Imagine you find out that your home or car has been burglarized for just a moment. For some of us, it's really just pulling up past experiences rather than an act of imagination. Regardless, picture yourself in that situation. You call the police to report the theft.
Next thing you know, you're in handcuffs.
That doesn't make a lot of sense, now does it? Except, it can actually happen. In fact, it did to one woman recently.
STAMFORD, CT — A local woman with a valid pistol permit who reported a gun stolen from her car ended up getting arrested and charged with two counts of storing or keeping a pistol in an unattended motor vehicle, according to police.
The woman, a 32-year-old Stamford resident, went to police headquarters on the morning of Dec. 10 to report that her Glock 9mm handgun was stolen from her Nissan Rogue in front of her home on Club Road, Stamford Asst. Police Chief Richard Conklin said, noting that the woman told police the gun was stored in her locked glove box.
Officer Joseph Rizzitello followed up on the report and inspected the woman's car.
“He found there was in fact no lock on the glove box, so it would have been impossible for the glove box to be locked,” Conklin said.
Another one of the woman's guns was found on the floor of her “unsecured vehicle” in an unlocked gun case, Conklin said.
Now, I'm not about to excuse the woman for not having her guns secured properly. We should all be doing that at all times, and I get thoroughly frustrated by people leaving guns in unsecured vehicles.
That said, she's still the victim of a theft and is the one arrested.
Nothing about that is right or just.
And yet, she's not the first to be arrested for this, nor will she be the last.
The funny thing is, many of those who advocate for these kinds of laws will get outraged if you were to revisit the victim-blaming age regarding rape victims. You know what I'm talking about, the time when a rape victim was interrogated about how she dressed, what she was doing, etc, all so a defense attorney could claim to the jury “she was asking for it.”
It was an awful practice that never should have been permitted, and damn well never should have worked, and yet here we are all over again.
“She didn't lock her property up, so she was asking for it.”
We don't arrest people for leaving valuables in plain sight in their cars, but if you don't have a gun locked up, you're going to be arrested.
It's nonsense.
I get that people want to keep guns from falling into criminal hands. Yet we won't accomplish that by arresting the victims of crimes.
Instead, this story just makes it more likely that people will start lying about how their guns were stolen, when they were stolen, etc. After all, no one wants to risk charges, so they'll lie about when and where they were taken, all in an effort to avoid them.
Which won't actually help the problem, only make it worse.
Read the original article in its entirety at bearingarms.com.
I can certainly see where the police are coming from. Sorry to disagree, but we have a LOT of this kind of thing in Monument, Colorado. Our town had a reputation for “stupid, rich white people” that leave things like guns and even car keys in a car overnight so we have more vehicle burglaries than our understaffed police dept can keep up with.
Over the past decade, I’ve read about these stories as they came in. One guy stepped outside to his own driveway to confront a car burglar and was immediately shot at three times by the burglar. Since the burglar wasn’t caught, we cannot know for sure where he got the gun, but it could very well be from a recent burglary because I hear about guns going missing every few months. On our local NextDoor, we keep hearing victims tell how they lost their purse, laptop, gun because they left them in the car overnight and we dump all over them for 1) Being stupid and 2) Attracting thieves to our neighborhood. The thieves even take garage door openers and burglarize the house!
So yes, don’t leave food in your car because a bear will smash his way in to eat that food. Same goes for the two-legged opportunists.
On the other hand, law abiding gun owners, if they read this article, will keep this case and the article’s advice in mind: Lock up your unattended firearms.
Actually, responsible gun owners won’t keep the article in mind, because they ALREADY keep the guns locked up when they are not actually carrying them.
Unless abiding by liberal laws makes you defensless
Lock up the unatended firearms but ALWAYS CARRY as per you license
Welcome to comrade chairman Xi den’s USSA. Today’s victim is tomorrow’s offender, unless you are dem antifa or bLM (lower case b = total dis)
until you get robbed or shot with someones stolen gun , then who you gonna blame ?
I am still going to blame the jerk who thinks he has more rights to somebody’s property than the owner of the property has.
As a lawful concealed carrier, I get extremely aggravated when I pull up to someplace on my list of errands, only to discover I am not welcome there unless I disarm myself and become a helpless target. I do not have any lockable gun safes mounted in any of my vehicles and I don’t even own any vehicles with a trunk. So, either I hide my firearm under the seat and hope nobody breaks into my vehicle or I take that errand off my list. Doubly annoying when it involves a gov’t building.
The thief, komrad…..
The owner of the stolen gun is not and can never be a perpetrator.
Only the thief or possessor of the stolen property wears that distinction.
If I have to leave a firearm in a vehicle, I disassemble it and take a key component with me, usually the part that is the trigger assembly. You are then not carrying a usable firearm, and any theft cannot make it gun without the licensed part , the trigger group.
She knew leaving an unsecured handgun made her sound stupid so she lied to the Police about it – while having another unsecured handgun as she reported it! Lock her up and take her guns away from her – it is safer for us!
Lots of places you can’t even conceal carry anyway
I’m not against her being charged for the unattended firearm but is any attempt going to be made to find who stole it ? Probably no evidence collected i.e. prints, DNA, checking for cameras in the area, etc. due to personnel shortages, budget shortages or whatever the excuse de jour is. Hopefully her arrest is not the wrap up on the case.
If the woman had a carry permit, which she seemingly had, how come she was arrested. Also, since she had a carry permit, why was her piece left in her car, and not on her person.
More garbage from liberals.
That’s not law enforcement. That’s political abuse by lib trash.
100%
That’ll teach me a lesson. NEVER leave a weapon in my vehicle, and ALWAYS ignore those “no firearms” allowed signs and pack everywhere….
This is exactly what happens in Canadian law where they will eve prosecute for trying to defend yourself with a gun and charge you with murder if your defense is successful.
What the hell’s that matter with people here? When I was growing up many years ago guns were left openly in vehicles and never touched. It’s not the woman’s fault, it’s an illiterate society who fails at parenting and a failed public education system that fails with their indoctrination BS. Get real as an adult.