i love these picture sharing spots but now the robbers and crooks know what you have and where to find it. i would never do this but would like to. too many crooks out their looking at sites like this.
Well your security level is your business. However, after 31 years of law enforcement, 23 as a detective, I can tell you that the vast majority of burglars aren't trolling the internet looking for black powder guns.
Those that are trolling the internet looking for stuff to steal are looking for high dollar/small size. Meaning, the larger and heavier the [fill in the type of property] the more it needs to be worth on the street. So jewelry, drugs, and then maybe a modern handgun, and finally a modern rifle or shotgun. It's the ability to exit, and not be spotted as suspicious, plus the risk vs. the gain that drives the selection. IF folks get guns stolen it's likely a) a crime of opportunity, and the bad guys had NO idea what they were taking, OR b) the person had been in the house in the past and knew what the stuff was, and lined up a buyer or buyers or wanted the stuff for themselves.
A burglary takes less than 6 minutes from breaking the entry to exit. This is why it's rare that Law Enforcement catches the burglar in the act, and instead when people have alarms, we promptly arrive a few minutes after the crook departs. You figure...., it's one minute until the alarm goes off after it's tripped...which allows the home owner to get to the alarm key pad and deactivate the alarm before it triggers. Then another minute after the alarm triggers for the alarm monitoring company to call the location to ask "Is this a false alarm? What's the pass code?" (The ringing phone tells the burglar(s) a silent alarm has been tripped..., so much for "silent"). It then takes the alarm company 1 minute to call the police and report the alarm. It takes another minute for the dispatcher to read the call and radio the call to the patrol cars...four minutes have elapsed. IF the responding patrol car doesn't arrive in the next two minutes..., the crook has left.
The crook, on the other hand, forces entry, and moves to the Master Bedroom and removes a pillow case from one of the pillows on the bed. (1 minute). The phone starts ringing and the crook figures an alarm has been tripped, and dumps the contents of any jewelry boxes or containers into the pillow case... most women keep a jewelry box in the open on the dresser
. (2 minutes elapsed) Night stands are next, followed by lifting the mattress. Anything valuable is dumped into the pillow case, jewelry/watches/envelopes of cash/medicine bottles..., and a modern handgun
might be taken if found. (3 minutes elapsed) Next the crook moves to the medicine cabinet and dumps all the pill bottles that are found into the pillow case. Crook is done on the second floor, but will look into any other bedrooms for other adults who may have a jewelry box on a dresser. (4 minutes elapsed) Now some crooks depart, and others may go to the main floor, to the kitchen to see if any meds are stored there (they know folks take their meds with food you see) Any meds found go into the pillow case. The last two minutes differ from burglar to burglar. Some jet out, and others will take something of large of high dollar, and conceal it behind a shed or something in the back yard, to return at night to get it.
What they want to then do is to casually roll up the pillow case and carry it away..., it won't look like a pillow case to most folks, or they conceal it within their coat. They don't want several heavy handguns, and really don't want to be walking too far with what is obvious to most folks is a long-gun. "Hey Nancy, that guy is walking down the street with a shotgun in his hand!" Nope they don't want that. They want to reach a vehicle or get to a pedestrian foot path (cops arrive in cars, not via foot paths) without being noticed. A small bag of "loot" is more easily dumped as they flee if too many cops arrive in the area in too short a time for them. OH why no guns are taken sometimes? Some think the cops will use it as an excuse to simply shoot them, some know getting caught with one is often more jail time.
The BEST way to protect your firearms of any sort..., lock them up, AND reinforce your windows and doors. I can't tell you how many high-end homes I've been in (I'm sayin' 3x more than I can possibly afford), new homes, state-o-the-art security system..., with cheese-ball locks, and craptastic installation of those locks, and cheapo security on the windows. MUCH MUCH better to spend $100 out of one's pocket to reinforce all the doors and windows, and report an attempted burglary, then to come home and find you've had a break-in.
LD