N.Texas Gun Shop Burglary

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Ed Ames

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Just an FYI if you are in the Plano TX area... Someone did a 3AM smash and grab of a strip mall gun store yesterday, leaving with 90+ guns.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/201...om-mister-guns-in-plano-early-wednesday.html/

Remotely possible some will show up on the f2f market.

I've been to this shop a couple of times and these guys were definitely on the low end of the operational paranoia spectrum (handguns and silencers displayed on countertops where customers could just pick them up) but I didn't realize that extended to leaving guns out after closing. Oh well, I'm sure their insurance company will have plenty of "advice" for them.
 
I was in that shop in June 2014 and they didn't have 90 guns then, but their sales guy was pushing the Ruger LCP.
 
They definitely had more than 90 last week when I was there.

I can't say they ever mentioned an LCP to me, but they had a stack of factory boxed up S&W Shields in 9mm and .40 on the counter, with an unboxed example sitting on top of the stack for customers to pick up and handle (no need to ask to see it). I don't know if that is commonplace in other parts of the country but I'm used to handguns being behind glass and know of only one other store that routinely leaves handguns out for customers to handle unsupervised. I half expected someone to try walking out the store with one while the lone salesperson was distracted.

I'm not saying they did anything wrong, I'm just a wee smidge paranoid about that stuff.
 
Yeah, that's crazy, leaving guns out like that for people to freely coon-finger them. Would be pretty easy for a nut to carry in a loaded magazine and create havoc.
 
Haven't seen that kind of "hands on" approach to letting customers pick up and handle guns in probably 30 years and then it was just rifles and shotguns. Handguns were always on display in a locked glass case. At night all the handguns were put away in safes in the back of the store. I'm sure the owners wised up about having customers freely handle the merchandise (none to carefully at times), because eventually all of the long guns were relocated to locking racks behind the glass cases as well.

To leave a handgun out on display without being hooked up to some sort of security or tethering system is like you're just asking for trouble to happen.
 
bannockburn said:
Haven't seen that kind of "hands on" approach to letting customers pick up and handle guns in probably 30 years and then it was just rifles and shotguns.
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Rifles and shotguns out on the floor is fairly common. Even Cabelas does that.

bannockburn said:
Handguns were always on display in a locked glass case. At night all the handguns were put away in safes in the back of the store.
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That last part is the biggest part of the puzzle for me. I drove by this shop last night...they had plywood up across the window and door that the thieves drove a vehicle through, and one unbroken window. There was a sign on the plywood door asserting there was 24 hour security. Through the glass you could see ventilation ducts hanging, and handguns in the glass case that faced the window. I don't know how many people were camped out in the back but it was odd.

I know several shops that empty the handgun counters every night, but, thinking about it, the ones I *know* do that are all stores with gun counters, vs. dedicated gun stores.

bannockburn said:
To leave a handgun out on display without being hooked up to some sort of security or tethering system is like you're just asking for trouble to happen.
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Want to take it up a notch? About 10 miles from this shop, there is another that does the same thing, but they don't stop with pistols. Imagine seeing a stack of silencer boxes, with the silencers fanned out on the counter so you can compare the colors or pick up and finger the merchandise. Of course, one mounted to a pistol so you can feel the balance and see how it looks as a unit.
 
Ed Ames

The one gun shop I was thinking of was located in a little shopping center. They had long guns vertically stacked in racks all along the back wall throughout the store. There were no cables or any sort of tethering cords to keep someone from just picking one up. Typically there were only two sales cletks behind the counter and they couldn't keep track of everyone wandering through the store. I remember seeing quite a few "new" rifles that showed various signs of having been nicked, scratched, and otherwise damaged from careless handling. I wouldn't buy anything "off the rack"; I would ask if they had any in the back and get that one if it checked out okay.

To me leaving guns and silencers out like that is just a recipe for disaster.
 
bannockburn said:
Ed Ames

The one gun shop I was thinking of was located in a little shopping center. They had long guns vertically stacked in racks all along the back wall throughout the store. There were no cables or any sort of tethering cords to keep someone from just picking one up.
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Yep. Cabela's has racks like that. They keep the 'fancier' stuff behind a counter but it isn't unusual for them to put a $2000 used rifle, and a $350 new one, next to each other on a rack where anyone can pick it up. They zip tie and trigger lock so if you want to dry fire you need to ask for help. I've seen plenty of stores that didn't, for long guns.

One of my "back in the day" stories was seeing drums - large wooden pickle barrels with open tops, you'd expect from the general store in a western movie - out on the retail floor, full of new chinese SKSes, $59 each (probably $85 in today's money, figuring inflation). No attempt to protect them from each other, they were just muzzle down in the drums like a display of small brooms.
 
Ed Ames

I can remember as a kid going into the LGS and seeing those big barrels (the ones I saw were more like cardboard shipping containers), filled with German Mausers from WWI. I can't recall how much they were but I know it wasn't all that much. And the Sears store had shotguns and rifles out on the sales floor, set horizontally on shelves, tethered to the back of the shelving unit. Now those were the days!
 
Why businesses with such desirable goods ripe for this sort of burglary don't bother with these posts is just beyond me.
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Because city ordinances don't allow it, bars and pillars will make it look like a high crime area as the city is too concerned about their image.
 
Because city ordinances don't allow it, bars and pillars will make it look like a high crime area as the city is too concerned about their image.
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Not apparently in Plano. At least two other businesses in the same shopping center have them as do other businesses on Custer Rd. in Plano.

Bollards can be simple posts/pipes, but the job can be done with planters and other decorative enhancements.

Simply put in this case, they could have have some sort of barrier in front of the store to prevent the driving of a vehicle into it and if they didn't go that route, then the weapons should have been secured in a vault. You can't tell me that a vault is against city regs, LOL.
 
Because city ordinances don't allow it, bars and pillars will make it look like a high crime area as the city is too concerned about their image.
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Bullet Trap just up the street has bollards in front of it, as do hundreds of other stores in Plano. You may be confusing restrictive covenants or landlord restrictions with city ordinance.
 
The pictures of the inside of the store they posted mirror what every local FFL around here does. Most have vertical racks you can pick and examine the long guns from with no apparent security. Handguns are in glass front/top open back counters with no real security other than the scant deployment of employees on site.:scrutiny: We seem to have no real problems around here yet. One smash and grab about 15 years ago is all that I remember.
 
I think I need to quit putting off my gun security plans. The cheap locker they are in now wouldn't stop a 10 year old.
 
Interesting. We have a small shop in the area that is stacked with firearms to the brim. There are probably 200 rifles and shotguns in one room, and another 200-300 in the area they just expanded into. They sit on racks and available for anyone to handle. High-dollar stuff (engraved lever guns) are trigger locked with "do not touch stickers" but sit in the same area. Glass case with handguns is accessible to customers. The shop lady just says, "help yourself." :what: And you go around the counter and pull out whatever you want to look at lol. I really like such trusting atmosphere when I'm there. Not hard to spend 2hrs+ wondering around and familiarizing myself with the goods. But crap like the OP is always in the back of my head. Few scumbags ruin it for everyone. :fire: :cuss:
 
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