Stolen guns

[6132expert]

Here is something I have copied from another site and thought it would be good to post in here as a stcky.

http://www.stolenweapon.com/Stolen-Gun-Home.html

[Madhouse]

That's something I sure hope none of us ever have to sign up for!

[imschur]

stickied

[Dusty44]

The first thing is to have the serial numbers and descriptions of weapons after a loss.  I had a house robbery several years back,  lost a gun.  The only record I had was that the box the gun came in (a revolver) was still available to me.  The serial number of the gun was printed on the box.  A year and a half later I was notified that another county had recovered the gun during a car search and that I should go there and recover it.  So I did get my revolver back.  Since then I have a file of serial number and description of every gun tucked away and a duplicate copy/file with another family member in another,  distant,  place.  I have also obtained more secure storage units for my guns.  There is nothing quite like a near miss to get one's attention.

[6132expert]

I know your pain! I had my first hand gun stolen. It was a Ruger P89 45 that was almost 20 years ago and I still get a letter from the county that they are still looking for it. I do not have the serial number on hand right now , but I am going to get it from the Sheriffis dept and run it on this site. I to have gotten smarter and now keep a detailed record of all firearms in the fileing.

[dirigoboy]

Right after school let out this past year, I made my way over to Tractor Supply, where I bought a nice Cannon, 24 gun safe.  Up until that time, like lots of guys, I was hiding mine all over the house, and every day when I closed the door to leave for work, I would kinda cringe and wonder if this was going to be the day that I got hit.

That gun safe has given me a lot more peace of mind, and while there is always the chance that someone could crack it, it's going to take a lot more effort, and could buy me time, which sometimes is all that's required.  Most thief's don't like to hang around. 

Secondly, Cannon provides a booklet with their safe's, and I took the time to catalog the description and serial numbers of all my weapons, as well as photos of each from two sides, which are on my computer.  It's not full proof.  If an intruder is intelligent and determined, there's a good chance he can still get at your weapons, but having them locked up and recorded legally protects you, and probably increases the size of your insurance check, should they not be recovered, or damaged.

[imschur]

I have added my safe to my alarm system. The safe is in a closet with sliding doors. I have the closet as a seperate zone with a sensor on the door. I have also added a shock sensor to the safe. If the perp gets that far there is a deafening speaker in the closet.

Even when the alarm is off the the second zone is still armed. Alarms are cheap

[Dusty44]

For dirigoboy:

So far so good.  In my house robbery the first thing taken was my computers.  Beyond that,  since computers became popular,  I have had  three computers suffer sufficient failure that most or all of the data on the hard drives were lost.  Two were stolen in that robbery which counts as one incident;  two others came to grief several years apart.  My take is that if data is really important it needs to be on paper in a safe location.  Alternatively,  use an independent separate hard drive for backup and hope the thief or other disaster leaves the backup drive behind or usable.  Not to even mention about update schedules and how long it was since the last update when the backup is all there is left.