Your point?
An aside: how often did you get checked in those 30 years? I’ve had an 03 for about a decade and it’s never happened, but obviously BATFE takes less interest in the small fry.
pkbites if and when your handgun ends up at a crime scene you are completely covered. After all, some unknown person stole that gun from your store. It is all in the police report.
[quote=“Paul_in_Qatar, post:23, topic:791792”]
pkbites if and when your handgun ends up at a crime scene you are completely covered. After all, some unknown person stole that gun from your store. It is all in the police report.[/QUOT
What ever you say, knowitall.
Missed the edit window…
Having an alibi is the entire purpose of staging a robbery. It would be dumb to let your guns slip into criminal hands without an alibi.
I have decided to assist you by keeping quiet about your planned robbery. Good luck with it and please forward 25% of the proceeds to the SDMB c/o the mods who will ensure it reaches me. 
[Quote from the Terminator]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIPCn-aYMoM)
Wouldn’t it have to be both? As you say, you’re required to keep records of what guns you have, and you get in trouble if the records don’t match the reality. If you were to get robbed, you wouldn’t have those guns that got stolen any more, and so they’d better not show up in your shop. You would have to get rid of them somehow. I suppose you could just drop them in the bottom of some local body of water, or whatever, but given the choice between throwing them away and getting the black market price for them, why wouldn’t you choose the latter? I mean, of course, assuming that you’re the type to commit insurance fraud by faking the robbery in the first place.
Quote from Daffy Duck: “It’s a great trick, but I can only do it once…”
I would think that if it happens more than once, the police would become suspicious. Plus, I assume pkbites will help out here, but… if your store security is so crap that the alleged felons have time to load up a truckload of good stuff without setting off alarms, if there’s no sign of forced entry, if they know exactly where all the good stuff is kept, if you internal security sucks and the good stuff is not in locked safes/boxes/closets… any of that will set off the necessary suspicions of the authorities.
Plus, like most life of crime, you need to rinse and repeat often or the payoff from one incident will have to be so good (several million at least) as to justify the risk of life without parole. Also note that you are putting your future in the hands of some low-life(s) who could sell you out in return for fingering you as the mastermind.
Besides, where are you going to find a low-life if you are not involved in criminal activities already. You hear occasionally about someone who wants to off their spouse or business partner, finds some low-life and asks them for a hitman contact, only to end up talking to an undercover policeman because the fellow told his parole officer right away.
It’s just not worth the risk just to get enough money for that big fishing boat you’ve always wanted… But then, people stupid enough to do so for a small payout are likely to make enough mistakes to get caught right away.
[quote=“davida03801, post:27, topic:791792”]
Everybody recognized the quote. The question is what point Ekers thought he was making by interjecting it here. The context in which it is used in the movie isn’t the same as what is under discussion here.
I’ve known exactly one dealer who tried this and he got busted. He ran a very small shop and operated on the edge of bankruptcy. He did the gun show circuit and claimed several handguns got stolen at a large gun show in Pittsburgh. He collected the insurance for the guns and then, I presume, sold them off paper. He got away with it the first time. The second time he had guns “stolen” at a show, BATFE became intensely interested in him and his business practices. He lost his FFL for certain. He also disappeared from the area. I don’t know if that was because of prison time or because he moved away or some other third thing. The dealers get to know each other at the shows, and it was their consensus that “Fat Tony” was crooked long before the Feds got wind of him.
[quote=“davida03801, post:27, topic:791792”]
Actually a misquote, I’m embarrassed to see.
Get your FFL, and you will understand pkbites reasoned perspective. Then again, perhaps you wouldn’t.
Do we all know the difference between “burglary”, “robbery”, and “theft”?
Apparently not.
Either way, it would be ridiculous for a dealer to stage any of them to get guns to the black market. It would be far easier and attract less official attention to just sell to someone who can legally possess and have them distribute to those who cannot. In most states private sales are legal and don’t create the paper trail a dealer has. Once a customer takes delivery of a firearm from a licensed dealer the trail ends. YMMV depending of where you live but in about 95% of the USA this is fact. Or to transfer them to his own collection and then sell them as a private citizen later. Both are still a risk.
The biggest expense storefront dealers I know have is paying their rent, utilities, etc… Staging a burglary to solve those would be a much bigger hassle than it’s worth.
- They rob you. Get money back.
Gosh, I can remember a time when the Dope was a place for polite discussion and the exchange of information.
In any case. There are many, many burglaries of gun shops across our broad land. Many, many guns are stolen. These (presumably) end up in the hands of criminals, you know the burglars.
Such robberies seem to be as a result of negligence of the owners of gun shops who do not seem to secure their dangerous merchandise after hours. Such negligence seems to me so blatant that it seems to suggest our Word of the Month, collusion.
It is not a question if burglaries happen. Despite all the protestations they do. Yes, there are easier ways for Bad Guys to get guns. They still rob gun shops. This despite bound books. This despite the fact that responsible store owners … and so on.
The question asked was about the value of brand-new guns taken in such robberies.
If you, like me, do not know the answer, perhaps it would be better if you sat down and listened. When someone asks a question you can actually answer your comments would be valued.
Thanks.
The trouble is - doing this is more difficult. If Fred buys 2 or 3 guns and when police investigate, "oh, I sold them " all fine. If he bought and resold 200 firearms, surely some dealer licensing rule kicks in; plus there must be some conspiracy charge at that level? Plus you have to find a co-conspirator with connections willing to split the profits etc.
The general rule of felonies kicks in: you have to do everything right and the law enforcement only has to find one of your mistakes, and they have plenty of time and manpower to do so.
Only if he also didn’t sell any guns. If an BATFE looks at my bound book (and in 30+ years I’ve only had 2 inspections) and sees that I transferred 200 guns to myself but sold only 3 to the general public there is going to be a problem.
But that problem only arises if the BATFE agent sees it. Staging a burglary is going to involve the local police and the feds. As well as local media. I just don’t see the advantage. It’s like selling booze to a minor. there are more than enough people over 21 to make a healthy living without selling to kids. There are more than enough non-criminals to sell guns to. No reason to mess around with felons.
Googling gun store robbery, theft or burglary returns a disturbingly large number of hits. Apparently a gun store near me was hit pretty recently, in fact. I did not realize that gun stores were being targeted by criminals as much as they are.
Now, as it is the case that these stores are being targeted by criminals, and it is the case that not everyone is as honest and noble businessman as you are, I cannot discount the possibility, probability even, that there have been some of these store owners who were running late on their rent or utilities, and turned to some alternative methods of paying the rent.
They don’t have to be all that involved, just give a bit of information on the usual police response time to the alarm, point out where the guns that are easiest to carry off are, and then lock up for the night.
I don’t think this is a common practice, but I would actually be quite surprised if it hasn’t happened at least once, if not a bit more frequently than that.
You** assume** too much.
Actually, I do know.
And you have been told by others, you simply won’t listen.