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On assignment up in northern Minnesota since yesterday, I had taken my wife and stepson with me. We'd boarded our two dogs, not trusting anyone to let them out, feed them on schedule. Nice little two-and-a-half-day trip.
Job wrapped up today, so I had just now come in from a relaxing, record-setting (time-wise) session nursing a bowl at the smoking table behind the motel, all pleased with myself, how long I got that bowl to last. Eyes half-closed, sitting with my wife, bliss.
Then my wife got a call from my step-daughter. She had come in to put our mail on the dining room table, her second visit to the house that day, and saw the gun cabinet door was wide open, lock busted off. She'd run back outside to call the police, afraid to go back in.
After they had checked the entire premises, they talked to me on the phone.
Only the handgun (stored in the bottom section of the cabinet out of sight), was gone. That's a 1st generation Ruger Single Six I inherited from my father. All the long arms were still there, including my oldest son's 30 aught six we keep for him.
I directed them to find the loaded .357 under my mattress in my bedroom. Gone. My wife's S&W Shield in the closet, top shelf, cased... gone. But my three muzzleloading rifles... still there. They were passing up long guns and bows (wall full of mounted bows, both recurves and compounds).
Our liquor cabinet in the kitchen... its cabinet locks pried to deformity with hammer claws... opened and cleared out.
Surely they didn't know about a big chest downstairs in the basement behind the chimney that had my reloading equipment in it. All three doors, their locks intact but pried off at the hinges... top and middle shelf, they said, were cleaned out. Eight pounds of powder. Can't begin to say how many rounds of ammo.
A big tool chest, locked, that I have my keepsakes in, on the weight lifting bench, has my extra cigars, some knick knacks I want to sell on eBay, and a couple cased/locked/empty handguns I was going to give to my son (now that he's rejoining civilian life), open, broken lock hanging from it. Only the two handguns are gone: Browning Buckmark and a Ruger P-series 40 Auto I "retired" some time ago. No one knew they were in there. No one I can think of. Not even my wife.
Garage door busted open. Steel door and lock, but wooden casement. First table... most of my briar pipes. I had just cleaned them all before the trip. Left them out drying, to be ready when I came home. Gone.
I won't know what else is gone till I get back, but the police say it looks like the work of someone who knows us. They looked like they were in a hurry, and they were selecting small, easy-to-carry and conceal items... mostly interested in the guns.
But... how in the world did they find them all? What the hell? No one knew where I kept the ones that weren't in the case. It makes me sick. Not even my wife knew where the "retired" handguns were kept... or the .357 beneath the mattress.
I won't know everything that's missing until I get home. But it's the guns, of course, that bother me. Now I'm a statistic. I feel as though I betrayed my fellow 2nd Amendment proponents because I never raised the money for one of those big safes. I've researched them over and over. But they're so much money, I thought, and my collection is so small. And I live in a crappy little house that no professional would want to "hit." Not worth it. Plus... my dogs are big and loud and have the run of the house. My private little security team.
I wasn't thinking when we left. I basically "disarmed" my home's security by boarding the dogs and taking my wife and son with me. We had our adult daughter checking on it a couple times a day. I'd left lights on. My truck was still int he driveway. My motorcycle is parked in my usual spot. To a stranger, it doesn't look as though we left.
Yet someone was watching. Has to be someone who knew us or caught wind of opportunity. Someone seized that opportunity.
And I nonchalantly created it, becoming an example to be used in the next gun control debate. Where are my guns? Kids have them? Being sold? An undocumented Mexican friend had begged me to sell him a handgun a few weeks back (I let him know how serious a violation that was, and that I wouldn't do time for him, no matter how good of friends we were. Was it him?)
Sitting here. Sick to my stomach. Counting hours till daylight and hitting the road. Wondering about just driving through the night to get home instead...
Job wrapped up today, so I had just now come in from a relaxing, record-setting (time-wise) session nursing a bowl at the smoking table behind the motel, all pleased with myself, how long I got that bowl to last. Eyes half-closed, sitting with my wife, bliss.
Then my wife got a call from my step-daughter. She had come in to put our mail on the dining room table, her second visit to the house that day, and saw the gun cabinet door was wide open, lock busted off. She'd run back outside to call the police, afraid to go back in.
After they had checked the entire premises, they talked to me on the phone.
Only the handgun (stored in the bottom section of the cabinet out of sight), was gone. That's a 1st generation Ruger Single Six I inherited from my father. All the long arms were still there, including my oldest son's 30 aught six we keep for him.
I directed them to find the loaded .357 under my mattress in my bedroom. Gone. My wife's S&W Shield in the closet, top shelf, cased... gone. But my three muzzleloading rifles... still there. They were passing up long guns and bows (wall full of mounted bows, both recurves and compounds).
Our liquor cabinet in the kitchen... its cabinet locks pried to deformity with hammer claws... opened and cleared out.
Surely they didn't know about a big chest downstairs in the basement behind the chimney that had my reloading equipment in it. All three doors, their locks intact but pried off at the hinges... top and middle shelf, they said, were cleaned out. Eight pounds of powder. Can't begin to say how many rounds of ammo.
A big tool chest, locked, that I have my keepsakes in, on the weight lifting bench, has my extra cigars, some knick knacks I want to sell on eBay, and a couple cased/locked/empty handguns I was going to give to my son (now that he's rejoining civilian life), open, broken lock hanging from it. Only the two handguns are gone: Browning Buckmark and a Ruger P-series 40 Auto I "retired" some time ago. No one knew they were in there. No one I can think of. Not even my wife.
Garage door busted open. Steel door and lock, but wooden casement. First table... most of my briar pipes. I had just cleaned them all before the trip. Left them out drying, to be ready when I came home. Gone.
I won't know what else is gone till I get back, but the police say it looks like the work of someone who knows us. They looked like they were in a hurry, and they were selecting small, easy-to-carry and conceal items... mostly interested in the guns.
But... how in the world did they find them all? What the hell? No one knew where I kept the ones that weren't in the case. It makes me sick. Not even my wife knew where the "retired" handguns were kept... or the .357 beneath the mattress.
I won't know everything that's missing until I get home. But it's the guns, of course, that bother me. Now I'm a statistic. I feel as though I betrayed my fellow 2nd Amendment proponents because I never raised the money for one of those big safes. I've researched them over and over. But they're so much money, I thought, and my collection is so small. And I live in a crappy little house that no professional would want to "hit." Not worth it. Plus... my dogs are big and loud and have the run of the house. My private little security team.
I wasn't thinking when we left. I basically "disarmed" my home's security by boarding the dogs and taking my wife and son with me. We had our adult daughter checking on it a couple times a day. I'd left lights on. My truck was still int he driveway. My motorcycle is parked in my usual spot. To a stranger, it doesn't look as though we left.
Yet someone was watching. Has to be someone who knew us or caught wind of opportunity. Someone seized that opportunity.
And I nonchalantly created it, becoming an example to be used in the next gun control debate. Where are my guns? Kids have them? Being sold? An undocumented Mexican friend had begged me to sell him a handgun a few weeks back (I let him know how serious a violation that was, and that I wouldn't do time for him, no matter how good of friends we were. Was it him?)
Sitting here. Sick to my stomach. Counting hours till daylight and hitting the road. Wondering about just driving through the night to get home instead...
