to myself. I keep my guns locked and unloaded. I have a camera on every entrance and an obnoxiously loud 70lbs dog who stays home. That said, if my home were broken into… even if I forgot to lock a door… would I be responsible for the criminal’s action? I really really struggle with this idea that we can never victim shame unless it’s a gun store/owner.

      Your comparison to a jewelry store is an interesting one, but I feel is a false equivalence. A single large safe can store all jewelry in even a large jewelry store. Jewelry, btw, with far more value than the guns in a gun store. My wife’s wedding ring has more value than all three of my shotguns combined. It also takes up SOOO much less space.

    • “Any location that displays dangerous weapons (both knives and firearms)…..”

      What about hardware stores? Hammers, pick axes, rat poison, etc

      Sporting goods? Bats.

      Grocery stores? Ice Picks, butcher knives, pineapples.

      Anything is a dangerous weapon if you hold it right.

      • Absurd remarks do not substitute for intelligent conversation. Anything can be a weapon. The earth rotates about the sun. Neither is germane to the discussion of gun safety and secure storage. If a bullfrog had wings he wouldn’t bump his arse on the ground.

  3. To reflect on your headline, and to borrow from my dad: if your inventory is stolen, then your weren’t secure enough.

    There’s clearly a continuum between leaving the door unlocked and guns lying around and securing each firearm in its own subterranean vault. No matter what techniques are used, someone somewhere is figuring out how to get around them.

  4. Probably roll down screens over the wall display (like you see at bars sometimes), and I’d have wheels on the floor racks so you could wheel them into the safe. Not much you can do with glass display counters, maybe wheels there as well? Then just good insurance,surveillance and a good relationship with local PD.

    • As I so eloquently noted, look to the jewelry stores for an example of due diligence and common sense.

        • There was nothing to look at, so I presume you referenced a picture of a jewelry storefront in a crime-ridden neighborhood. The picture in my mind’s eye is some restricted to seeing so many thriving jewelers who put away their inventory every night. The failure of one, or a dozen, jewelers who leave product in the window doe not make meaningless all those who do.

      • “As I so eloquently noted, look to the jewelry stores for an example of due diligence and common sense.”

        Having worked in both jewelry and gun stores over the years, there are some simple truths.

        The act of moving the guns in and out of the safe and display cases each day, every day, over time dings them up, destroying their value.

        One safe can hold a jewelry store’s entire inventory, for a well-stocked gun store you will have to devote a sizeable percentage of your total square footage in safes alone.

        I’ll tell you what – when you can collect from Budweiser liability damages from drink-drive vehicle crashes, you can sue gun stores for stolen guns.

        You and I know full well Budweiser won’t be held liable for their product’s misuse…

  5. Supply and demand follows the path of least resistance. Harden all the gun stores and home burglaries will increase.

    • As a gun owner, shouldn’t your liability be that you did not “harden” your storage of firearms? Claiming that people in homes and apartments would be relieved of the “security” afforded by the gun store being an easy target should make you blush at your selfishness.

      Wherever there is a gun, there should be security to thwart all threats short of explosion.

      • LOL

        Aren’t you cute?

        “Wherever there is a gun, there should be security to thwart all threats short of explosion.”

        This goes beyond *reasonable*.

        Someone who parks their car on the sidewalk and locks it could easily have their car stolen and the thief could plow into and kill numerous individuals…so by your logic all car owners should take security measures so far that any threat of theft short of explosions would be considered negligent. Yeah, ok.

        Should hardware stores and others also take the same precautions since people might more easily rob them and make pipe bombs or fertilizer bombs?

        • When preventing the theft of a firearm becomes unreasonable, what is left? “Reasonable” has too many iterations to be the basis for evaluating security of deadly weapons. Theft of a car that is subsequently involved in a fatal accident is quite rare. Theft of guns that end up in the wrong hands is much more common. Most stolen cars are “chopped”(?) for parts. The exposure to accident is restricted to the one movement from point of theft to “chop shop”.

        • 2Asux: “Most stolen cars are “chopped”(?) for parts.”
          This is but the most inane of your assertions.
          Most stolen cars are for joy rides or to be used during other crimes where the car might lead to who committed them, thus the use of a stolen car.
          Most cars stolen for parts are the high-end ones, the hardest ones to steal, and, because their numbers are the lowest, and because inordinate theft numbers would make insurance extremely expensive (even for those who can afford the cars), they aren’t nearly as stolen as you think.
          Google is your friend.

          • You are correct. However, the point remains, cars are not stolen to be sold on the street with the idea their prime purpose is to kill someone.

        • “You are correct. However, the point remains, cars are not stolen to be sold on the street with the idea their prime purpose is to kill someone.”

          So you’re wrong, but you’re right.
          Got it.

          BTW, if a gun’s prime purpose were actually to kill someone, then all the law abiding people who own well over 400 million guns are doing it wrong?
          That’s liberal logic, and it’s full of fail.

      • Way to blame the victim.

        Gun safes aren’t safes. They’re sheet metal boxes that can be broken into with hand tools in less than 20 minutes or power tools in less than 5 minutes. Actual safes that are large enough to store long guns start at $8,000 and go up from there. So, I guess the working poor can’t have guns then. Of course, you being you, that was always your goal.

        It’s not like theft is the sole source of black market firearms or even the most common source. Guns smuggled in across porous borders, straw sales, illegal manufacturing, and of course publicly owned guns that governments conveniently lost track of all supply the black market. Even if thefts of lawfully owned guns were eliminated, it wouldn’t make a notidentcable dent in the greater supply chain of the black market in firearms.

        • This is the old “If it isn’t 100% effective in all cases, anywhere in the world, the recommendation is not worth consideration.

          And you claim my side are blockheads.

          I did offer up the alternative of serious liability insurance. As you lot like to say (correctly!), “Every bullet you fire has a lawyer attached”. If “hardening” the arms depot is too inconvenient, put up an amount to compensate victims of you laziness. Being a “victim” of gun theft should not permit the “victim” to go unaccountable for later tragedy.

        • In order to be liable for “negligence”, negligence must be demonstrated, and proven.
          I don’t know if you are aware of how an individual can be demonstrated to be negligent to an extent that such a person is found liable, but it goes far beyond simply storing an item (even a GUN!!) in a ‘normal’ manner.
          If, for example, I keep a gun in my closet and someone breaks into my home and steals that gun, I am not liable for whatever that thief does with it. That’s reality. Even if I have insurance that covers me for liability, I’m not liable for that thief’s actions.
          What you want is unreasonable. I understand that you seem to feel it’s not, but it is, nonetheless. I simply can not be held liable for someone else’s illegal actions in that manner.
          As a business owner, it’s very similar; unless a claimant can demonstrate actual negligence, that owner isn’t liable. Does leaving guns out in a gun store where thieves use extraordinary means to gain entrance make the owner liable? So far, extremely few courts have said yes, while the vast majority take the view that no security measures are foolproof, thus if extraordinary measures (such as vehicles being driven through walls or hardened doors/windows) do not make the owners liable.
          So, no, it’s not the false dichotomy you claim it to be. At some point, you need to admit that thieves can overcome even even hardened security.
          If you don’t think so, just understand that several three-letter agencies can break into pretty much any hardened place, physical or digital. If they can do it, thieves can do it (realizing that, in some instances, they are one and the same people).
          Make a gun store too hardened for a pickup to crash into it, and they can simply steal construction equipment to break in (it’s been done, by the way, so it’s not an outlandish idea).

          • Agree, no solution is perfect in initial concept, and often not in execution over time. But politics favor the safety of society. The people of “common sense” will one day be in charge of the levers of power. We already have legislation ready. How do you think all those anti-bumpfire bills were introduced so quickly after Las Vegas? Words are static, with cut and paste for specific items and locations.

        • “Agree, no solution is perfect in initial concept, and often not in execution over time. But politics favor the safety of society. The people of “common sense” will one day be in charge of the levers of power. We already have legislation ready. How do you think all those anti-bumpfire bills were introduced so quickly after Las Vegas? Words are static, with cut and paste for specific items and locations.”

          Politics favor the safety of the people? Are you serious?
          I will say that’s the plan, but the execution sucks. There are so many examples of the opposite that It would simply take too much time and space to list just a small percentage, so I will let one suffice: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” A lie told to the people, with the express intent to make people think the way you do; that the government is there help them. Instead, many lost their doctors, their plans, and their premiums rose far faster than inflation. Yeah, that really helped their health/safety, didn’t it?

          As for the bills, they were sitting in file cabinets, simply waiting for some bloody bodies to emerge, so the politicians could dance in the blood on their way to file them. That’s how.

          Those “people of “common sense”” were in charge, and what we got was the aforementioned example of “help,” and a president who blatantly and repeatedly violated the constitution and his oath of office to change the ACA to better fit his wishes.

          More liberal logic, full of fail.

      • As a gun owner, shouldn’t your liability be that you did not “harden” your storage of firearms?

        Uh, NO!

        Claiming that people in homes and apartments would be relieved of the “security” afforded by the gun store being an easy target should make you blush at your selfishness.

        I never made such a claim. I simply pointed out the law of supply and demand. In this case some percentage of stolen guns come from gun stores, another percentage come from homes/cars. If one takes steps to decrease one of the supply sources, does not change the demand, then the other source(s) will be the path of least resistance for supply. And that is a fact Jack you can take to the bank Yank.

        • Your logic should result in horrendous numbers of home burglaries in areas devoid of a gun store at all. Especially in places where the only gun store has gone out of business. Haven’t seen that outcome.

        • “Your logic should result in horrendous numbers of home burglaries in areas devoid of a gun store at all.”
          Your logic is faulty, in that you seem to think that thieves can’t travel to gun stores farther away.
          Few gun stores in SF, yet crime with guns hasn’t decreased much lately. I guess they are all committed with zip guns?
          While thieves are lazy (or they’d work for what they want), they aren’t necessarily too stupid to understand the benefit of choosing a target where they can maximize the return on investment or weigh benefit vs risk.

          • “Your logic is faulty, in that you seem to think that thieves can’t travel to gun stores farther away.”

            I was simply following the logic presented. To the effect that if gun stores became too difficult to rob, the miscreants would simply move into residential areas, eliminating the relatively safety provided by a loosely secured gun store in the area. If that were true, criminals would do the same if the only gun store in an area were to go out of business. Since we do not have data demonstrating the identified cause and effect of closing a gun store, arguing that making it near impossible to rob a gun store will not likely result in increased residential robberies targeting guns.

      • OK.

        So are you going to follow through with the idea of liability of a law-abiding property owner for theft of other things that criminals covet that can then be used to kill people?

        eg1: thief steals car, gets involved in a car chase, hits someone else on the road. In your world, the innocent accident victim then sues the car owner for failing to make the car harder to steal.

        eg2: thieves break into a residential home, find prescriptions for opioid medications, which they steal and then sell on the street. Some kid buying these stolen meds then OD’s and dies. In your world, the dead kid’s parents sue the homeowner for not making the drugs harder to steal.

        eg3: meth-cooker thieves drill hole in farmer’s anhydrous nurse tank, which is parked outside, overnight, because of the large tillage/injection rig hitched behind the nurse tank. Thieves fill their bottles with anhydrous, but having no way to close the drilled hole, they just leave. Anhydrous flows out of the nurse tank for house, then the cloud of gas slumps downhill, surrounds a house down the street, and kills the occupants in their sleep. Should their next of kin sue the farmer for failure to make it harder to get at his anhydrous tank(s)?

        I could go on all day here. You anti-gun types, when you propose these uninformed, ill-considered legal theories, never seem to think about how legal precedent works – and what the unintended consequences of your ideas are.

        • Drill a hole in the tank?
          Why not just unhook the hose and turn on the valve?

          I realize meth-heads aren’t your brightest bulbs, but…

          I have worked with anhydrous ammonia. Took a shot in the face once and thought I was going to die. Nasty, dangerous stuff. No way I’m drilling a hole in a pressurized tank that would result in an uncontrolled release of the stuff.

        • Yep – drill a hole in the tank. Then they hammer in some little fitting that allows them to fill up an empty propane bottle (the size for a Berz-o-matich torch, etc). This way, they can stay down low alongside the tank and not draw attention. They’re also looking to get liquid ammonia, so they’ll drill low on the side of the tank.

          When they’re done, they take their fitting with them and leave the anhydrous leaking.

          Why? Because, as you said, meth heads ain’t the sharpest folks.

        • You do not seem to understand the power of a lawsuit in pursuit of social justice. Just as well. Makes our lives easier. You have fair warning, eh?

          • This gets tiresome.

            If you do not secure your guns, and are robbed of them, you are not a victim, you are an accomplice.

          • You are too impatient. The arc of history bends our way. We will have power once again, and pent up demand for improved lives among the populace. Improved lives includes improved public safety, and emphasis on the human right to be free of the effects of negligent gun owners and others who should not be allowed firearms.

        • What you call an arch of history is more like a piece of bamboo. Just push it down to try to bend it your way. You can even step on it to put your weight in and it will go your way – up to a certain point. Then it springs back and knocks your teeth out.

          We keep getting stuck on the same problem over and over again. Grabbers considering guns somehow special in the universe full of artefacts. Stop pretending that firearms are some evil talisman of death. They are a tool like any other. No different. Capable of hurting or helping, depending on user.

          If tonight criminal breaks into your shed and steals your chain saw, then goes and cuts some girls head off with it, are you responsible for his crime? Shouldn’t your shed be cast out of concrete with steel vault door?

      • Once again, sux, thank you. If not for the efforts of you and others like you we might have had bernie or hillary for president.

        I can’t wait for 2018 to see the further results of your efforts.

        • “I can’t wait for 2018 to see the further results of your efforts.”

          With your side shedding Senators at a prodigious rate (Corker and Flake), you surrendered two Senate seats, already. Thank you very much.

          Studying the landscape, one must keep in mind it is not enough to rid yourselves of anti-Trump incumbents. You must offer a candidate who has a chance to win the actual election. Your Mr. Bannon is doing yeoman’s work seeing to it that you cripple yourselves.

          The sun is shinning, the Queen remains upon the throne, all is well in Ireland.

        • I well remember your predictions for the last elections. I’m still laughing at the buffoonery.

          In the meantime Trump is placing conservative justices in the federal courts and the dems are falling apart.

          Constitutional carry will be the law of the land in less than 10 years. A lot in thanks to you and your fellows in the antifa and other looney movements.

          • Constitutional carry will be the law of the land in less than 10 years I think not, There are so many people who DON’T understand how states work. Example the state of California DOESN’T issue CCW’s so that is going to be a big issue. Good luck with that.

      • It seems to me that what you are basically saying is that if a gun is stolen and then used to commit a crime, the company that made the gun should be held responsible for the crime. Because when you say blame the gun store because the criminals rammed a truck through the front wall, that’s pretty much the same thing.

        • It seems to me that what you are basically saying is that if a gun is stolen and then used to commit a crime, the company that made the gun should be held responsible for the crime.

          If the manufacturer did not secure produced firearms properly, and one or more stolen, the manufacturer should be charged with negligence at least. A jury can determine the level of contribution to the final result. Perhaps there would be no liability. But the manufacturer would know in advance the risks of not taking precautions against all but the most severe methods of attack.

          If the mythical chainsaw owner left the unit sitting on a bench (or generally unsecured even in a lockable box) and failed to secure that shed with reinforced doors and such, the saw owner should be investigated and perhaps charged with contributory negligence should the saw be used in a murder, or attack, or subsequent break-in.

          America is exceptional in the quest of its citizens to do as they please, with no consequences for negligence. It seems generally people consider themselves immune to requirements for prudent precautions about their actions. I suppose it is the “rugged individualism” that says “To hell with everyone else, I am a sovereign soul, answering to no one.”

  7. For some gun stores this is just a logistic impossibility. There is one near my house that is very big for a gun store. They have 100’s of guns (both long guns and handguns). Putting aside the number of safes (or secure cabinets) and floorspace they would use, the time it would take to put all those guns away at closing, and take them back out at opening, would be well over two hours each day. It would not be worth the time and money.

    In addition, moving all those guns twice a day is going to end up with some cosmetically damaged. That’s going to cut down on the retail value of them.

    On the other hand, I know of another gun store, that’s very small, where they lock every gun up in a safe at night. However, they probably have less than 30 guns out on display at any given time.

    Thinking about the suggestion that the guns be cabled, wouldn’t be with the money or effort. A common cable through the trigger guards of long guns, isn’t going to be much of a deterent. Any thief, worth a damn, will have cased the place and brought bolt cutters to defeat that in short order.

    One possible solution, for long guns, would be an in-rack locking system for each gun, similar to the systems police have in the cabs of their vehicles, for securing their long guns. Something like that would force the thief/thieves to have to defeat a lock for each gun they wanted to steal. If nothing else, it would reduce the number of guns that could be taken, given the time constraints of a burglary.

    • The rifle rack locks seem to be something effective and cost friendly. Still, the handguns apparently are the most attractive to thieves. Despite the cost, those should be inaccessible during non-business hours. Insurance companies should be clamoring for more security, or at least higher cost for liability and loss for those customers who fail to eliminate all but the most destructive attacks (explosives.

      • “…Insurance companies should be clamoring for more security,…”

        You obviously have never bought business insurance for a retail establishment.

        Free clue – The vast majority of the policies only cover things like fire and-or catastrophe of some sort.

        They *could* purchase theft insurance, but most don’t because of the crippling cost.

        What’s to stop a business from going into cahoots with someone to ‘burglarize’ the business, file and collect on a claim and then split the proceeds with the supposed burglar?

        Insurance fraud is very much a thing, costing insurance companies *billions* annually.

        Care to guess where the cost of that business fraud comes from?

        Fraud by the businesses covered by the insurance companies themselves, manifesting itself by vastly increasing the cost of coverage.

        And the more the businesses pay for insurance, the higher the end cost to the customers for the merchandise…

        • You seem to be advancing the idea that “minimal effort” should be sufficient. If true, then why even “minimal” attempt at security?

          As to what insurance companies agree to cover, they will insure anything if there is profit in it. A dozen, or even a hundred willing customers likely do not present a profit opportunity. Thousands might get their attention.

          We enticed the health insurance industry by creating a vast market, and providing subsidies to see to it the insurance companies suffered no loss. Similar arrangement could be established for gun sellers, and gun buyers.

  8. This would be a good job for a robot.

    noise-activated death machine, waiting in the dark for uninvited guests. Leave the perps skinned and butchered in the street out front.

    Find out who they were and bulldoze their and their mom’s homes, like Israel does.

  9. Several years ago a gun store in Atlanta had a problem with its alarm so the owner slept in the back room with a full auto AR-15 for protection. That night a van smashed through the front door and three would-be robbers jumped out of the van and began loading guns into it. The store owner came out of the back room and rid the world of these three with one full sweep of the AR. No charges were ever filed against the gun store owner.

  10. First solution to the gun shop problem:

    Get some big, flock guardian dogs or other large, man-stopping dogs. Leave them in the gun shop overnight. The FGD’s are very territorial. Break in while they’re in charge of the property, and you will have a problem.

    The ideas of just putting bollards out in front of a shop are hilariously naive. So what? Drive a stolen one-ton pickup through the back wall – or if some of these thugs decide to break a sweat, they make, steal or buy a Hallagan and Denver tool, and with some practice, they can go through any commercial steel door in about 90 seconds or less. The idea that you can secure a building is proven to be false every single day by structure firefighters with hand tools.

    Second, longer-term solution: Simply kill gun thieves in the act – as much as possible, everywhere and always. It’s a gun shop; it shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone that a thug breaking into a gun shop gets shot – dead. It will require owners or the help to sit in the shop at night, and I’m sure some Dindu’s mother will sue some gun shop, but sooner or later, all security can be overwhelmed. The gun shop owner should then put security camera footage on a look on a large-screen TV in the front of the gun shop – and the footage should include still, color pictures of the Dindu(s) assuming room temperature, bleeding out and making a mess on the floor.

    Every time a law-abiding citizen shoots one of these thugs dead on their property, the property owner should have the option to use the dead thug’s body, likeness, video footage of their death, etc as a deterrent to future thugs.

    • I wholeheartedly agree. Swift, violent, permanent justice. The problem is that liberalism is allowing these genetic defects not only to live but to procreate. Humanity is devolving not evolving. The laws of nature are being violated and the gene pool is slipping backwards. Thanks liberalism.

    • Better solution. If you’re caught in the middle of a violent crime or drug offense with a stolen firearm… no trial, no lawyer, bullet to the back of the head. Simple solution.

      • That requires a better database of stolen firearms than we have.

        As a FFL, I can no longer get the local police to run serial numbers of guns to check whether they’re stolen. I hear this complaint from many other FFL’s now, too – especially pawn shops.

        • True.
          Many localities have, during the economic downturn, had to reduce manpower, and now, with the economy (and taxes) rising, they are hiring to fill those empty spots.
          Vere in Phoenix and surrounding cities, this hiring is going on with force. Of course, the initial downsizing wasn’t advertised much, but has been felt as you point out.
          One example for reduced police capability is that “beer runs” from convenience stores weren’t investigated, as the benefit vs cost made it ridiculous.
          Another is the fact that if someone made off with your car after you left the keys in it, and the thief said you let him test drive it because you said it was for sale, you got your car back, and the thief walked.
          There are other examples, too.

      • with a stolen firearm
        What difference does it make if the firearm was stolen? In the cases where the perp is caught in the act, I have never understood how any cop wouldn’t just end the conversation right then and there. Kind of like when the cops put 147 rounds into the boat containing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and missed, did they not have ONE MORE?

  11. The ideas of just putting bollards out in front of a shop are hilariously naïve.

    Not if they are impact detonating.

  12. Simple fact is that stealing is illegal, it’s just wrong. A locked door is enough and it isn’t, but when you lock that door and close up after hours that is a clear sign that no one is welcome into your store. Plain and simple. You can’t blame the store owner for not having Fort Knox security. It is real easy to say just do this, or do that, its common sense. When you own your business you abide by the law and do what you see fit. Plain and simple.

  13. “Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man.”
    – George S. Patton

    Put the store across the street from the Police Station, light it up, put cameras on it and an alarm system in it. A few Dobermans wouldn’t hurt, either.

  14. As a LGS owner, we do the following: Bollards @ exterior front doors, roll down steel door @ interior doors, hand guns and suppressors are in display cases that roll up( Google Display Solutions of Topeka), extra inventory is locked in a concrete vault @ night, several external night lights around entire building, alarm system with motion detectors that call the 2 owners if tripped. We both live 2 minutes from our Store.
    The long guns are not locked up or cabled together @ night, not a feasible proposition every night.
    Now, someone tell me what I have forgotten. If I get a call to roll out and see why alarm is chirping, you can bet I won’t be empty handed.

    • Your precautions should be a caution to others. While you are likely still vulnerable to something less than large explosives, your efforts are highly commendable.

      Thank you for setting an example.

  15. In Through The Roof: The Latest Gun Store Burglary In Macomb County, Michigan

    http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/macomb-county/2017/10/24/police-seek-suspect-roseville-gun-shop-robbery/793900001/

    Roseville Police are investigating a break-in and theft at a gun range

    Officials said police were called to Peter’s Indoor Range & Gun Shop on Gratiot near 12 Mile at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday for a report about a break-in.

    Roseville Police Chief James Berlin said officers determined someone cut a hole into the building’s roof, gained entry into the store and took an undetermined amount of firearms.

    He said investigators believe a lone thief broke into the shop around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. His image was captured by the business’ video surveillance system. Police released a photograph of the suspect.

    Just how far can you go to stop burglaries before a gun store’s costs of security makes their products unaffordable? Then you you also have to harden the manufacturers and transporters, including all those box cars in Chicago which were looted.

    • “Then you you also have to harden the manufacturers and transporters, including all those box cars in Chicago which were looted.”

      One must start somewhere. Gun stores and homes are good stepping stones.

  16. There has been a multitude of LGS thefts in my area(NE Illinois and NW Indiana). Interestingly enough the gunshop in the worst ghetto hood has not been robbed-Chucks in Riverdale,IL. No real storefront,blastdoors,bars on the window and buzzed in. And it works in a neighborhood I avoid. They have plenty of guns & ammo on display too. As mentioned quite similar to a high risk jewelry store. And zero curb appeal…

  17. My store has about 90 long guns on display in wall racks and another 50 or so in the vault. The guns in the racks are secured with trigger locks and iron bars held in place with padlocks. It would take a determined thief maybe two minutes to cut the padlocks. The trigger locks could be popped later.

    And yeah, all the displayed guns have rack marks, some of them really bad. I had almost sold a Benelli Montefeltro last week for a grand when the customer and I both noticed how badly the stock was scarred.

  18. Booby traps and claymores. Trap doors into cage of punge sticks. Along with plenty of signs telling of there presence. Maybe a very hungry lion or tiger with no signs. Criminals deserve no protections. Remember a dead crook never reoffends. In all these cases a law protecting the business owner. Hell while we’re at it let all businesses use these defensive options.

  19. I like the following:
    (1) Bollard posts to prevent vehicles from driving through doors.
    (2) Steel doors with no external attachment points (for pull-out resistance).
    (3) Steel bars on inside of windows (for pull-out resistance).
    (4) Ballistic windows.
    (5) Decent lighting.
    (6) Excellent video recording system.
    (7) Burglar alarm system.

    And for extra credit, an automated system that somehow booby-traps the interior and makes the work of burglars extra risky/unpleasant.

    Note: the video recorder would have to be in some sort of seriously secured container that would take even the best thieves 20+ minutes to breach or remove.

  20. Pure nitrogen backfill of the store at night, with automated air exchange starting 5 minutes before opening.

    Unless someone breaches the store big-time, such as driving a truck through a wall, a break-in burgler will just .. go to sleep. No CO2 means there won’t even be a gasp reflex warning.

    Plus it helps keep rust under control. 🙂

  21. Here’s one that nobody mentioned: abolish the welfare state. If we stop paying the dregs of our society to reproduce at an exponential rate, then the number of scumbags who commit these crimes will decrease. A smaller number of scumbags implies lower crime rates. As things are, our descent into anarchy is a direct consequence of government policy.

  22. In 20 plus years of security design I’ve seen gunshops you could get into with a butter knife.

    Sometimes just a cable through the trigger guards would be a great improvement

    If you want to see lots of handling of products go into a fruit shop in a warm area. Everything is put back in cold room overnight. The well designed ones have the displays on wheels the others do it by hand. But it is done every night.

    It comes down to time and money plus unfortunately the head in sand it cant happen to me thinking.

  23. Nothing is 100% secure. If people want to get in, they will. My father – who had some real time experience with the real deal in 1944 – reminded me that the entire German army couldn’t prevent General Eisenhower from breaking and entering the beaches of Normandy. You can slow down an intruder and make it harder for him, but you can never stop a determined thief – or liberator as the boys of the Big Red One were in those far off days

    • “Nothing is 100% secure. If people want to get in, they will.”

      Taking a bit of a risk, here. Do you understand you just made the case for having no security atall?

      If seriously enabled security is pointless (because determined people will still “get in”), and negligible security is pointless (because determined people will still “get in”), then “no security” is just as effective. Perhaps you’ve determine an optimal point between pointless and not so pointless.

  24. Actually the Feds could require all gun stores to have bars at the windows, security alarms and walk in vaults just by passing a new ATF regulation or not passing any regulations at all but simply revoking the Federal Firearms License of a Gun Store owner who had theft by break ins and the rest of the Gun Stores would “get the message” very quickly law or no law being passed.

    Its all long overdue as well as requiring private gun owners to do the same. Gun theft would be cut astronomically if this were enacted and most civilized Nations have already done this decades ago. Combine this with vetting of all gun sales including second hand guns and criminals would be denied the “free unrestricted” sales of second hand guns and stolen guns that they now have access too. Japan proved that this worked as their gun crime is at almost absolute zero and yes Japanese can and do own rifles and shotguns but these are not used in crime as they are heavily vetted and locked up in safes when not in use. If they were being sold to criminals all they would have to do is cut off the barrels and then conceal them and use them in crimes. This has not happened so to deny that gun laws are useless is to close ones eyes to what other countries have done decades ago. Most European counties require the use of Safes and all of them heavily vet “all gun purchases”. U.S. gun laws are a joke as one can simply walk out onto the street of any major city and buy a used or stolen gun faster than one can by a hamburger and the result is rampant gun murder and crime and nut cases being able to commit mass murder at will. Failure of all the States to provide mental health info to the Brady Background check system and also no laws that require psychological testing and a gun owners purchase card also lets mental cases even buy new vetted guns. Its all pure insanity and the American people pay the horrific price of blood running like rivers in the streets 24 hours a day 365 days a year. No other civilized Nation puts up with this type of mass murder and carnage. When America’s streets have more casualties than most Middle East War Zones no one can argue that something must be done.

    • As has been noted before, citing Japan as an example vs the US is pointless, because the societies are vastly different. You know that, too.
      Their suicide rate is much higher than ours, too. Maybe that is an argument for more guns?

    • As with 2asux I thank you cisco for making the Trump presidency not only possible, but a double term. Without folks like you to point out the lunacy of your side the dems would have had a fighting chance. Now they’re broken, in shambles with 2018 looming ahead.

      Thank you.

      • Even he Republicans will never let Herr Drumpf run again for President. Even they know what an incompetent fool he is. And with the inability to get anything do by the Republican party the Democrats will be a slam dunk for both the mid-term elections and the next Presidential Elections.

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