Reader homeuser wins
In this post about a letter asking FFLs to send police a list of AR-15s they have sold to locate a stolen gun, he said the police probably lost one. Well, he was right:
The state patrol opened a criminal investigation before sending the letter, just in case the missing gun ended up in the wrong hands. The state patrol won’t say how the gun disappeared — only that it was missing from the state patrol’s inventory in Tacoma last summer.
They lost a gun.
March 24th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Remember, only the military and the police can be trusted with those evil black guns
March 24th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
They lost a gun last summer, and they still haven’t found it? WTF? As a military arms room NCO, if we have a weapon go missing, we’re trashing everything until we find it, and everyone is staying there until it’s found.
Frickin’ Only Ones.
March 24th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
So why didn’t they have a serial number?
March 24th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
They didnt want to reveal they lost a gun. Giving the SN could have revealed that.
March 24th, 2011 at 3:19 pm
I suspect that they’re inventory methods are so amazing and superior that they didn’t realize it was missing until Feb or March of this year.
March 24th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
that should have been “their inventory methods”. I really should wait until my eyes have stopped glazing over from my work day before posting.
March 24th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Hey, it’s a good career move! The former Seattle Chief of Police lost his Glock, and got a job as His Imperial Majesty’s Drug Czar!
March 24th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
I’m always amazed by only ones losing guns.
I’ve NEVER lost a gun. I don’t know anyone who’s lost a gun. How do you do that?
March 24th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
“…the nature of the investigation prevented police from giving out specifics, like the make, model and serial number of the missing rifle.”
Why wouldn’t they want to give out this information, unless they were trying to cover up the fact that they were the ones who lost it?
March 24th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Every LEO evidence room is a tsunami of felony charges for missing items.
March 24th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
alan: Well, you and your friends – and me and my friends – don’t lose guns because they’re our personal property.
When it’s “the public’s” property, people can get a little lax.
(Or sometimes, indeed, a little thieving.)
March 24th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
So the really interesting question is, who was the rifle issued to, and what kind of political/family connections do they have?
March 24th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
70 years ago this wouldn’t have resulted in more than a raised eyebrow at the police HQ.
Think; a gun is a tool, like, say, a ladder or a ballistic vest. The only reason for what appears to be an attempt to cover up the loss of a firearm is all the manufactured hysterics over guns in last several decades. If they’d lost a hammer or a power drill from the janitor’s closet, or a laptop from an office, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but since it’s a gun we ALL have to freak the fuck out and stir the nest, getting people falling all over themselves for nothing.
Big fucking deal, I say. I’ve known people at the University of Idaho, who’ve routinely seen thousands of dollars worth of equipment go missing from one department annually. Somebody else’s money and all. You know you’ll have the same or a bigger budget next year.
That’s the issue. Forgive me if I don’t join in with the freak-out just because this particular piece of missing equipment happens to be a firearm. Some cop probably has it in his closet at home and is too embarrassed to say something at this point, or he sold it to one of his gangster buddies… If you don’t think it happens, you’re delusional. I bet you’ll also find toilet paper in cops’ homes that came from the HQ latrines. Freak the fuck out over that too. Same difference. Write letters to all the business supply houses for receipts to find out where all the tiolet paper went. Raise a fuss, call the FB fucking I. Make a federal case out of it.
Better yet; be more careful with whom you hire and take inventory once in a blue moon. I bet they lose at least 100 times more dollars worth of inventory in the form of non-firearm losses. That deserves, rationally, 100 times the freak-out magnitude, so I guess we’ll have to nuke ourselves over it.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
They are looking for the serial number because a cop sold it without permission. Since it was never reported missing it was not filed as stolen. Now the weapon is suddenly retroactively stolen so they need the serial number. When I was in boot camp and a rifle came up missing during my nightly counts. We were up half the fucking night looking for that thing. The scribe had failed to note it when a recruit transferred to ehp…
March 24th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
As usual, Lyle brings sanity to the discussion.
Thanks Lyle!
March 24th, 2011 at 9:56 pm
“I’ve known people at the University of Idaho, who’ve routinely seen thousands of dollars worth of equipment go missing from one department annually.”
In the late ’90s Purdue University lost an 80 ton crane.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Imagine if a law enforcement gun were to fall into the hands of an ordinary citizen. The sheer power would overwhelm them and cause them to do horrible, horrible things. Oh, the humanity!
March 25th, 2011 at 11:30 am
So either they actually lost a rifle and were such panicked idiots that they sent out that letter without actually READING it or considering how it would go over; or they were wanting to build(expand?) a database they have no business having in the first place and when caught this is their excuse for the letter.
Just frikkin’ wonderful.