Getting Your Guns back

I get a lot of theft cases where the victim has no clue what the serial numbers on their stolen property are. The problem is that without a serial number there is almost NO way for the police to recover and get your stuff back to you. Even if we recover your stolen property there is no way to link it back to you. This is really painful when it comes to firearms.

If your gun gets stolen, it usually gets traded or sold on the street for drugs or cash. Sometimes it gets taken to a pawn shop and sold. Sometimes we, the police, catch bad folks with your gun and we put them in jail and confiscate the gun. The bad folks don’t care that they have lost the gun because they probably paid next to nothing for it. We are not going to give the bad folks back the gun so it sits in our property room for a loooong time.

Eventually, the unclaimed and seized guns get inventoried and boxed up. Then they get hauled down to a local steel mill where they are thrown into a giant vat of molten steel. This makes ol Cowtown Cop cry. A lot of these guns are garbage and there is no big loss. Along with the junk there is beautiful old long guns and revolvers that were the cherished possessions of someone who was a victim of crime. But, since they owners did not know the serial number of their firearms we don’t know who these guns belong too.

So, if you own a firearm follow these simple and easy steps to help you recover your guns in case of theft.

1. Find a pencil and a piece of paper.

2. Write down all the serial numbers of stuff you would like to get back if it gets stolen.

3. Put this piece of paper somewhere safe where it won’t get stolen or lost.

That’s it, cheap and easy. The likely hood of me recovering your property just increased drastically. And I won’t have to cry when an original S&W model 27 or a 1911 that someone brought back from WW2 gets melted down.

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More Heller Dominoes

Looks like we can expect a few more communities around Chicago to join Wilmette and Morton Grove:

But Wilmette threw in the towel earlier this week. Evanston plans to repeal its ban Monday, and so does the village of Morton Grove, which passed the first ban in the country 27 years ago.

We look forward to Evanston rejoining these United States.  Welcome back.  But this is an interesting development:

The city of Chicago is modifying its ban on handguns slightly but maintaining the teeth in the ordinance as the Daley administration prepares to fight the gun lobby all the way back to the Supreme Court. And they’ll be joined by the village of Oak Park, which appears to be the only suburb that’s not throwing in the towel, despite the Supreme Court ruling and the potential legal bills.

I’m wondering what “modifications” Daley is planning to make.  No doubt he wants to differentiate his ban from Washington DCs to make it a bit harder for us.  I thought he said that was out earlier in the week, but I guess it’s back in.

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