Received via email from a reader and presented without comment.
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I’m part of the problem
Ask just about any gun rights advocate where criminals get their guns, and most will immediately tell you that they steal them from law-abiding gun owners. Unfortunately, a few months ago, I unwittingly contributed to that problem. The worst part is, I didn’t even notice until yesterday.
I had stored a couple of handguns up there, ironically so that they wouldn’t get stolen (I had gone on vacation, and the thinking was that if anyone breaks into the house while I’m gone, they won’t go up there, so whatever they get, they won’t get the guns). I don’t yet have a safe — I’ve been procrastinating on that for a couple of years now, I’m afraid — so this seemed like a logical choice. Since nobody ever goes in our attic but me, and we don’t have children in the house, the two gun cases were more or less in plain sight, once you got into the attic. One was locked, the other was unlocked. The locked case contained a .22 varmint pistol, and the unlocked case contained a .40 S&W.
A couple of months ago, I had some contractors working in my attic. They were up there unattended for several hours. I had forgotten that I stashed the guns up there, so I didn’t think anything of it. Yesterday, I went up to go get the .40 to take it to the range (life’s been busy, and the range is a ways away, so it’s been months since I’ve been able to go). The locked case with the .22 was still there, more or less where I remembered putting it. The unlocked case, the one with the .40, was missing.
Panic set in, and I just felt sick inside. I tore apart the house, hoping against hope that I had moved the .40 and simply forgotten I’d done so. I checked all the places where I’ve ever stored it, and several where I never did, to no avail. No trace. Finally, I decided to do a more thorough search of the attic. And it was up there, inside a blue plastic storage container, that I found the conclusive proof: the empty gun case had been hastily dumped in there, wide open, along with the holster. The .40 and all three magazines were gone. That sick feeling just got worse.
I called the police and filed a report, but months after the fact, there’s only so much they can do. Worse, that particular gun was a gift, and I hadn’t bothered to write down the serial number anywhere, meaning that the odds of ever recovering the piece drop from “pretty remote” to “zero.” (I called the guy who gave me the gun; he didn’t have a record of the S/N, either.) The loss of the gun isn’t that big a deal to me; it’s the thought that my gun, a gun I’m responsible for, could wind up in the hands of some thug, and someone could be hurt or even killed with it. If that happened, I don’t know if I could live with myself.
Now, I’ve always been of the (somewhat outspoken) opinion that we as gun owners bear additional responsibility because of the very nature of the tool we choose to own. And in that regard, not only did I fail to live by my principles, I let all gun owners down. I’ve unwittingly contributed to the gun-grabbers’ argument that we can’t be trusted, that guns are too dangerous to just have “out there,” blah blah blah. And for that, too, I am deeply sorry.
The thing that has me kicking myself the most about all of this is how easily it could have been prevented. Not only did I not do everything I should have done to prevent the gun from being stolen; I didn’t even take basic, reasonable precautions that would have taken almost no time and cost almost no money. The locked gun case, the one with the .22 in it, wasn’t tampered with. How fucking hard would it have been to put a padlock on the case? Yet I procrastinated, and I didn’t do it. I didn’t buy a safe — there were always “more important” priorities. Some friends have tried to calm me down, saying that it’s not my fault that some scumbag stole the gun. Maybe not, but it’s certainly my fault that it was so easy for them.
My only hope in writing this is that you learn from my mistake, and don’t repeat it. Don’t be a shithead when it comes to your guns. When they’re not on you or with you, lock them up. Preferably in a safe. Don’t make it easy for the wrong people to get their hands on them. I’ve learned my lesson, but unfortunately, it’s too late.