The joy of having your home broken into

Sounds like it was someone who knew you had guns...

sounds like kids to me. err yutes

Prayers for you and that you find your stuff.

I feel for you! I was there last winter. Lost one .308 Remington SPS. - Bought a very nice safe with the insurance money. It took four of us to get it in the house empty. Someone will have to cut a hole in the wall to get it out. Just replaced the rifle a month or so ago.
+1 for Harmonic.... Most times it is someone you know who has a big mouth.

I've experienced that joy. My case put the lie to the idea that your neighbors will watch out for you - the culprits were the neighbors.

I have a question. You said your other guns were locked up in a safe. Can you give us some details about the safe, and whether they attempted to break it open?

I know a lot of people, me included, hesitate to buy a safe because we can't afford a $1k+ unit, and I'm afraid that a sheet metal type safe won't stop a crook. Obviously yours worked as intended, so I'd like to learn more.

my heart goes out to you bro. good luck on the recovery

Way back when first married , we lived in an apartment. Got broken into. The drawers and closets were ransacked. The thieves left 3 S&Ws, 2 Rem. shotguns and a Beretta on the closet floor.
The responding cop said a thief usually has an eye out for guns, money and the medicine cabinet. He also said I would be surprised the number of times the thief was a so-called friend.

Mainsail said:

When my car was broken into and a briefcase stolen, I found it down the nearest storm sewer. Because of the time of day that it happened, early morning, I correctly surmised it was some kids waiting for the bus in the dark. Obviously they couldn’t take it to school with them, so they stashed it for later.

If you suspect it might be kids/teens, start prowling the wooded areas or anywhere else you might suspect someone would stash your goods. Look for things out of place, like piles of leaves or sticks. The fact that they left the jewelry seems to hint at teens.

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+1. A buddy lived in a house that was backed up by some low rent apartments, with a pretty good slice of wooded area between them. When he was burgled, I went over to help him fix the door. Afterwards, I walked the woods. We found about half the stuff that was missing in the woods, either dropped because they got spooked, or because they were coming back for it.

The good news was that one of them cut themselves pretty badly on the broken glass of the back door. There was blood everywhere, and they had opened the first aid kit on the kitchen wall and used a bunch of bandages.

We liked to think they bled out and died, or at least got a nasty infection or something. Lockjaw, maybe?

Az

That sucks. My brother lived in Denton a few years ago in a bottom floor apartment. Nothing particularly bad about the neighborhood, but his place got burglarized too. Luckily they didn't get any guns, just DVDs and electronics.

I hate thieves.

As a retired security professional, I'd like to offer some suggestions to help keep our guns away from burglars.

If you own a bunch of guns and have no safe, you're doing it wrong. Even a cheap safe, hidden and bolted down is far better than nothing. Call your local safe guy, he may have some used safes for excellent prices. It shouldn't have to be said, but if you have kids and you have no safe, go get one tonight. I don't care if your kids are responsible and know how to safely use guns. Their friends likely don't have the advantage of your teachings, and they can and will get into things that they shouldn't. Hell, even your own kids can surprise you sometimes.

If you don't have a safe, hide your guns. And start saving and looking for a safe. Get creative. My dad used to hide his rifles in the attic under the insulation. Even if you knew they were up there, if you didn't know exactly where, it could take hours to find them. I know one guys that hides his long guns behind his Christmas decorations in his storage room. One thing you can do is hide the bolts, mags and ammo separate from your long guns. Very few thieves are going to rummage through a storage area or an attic. It takes too much time and is usually unproductive.

Do you know where thieves look? Dresser drawers, bedside table drawers, under mattresses, the master bedroom closet, gloveboxes, center consoles, and under the front seat of cars. Why? Because this is where most people put their guns and other valuables. Now you know where not to put something that you want to keep.

Get creative. There have been all kinds of small cubby spaces in every car I've owned over the years. That is a much safer place for a pistol than even a locked glovebox. a locked glovebox can be opened in seconds, and it will be, because? (if you don't know the answer, see the above paragraph)

Better yet, don't leave a gun in the car. I know it can't be helped sometimes, but I also know people that have a "car gun". Rethink your need for a car gun. If you carry, you already have a gun, you don't need another one in the car. (There are cases where you really might, but ranchers and farmers have less problems with theft than those of us living in suburbia)

And lastly, don't talk about your guns to anyone that doesn't need to know. This also applies to your kids. Your gun inventory should be handled the same way as family secrets, and family finances. There's no reason to share them with anyone outside the immediate family. Your friends at school don't need to know what we pay in tax, they don't need to know about Aunt Emily's drinking problem, and they don't need to know what guns are in the house and how they're secured. Also be aware that pictures taken with your iPhone have GPS info embedded in them. You take a pic of your gun collection with your iPhone, upload it to the web, some mook downloads it, and he can use just about any image editing software like PhotoShop to see the GPS coordinates where that picture was taken. (There's also other ramifications here, if your kids upload pics from an iPhone to Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter, they are broadcasting to the whole world exactly where they're at)

And there's more motivation for locking up your guns than just keeping your guns. Most of us have insurance to replace lost items, so it's not the guns themselves. (although antiques and family heirlooms might) But I'm not worried about coming home and catching someone in the act of burglarizing my house and looking down the barrel of my DVD player. I'm not concerned that police will get in a chase with the guy that robbed my house, and he'll kill one of our city's finest with my stolen cellphone.

Get a safe. Hide the safe. Bolt the safe down. Put *all* your guns in the safe except what you're carrying. It's that easy.

Az

strategically inexpensive weapons hidden

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Hide weapons that are strategically inexpensive?
Or did you mean get inexpensive weapons and try to hide them strategically?

Still trying to figure out the former....

Don't expect the cops to find the people or your stuff.
My folks got burgled a while back. They found the people who did it, but only because they got caught in the middle of some other unrelated crime. And the stuff was all sold off for less than what my folks would have paid to get it back.

Sorry to hear about your loss Bro! I'm not saying I'm lucky, for now anyway, but several years ago, I bought a gun safe, place was going out of business. Took my Pop, my younger bro and I to move it into the house and dwnstrs. The safe isn't one of cheap construction, no flimsy sheet metal tho. I do feel a little more comfortable about my guns now, but if anyone wants something bad enough, the bastards will find a way to get it!
Don't give up hope!!

The vast majority of gun thefts are committed by friends of the victim.

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3 pistols lost rest were in safe. Was wife's cousin had been staying with us couple weeks. Came back, broke in, and got the pistols. Sold them on the street, Needed money for his drugs.

ever notice there's always these threads started by low post count new members about how their guns were stolen? it's like once a week.....just an observation.

FMJ,I understand where you are coming from but the fact that this a gun forum and the fact that home break ins are pretty high all over the nation currently,it just stands to reason that perhaps this could be a new member who just so happened to lose some of his guns in a home burglary and in his frustration is just venting.
I know how angry I was the three times my home was hit.
I seethed and stewed over it for weeks.

AZB,

I'm going to quote some of your message to several of my friends that are constantly on Facebook. I've already cautioned them about talking too much about where they are, when they will be away from home, and what they have in their personal armories.

My grandfather's entire collection of firearms was stolen on the day of his funeral because too many of his gun buddy "friends" knew what and where he kept those guns. Considering where they were when stolen, the thefts were committed by an acquaintance. Something to keep in mind.

Very good advice AZb. Thank you!

I know how if feels. Once I had a gun and a lot of expensive stuff stolen from my vehicle parked in my driveway and the other was limited to photography equipment inside my home. That was plenty however.

The boss thing.... well, it would depend on the situation for me and the employee. But the police report would more than document the reason for an absence if it was necessary at all.

A call for a burglary is not a high priority call to the police. They come when they have time as there is little they can do other than file a report. My impression is that they do not cruise the pawn shops looking for your stolen guns or equipment. If something pops up or they bust somebody and they are in their posession, then they find the merchandise and it is used as part of the prosecution as evidence.

A safe is about the only practical way to reduce the chance of firearms or other valuables being stolen once the perps are inside your home or business. Alarms work against kids, but pro's know how to disable or turn them off.

There are no guarantees in life and we all make our choices and take our chances. Sometimes we draw bad cards.

Sorry to hear of the break-in, Slimbo.

~25 years ago my house was burgled. I have never felt so violated ... must be connected to the fact that in the entire world THAT was MY little bit of space, y'know?

The one lasting thing that it accomplished was to harden my attitude regarding such things.

Get a safe or some sort of RSC. I forked out the cash years ago and am so thankful that I did. The peace of mind alone is worth it. Keep your eye out for floor models or scratch and dents, that's what I did and I wound up saving about $1,200 on a $3,400 safe.

Sorry to hear that.
Doesn't surprise me about your boss, I had to show mine the receipt where I had to buy a new battery for my truck.

Been there done that. I know your pain. I hate theives.

It's amazing. In these crappy economic times, many employers are really flexing thier "hiring/firing muscles". They think they're God, making you jump through hoops to keep your job, all the while making the same or less money for the last 2-3 years. I'm working on self-employment now. Screw 'em!!