You beat me to it. I have photos of mine with the serial #'s. My iphone 6 does pretty good macro photos from about 2 1/2" away from the gun and you can zoom digitally after that and see the machine marks in the metal. Great for identifying unique marks to the guns. If you don't think that your meager gun collection has much value, just start replacing them at todays prices.Originally Posted by buckshotshoey
IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!
Had a Star 30M stolen back in 1994 or so. Reported it, had the serial number and a copy of the original sales receipt.
Several years later, the police from a nearby city called, they had the pistol.
I got it back, pretty much in the same condition as I last saw it. It even had the magazine full of my reloads in it. The cops wouldn't give me back the ammo, so I lost 15 rounds of reloads...
Around here in the unincorporated areas, people seem to leave their CCW in their vehicles and leave them unlocked. Then they don't have any serial numbers for follow up. Have to shake my head at the level of responsibility to own a firearm and to carelessly leave it unsecured. They even have garages to secure the vehicle in, but leave it outside.
The BIGGEST problem I've seen is the total inability of gun owners to identify their own property.
If your gun is stolen and the only description you can provide to the police is, "it was a Remington 870 shotgun", the odds of you getting that gun back are somewhere between slim and none.
If you can tell the police that it was a Remington 870 in 12 gauge, with a 26" barrel and the serial number is XXYYZZX, the odds of that gun being returned someday are much better.
Law enforcement across America recover firearms every day. Just because a gun was stolen doesn't mean the police KNOW it was stolen or who it was stolen from. It's impossible for law enforcement to return a stolen gun to its rightful owner if the no one knows the gun is stolen. Guns are recovered daily during arrests, search warrants, undercover buys, abandoned property, pawn shops and other methods.
It is imperative that gun owners be able to accurately describe their property to law enforcement after a theft.
I strongly urge all gun owners to photograph their guns, including close-up photos that clearly depict the make, model and serial number of the gun. Store those images somewhere away from where you store the guns. A trusted relative's home, a safe deposit box, an attorney's office, your office, etc. Someplace that the photos will not be lost in a common accident such as a fire or flood.
Those photos give you the ability to accurate describe your stolen property to the police after a theft. The photos also give you the ability to make a detailed insurance claim and the photos may even be important evidence at a trial...
Ruger Blackhawk 357 magnum 3 screw stolen from my office in Baton Rouge , La. 1995 .
Recovered from a pawnshop in Kingman Arizona in 2015 .
The officer, who made the initial report , called me to verify my address and brought it back to me
20 years later ... This case was one of his first ... and he was getting ready to retire .
The photo's and written description I had given him were still in the file .
Gun was returned in the same condition as it was stolen , even wearing the same faux ivory grips and it was still sighted in for my favorite handload .
I don't think it had been shot much in those 20 years it was missing . It wasn't rusty or damaged in any way .
It was the first centerfire handgun I had ever bought, I had never bought another and I was glad to have it back .
Every year or two the Department would call and ask if it was still stolen ... I would say yes and verify my contact information ... until that call came October 6, 2015 and the officer said ...
We recovered your stolen gun !
Read post #24...the part about photo's and description ...the officer said that proved I was the rightful owner and helped get it back to me .
P.S. Since I hadn't made an insurance claim the gun was mine...
If I had made an insurance claim... I would have had to buy it back from the insurance company .
Gary
Last edited by gwpercle; 05-17-2020 at 05:54 PM.
Certified Cajun
Proud Member of The Basket of Deplorables
" Let's Go Brandon !"
Had a TC Contender stolen from a motel room in 83. Hope they had fun trying to sell a .30 Herrett. Gave detective the serial number. Haven't seen it since.
The only amendment the Democrats support is the 5th.
I guess that's one of thing good things about owning weird guns in odd calibers. Outside of small niche groups like this one, they're hard to sell, hard to get ammo for, and very unlikely to get used in a crime.
Last edited by am44mag; 05-18-2020 at 07:39 PM.
______________________________________________
Aaron
I know a guy who had some people working for him that had a very spotty record of not showing up for work. After he had to replace them, one day his neighbor saw a white van pull into his back yard and thought it was somebody doing work for him. After a short time it left and they had broken into his downstairs, where his gun safe was and turned it over and drug/rolled or somehow got it to the van and loaded it into the back and left-quickly. The den carpet was torn up and the door frames it went through were knocked out and he lost the safe and every gun he had. After I heard this, I immediately drilled the floor and anchored my safes down. It might now keep a determined crook from getting them but they better be ready to work for it.
IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!
Yes & no. About 35 years ago, my house was broken into, and 5 pistols & a shotgun were taken. 5 or so years later, I get a call from a BATF agent. They raided a place in NYC and found a bunch of guns, and one turned out to be mine. It was eventually returned to me. The rest are still out there. Checked with my local sheriff a few years ago, and the rest are still on the hot list after all this time.
Just out of curiosity, how did many of these guns get stolen? Thankfully I've never had one stolen but a friend did get a S&W 686 stolen out of his truck while parked in his driveway in the middle of the night that he left unlocked.
Not only should a safe be securely bolted down (to prevent the entire safe from being removed AND to make attacking the door more difficult); the safe should be hidden. A safe should be placed on a small pedestal of 3" - 5" to protect it from minor flooding and prevent condensation inside the safe. After a safe is installed in a room, closet or other concealed location, consider making the door to the room smaller than the safe. You can't steal an entire safe that you cannot fit through the door to the room it's in!
Another tactic is to build a frame around the safe that allows the safe door to open but doesn't allow the safe to be removed from the framework. This not only makes it difficult to remove the safe but it makes attacking the safe difficult.
Don't think that because the thing is heavy that it can't possibly be stolen. If the thieves get the safe out of the building, they can spend hours or days attacking it to get it open. Time is only on your side if they can't just take the whole thing with them.
If I remember correctly, I’ve lost seven to theft over my lifetime. One happened to be a M1 Carbine manufactured by Rockola, like the one mentioned earlier. I think it’s an extremely rare occurrence, when a stolen firearm gets recovered and returned to its owner. Is there a hotline for gun dealers and pawn shops today, that a serial number can be checked quickly ?
AND......don't post on social media about your schedule and time away from home. A friend of mine posted about his upcoming vacation and even gave an itinerary, which told the world when he and his wife would be returning. He got cleaned out. They even broke into his shop and hooked to a diesel welder mounted on a trailer and took it to.
IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!
Greg no hot line I am aware of. In CA. pawn shops are required to send a copy of all firearms taken in by their business to the local law enforcement agency, sheriff or city police. That law enforcement agency then will run the serial numbers for a stolen check state and federal wide. Speed of getting the stolen forearm into the state & federal computer systems is very important. If the victim fails to provide the needed information in time, the stolen gun taken in by a pawn shop will come back as not being stolen because the check was ran before the victim provided the needed information to the LEO that took the burglary report.
Best policy against theft: a lockable room with a safe and the NRA and supplemental insurance policies with an Excel spreadsheet with full detains including purchase price and supporting invoices
Regards
John
All good advice. And keep that spreadsheet (or photos of valuables) someplace else. I will not help you if the computer files (or photos, or log book) burn up or are stolen along with the property.
My shooting and reloading mentor had a fire in his apartment (started in an adjacent apartment) in the late 60's. He was wiped out and his cherished firearms, for the most part, were destroyed. Two days later, a fireman from the incident returned "with bloody knuckles" and an undamaged revolver. Turned out the fireman had observed someone on scene at the incident take the revolver from the wreckage (a "trusted" someone who should have KNOWN better). The fireman's metal was tested in retrieving what did not belong to the thief and returning it to its owner.
If it was easy, anybody could do it.
You should practice the 3-2-1 backup rule. At a minimum one is none an two is one. As much as I’m not a fan of cloud storage solutions an encrypted and password secured copy on one of them is peace of mind.
Also don't trust family - Had a family member find all my lists and then steal too many firearms; Hard to report them when (a) you were stuck in bed, injured, and (b) they'd stolen your lists. Idiot did themselves in with alcoholism, but hurt me a bit there. No need or call for that baloney behavior...
My first 2 were stolen from my locked truck, they pried the window open and got my 2" nickel Colt Cobra and a New Mod Bkhawk. The other one was a S&W Model 15 that was in my wife's car they got the whole car. Police found it 2 weeks later without the swivel bucket seat and my gun was/is gone.
IT AINT what ya shoot--its how ya shoot it. NONE of us are as smart as ALL of us!
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