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Have you ever had a firearm stolen?

  • I have never had a firearm stolen from me.

    Votes: 28 54.9%
  • I have had firearms stolen and I never saw them again.

    Votes: 17 33.3%
  • I have had firearms stolen and eventually had some of them returned to me.

    Votes: 6 11.8%

  • Total voters
    51
I have never had a gun stolen. I have kind of expected most firearms are stolen by acquaintances. I kind of wish I had broken the choices down by suspected acquaintance vs stranger.

I keep my serial number list in a text document that I store on my NAS and keep a copy on online storage. I am way out of date and really need to update my list. Most of my older guns were purchased from private parties or gun shows. Most of my newer guns were purchased from Sportsman's warehouse and I have receipts and cases that are kept separately from the firearms if I had to come up with a serial number.

I specifically did not ask about thefts that were not reported to the police because I wouldn't expect anyone to admit to not reporting a stolen gun. I do wonder if you can report a stolen gun without reporting the serial number?
 
Yes, I had a 760 Remington stolen from my home. I was pretty sure who the thief was.
I confronted him, we had a "Come to Jesus" meeting, and I believe, based on his body actions, he had a religious experience..
😳😳😳😳👍👍👍👍
Did he return it? If not did you send him to Jesus? Or Satan?
 
I did have a shotgun and a rifle stolen. They were packed up in my motor home, along with everything else, the day before we moved. Someone broke into it on the last night we were in the house, sleeping. Reported it to the police. Had the serial numbers.

Well, the thief got hard up for cash at some point and tried to sell them to a gun store. They were confiscated from the store, and returned to me. The thief was charged. When I got the rifle back, It had a nice new Leupold scope on it. It just had irons on it when it was stolen.
 
Well, the thief got hard up for cash at some point and tried to sell them to a gun store. They were confiscated from the store, and returned to me. The thief was charged. When I got the rifle back, It had a nice new Leupold scope on it. It just had irons on it when it was stolen.
A neighbor's brother had his 67 ElCamino stolen. It was a solid, white car, but worn out. A few years later he got a call from a storage yard telling him to come get his car and to be sure and bring a battery. What he brought home was a beautiful dark blue car with a new interior, fresh engine and a 4 speed.
He was happy as a clam!
 
Fortunately I have never had a gun stolen. I worked with a dude, however, who had $40K worth of guns, including some really nice Weatherby's, stolen...on Thanksgiving. He believes the thieves watched them leave to head out for a long dinner. He did not have his safe bolted down. To make matters worse, he believed the guns were insured under his home owners policy, not realizing there was a $2000 limit for firearms.

All good food for thought (PUN intended) as Thanks Giving is approaching.

And yes, I keep lists...

There is a master list (Excel) of everything I own that is gun related...so the guns, holsters, optics, bags, cases, magazines, belts, pouches, eye pro, ear pro, lock boxes, tools, steel targets, EVERYTHING. This list includes the basics...make, model, color, serial number if applicable, cost, some notes, etc. This is my master list that I assembled years ago and keep it updated as I buy more stuff.

It was a bit of an exercise to first put it together, but it's easy enough to maintain once it's created. I couldn't imagine trying to pull all this together after a fire or the house got robbed. I'm positive that I would overlook a lot. Also, if you've never done this, it is quite eye opening with respect to how much money is tied up in all the accessories. I knew it was going to be a lot but I didn't realize it was going to be that much.

In addition to this, each gun has a file (computer) and in the file are digital copies of the purchase receipt, DROS forms, pictures of the gun, and any other relevant information.

I also keep a maintenance spreadsheet in Excel to track round counts and service intervals and what got done.

All of this is stored digitally up in the cloud so I can lay my hands on it from any computer if the house goes up. And if you're worried about your cloud storage being hacked or something, you can always encrypt the information.

If you've got a number of guns and the assorted accessories, you really should take the time and do this exercise...and not just for your guns but for anything else of significant value that you own. As I said above, I couldn't imagine trying to pull all this together after the house burns down. It would also be too late to get things like receipts, DROS, pictures, etc.

At a minimum, take 10-20 minutes and shoot a video on your cell phone of all your stuff. If you have nothing else, I suspect that would be invaluable in pulling a list together of all your stuff, and having some level of proof for the insurance company.

And like any other insurance, once a year you should sit down and see if you need to adjust your coverage up or down depending on what you have bought or sold.

Good luck...and may the odds be ever in your favor! :)
 
What...????!!!!!
I am all for cataloging names and numbers via a computer system....look how well that has recently worked for Washington ...:rolleyes: :D

Sorry to read that your firearms and other times were stolen...and more than likely by neighbors....ugh.

Luddites of the world unite...now if only this carrier pigeon would fly faster....
Wait...what if your carrier pigeon has ADD...? :D
Andy
...and not fly over hungry people's houses.
 
While I normally worked second shift, shoot off for league champions at a trap club was on a Wednesday night. I switched and worked day shift. That day some low life's, broke into my house and took three Remington shotguns, a Remington 22 Speedmaster rifle, a Ruger M77 in 243 Win. and Browning Nomad 22 cal pistol. Reported to the police. Never seen them again. I had my trap gun with me at work. We won the club championship.
Odd thing about it all is my Browning HiPower was hanging on the gun cabinet in plain sight, and they didn't take it.
 
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My sister in law lost a sig 938 last winter while snowmobiling. She didn't even realize it was missing until much later when my brother asked where it was. Sad thing is they didn't have a serial number for it so somebody more than likely got a freebie if it wasn't rusted too bad. I've kept a record book of all purchases and dispositions for several years now. My memory isn't so good on the finer details so it's nice to have a reference of when, where and how much. It's super easy to keep updated since it's in the safe and I just fill it out when a new one comes home or one leaves. I have one colt that's been in and out four times! A friend and I couldn't decide who needed it the most, I hope the records will help my wife or another family member once I'm gone to figure out what not to sell them for. I know there's risk having everything written down but there are many rewards as well.
Dude, that sucks. I saw one of those at a gun show a couple of weeks ago and I'm still kicking myself for not buying it. Hope she found another she likes as well.
 
Dude, that sucks. I saw one of those at a gun show a couple of weeks ago and I'm still kicking myself for not buying it. Hope she found another she likes as well.
Well the story has a happy ending as of just last week. It's winter again and they had a big bag of winter gear stored that my brother dumped out. Inside one of the stocking caps was a sig 938! My brother told me he thinks she should give him the 365 that he bought for her to replace it.
 
Yes, I've had two guns stolen from me in 1985.

I'm not sure if the thief was known to me or not. It might've been random or it might have been a kind of tradesman that I was having a dispute with around the same time. I had lots of mechanic tools in my garage, someone passing by might've seen those and came back later for them, the two guns being a bonus. "Known but to God." In any case, at the time I lived in the city, the theft took place from a garage that was on an alley. I will never own another property with alley access like that. But then again, I will never live in the city again in the first place.

The two guns stolen were in the garage for repairs. Both had stock issues. One was a Marlin Model 99 semi-auto 22, the other was a US Carbine M1 .30 Cal. The Marlin was recovered miles away in a "disadvantaged" part of the region in distressed condition. If the Carbine was recovered, it was never made known to me. For reasons that I've explained in another post, the NCIC (stolen gun database) needs information to be input a certain way. Some military weapons don't always get entered properly, or officers/property clerks don't ID them properly, etc. So these can fall between the cracks.

Do I keep lists, absolutely. From Day One, going back to 1965. On paper and Excel document in my home PC but not in the "Cloud" of which I am mightily suspicious. Also on a plug in device for portable backup.

Over the years, I've been amazed over and over by people who don't keep lists/records. Typically, it's a person who is an infrequent user of a firearm, like a hunter.

Guns are what the army calls, "highly pilferable items." Guns, binoculars and night vision devices. The number of stories that can be told about a stolen weapon is too high to count. Some guns, like old military 1911 pistols have been stolen multiple times during their existence.

If I'm not mistaken, the new WSP background check process in Wash. state includes a serial number look-up. Which is probably a good thing, taking the good with the bad as it were.
 
Stolen before we could even take possession.

My wife shopped a lot for her first handgun before settling on a used Ruger GP-100 stainless on display at my fave LGS in Lancaster, CA. She completed her mandatory safety training with her purchase, after which the instructor set the gun aside for cleaning & storage while the 10-day clock ran down. Scant minutes after he put it down, a teenage visitor to the gunsmith shop picked up that GP-100 and quietly walked out the door with it.

The theft came to light a few days later when the teen's mom found a gun store sales tag in her car; puzzled, she called the phone number on the tag. My wife was floored to get call from a total stranger asking if she owned a GP-100, but cautiously replied that her GP-100 was still at the LGS. Immediatlely "the penny dropped" for that lady, who knew that her teenage son often visited a friend who worked at that LGS.

My wife and that lady both called the LGS, whereupon the GP-100 box was pulled from storage and found to be empty except for my wife's puchase documents. Within minutes, the LGS phoned the sheriff's department to report a stolen gun and a likely suspect. When the deputies went to the lady's home, their knock at the door was answered by her teenage son . . . with the stolen GP-100 tucked in his waistband. All investigations should be so easily closed.

Of course the used GP-100 had to remain in evidence for many months. When my wife's 10-day wait ended, the stand-up LGS owner handed her a brand new stainless GP-100.
 

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