Posted on 02/28/2021 7:03:55 AM PST by real saxophonist
Locked or looted: Littleton passes new law forcing gun store owners to lock-up inventory after-hours
By: Russell Haythorn
Feb 26, 2021 LITTLETON, Colo. — Frustrated with increasingly brazen smash-and-grab gun shop burglaries, the City of Littleton has said enough’s enough.
Littleton is the first city in Colorado to pass an ordinance requiring gun shop owners to lock up their inventory after-hours.
The new ordinance is set to take effect this coming summer, but while some say city council hit the bullseye, others argue they are way off target.
“It would be hard to believe that a city would want to put a business out of business,” said Giovanni Galeano, owner of Old Steel Historical Firearms in Littleton.
“The actual gun itself is a fascinating example of this era of firearm technology,” said Sean Steele, general manager of Old Steel, as he showed us a vintage firearm dating back to the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The vintage collection at Old Steel features some extraordinary firearms.
“This one is over 120 years old,” Steele said. “These were issued to the 7th Cavalry members. So, this would have been about two years old at the time of the battle, which would be the Battle of the Little Bighorn.”
And Galeano points out, his shop is a fortress of sorts.
“The building itself is a concrete building,” he said.
There are bars on the windows, a reinforced entry and even Humvees parked in the way of potential looters.
“There’s no way you can break into this building,” Galeano said.
Other shops can be easier targets.
Scores of gun shop smash-and-grabs involving a crowbar and a criminal can be found on surveillance videos posted all over the internet.
“It’s kind of bold, to break the glass,” said state Sen. Rhonda Fields, whose son was gunned down and murdered several years ago.
“These criminals, they quickly grab ten guns or 20 guns per case, throw them in a duffle bag. Then, next thing you know there’s 50-60 guns walking out the door, or running out the door,” said Littleton Chief of Police Doug Stephens.
Within hours those guns can end up on the black market.
“We don’t know whose hands those guns are going to be on,” Fields said.
At Triple J Armory in Littleton last summer, thieves got away with a total of 51 handguns and rifles.
“They got past the first line of defense, and in less than three minutes, they cleaned them out,” said Littleton city manager Mark Relph.
Denver7 reached out to Triple J Armory but they did not return our phone calls.
Because of the problem, Littleton City Council is taking a new tactic.
“I would support an ordinance that goes across the board, no exceptions,” councilwoman Kelly Milliman said.
For the victims, it seems reasonable.
“You know, like jewelry stores, they put away their products,” Sen. Fields said. “They should just lock it up. I’ll be scarred for the rest of my life. My son was shot down and murdered alongside his fiancé in 2005. And he was shot because he was going to be a witness in another crime.”
To her, Littleton’s ordinance seems to be a common-sense approach to curbing crime – lock it up or risk being looted.
“We don’t know who they’re selling these guns to,” Fields said.
But others argue it is government overreach.
“They’re trying to regulate something they have no idea about,” Steele said. “If you look at Nice, France — that guy ran over a whole crowd of people with the truck that he stole.”
While there are no federal mandates about safe inventory storage, at least four other states – Massachusetts, California, Connecticut and New York have some type of law on the books requiring firearms to be locked up.
“We’re probably the first city in the state of Colorado that has taken it this far,” Relph said. “We’re just trying to create something that, in the end, is safer for all of us.”
Some gun stores are locking things up even when they’re not required to.
Take Ortiz Custom Guns in Georgia, for example.
Using a stolen Toyota, a thief rams through their front door. The surveillance images are posted online. The suspect admitted to casing the store ahead of time and when he came back after hours - he knew exactly where to go. Or so he thought. He didn’t get away with a single firearm.
“Because all the guns are in safes,” said the owner, Pedro Ortiz.
Back at Old Steel in Littleton, you could argue this is more of a museum than gun shop, with an exceedingly rare collection.
“This nice of condition is near unheard of,” Steele said showcasing one of his firearms.
A collection that would take hours to lock in a safe every night.
“It would be physically almost impossible,” Galeano said.
He says Littleton must be willing to work with gun shop owners.
“I believe we have the safest shop in Colorado,” said Galeano.
I don't think government should force a business to do what the business should be doing anyway.
Gunned down AND murdered!
Colorado ping.
She’s the tyrant that passed the 2013 idiocy. Magazine bans, UBCs, etc.
They’re trying this stuff again this year.
On a positive note, Adams County is awesome when it comes to CCW renewals.
I mailed my check and paperwork on Saturday, and my new CCW permit arrived in the mail the following Wednesday.
FOUR days.
And on the other note, Weld County's pretty good, too.
If a city mandates locking up inventory, but only for gun shops, that is an unequal application of the law. Make every business lock up their inventory. Hardware stores. ice cream shops, whatever.
That's said, by extension every dealership needs to bring their auto inventory in-house after hours lest someone steal a car and run over an innocent bystander. Leave the state out of it.
“state Sen. Rhonda Fields, whose son was gunned down and murdered several years ago.”
Don’t we really mean that he was assassinated?
“My son was shot down and murdered alongside his fiancé in 2005. And he was shot because he was going to be a witness in another crime.”
This crime has no connection to locking up or not locking up guns.
Yeah, pretty much. Of the three people on Colorado’s Death Row, two were involved in that case. Of course, Polismoker got rid of the Death Penalty, so that’s moot.
But it gets Rhonda Fields on TV again, and that’s what’s important!
Another tyrannical black female. They are FAR over represented in our gov and virtually every single last one is a white hating Marxist pos. We simply just won’t comply. Your move, ho.
It's the not knowing the identity and location of each gun toting person that is behind this.
There are bars on the windows, a reinforced entry and even Humvees parked in the way of potential looters.
I knew a gun store in OKC that made the same brag until somebody came through the roof and the ventilation system that was mounted there. That store is no longer in business. Bottom line, if somebody really wants in, they will figure it out. As to the ordinance, I think it can be successfully fought in the court.
I agree. I will also say that there was a gun shop near me that was broken into and the guns were just on that cable strung through the trigger gaurd.
Perps took the guns and within 18 hours, one person was dead, another shot. Many of the stolen guns were later recovered in Newark and might have bodies on them too.
This drove the law in NJ in that the building must be hardened with bars and and ram proof doors and guns have to be locked up at night. It's something I would do if I owned a gun shop.
The owner was financially ruined after the lawsuits although he did get a little shop going again after a decade. He eventually retired.
I would say barring and locking doors and windows is “Locking up inventory”
I actually support this.
The most local gov addressing a deficiency of responsible behavior at local gun stores.
Doesn’t insult the 2nd, and clearly (to me) requires of gun dealers what should already be a routine business practice.
What I DON’T get is why ANY gun shop would leave their firearm inventory unsecured, and I can’t imagine their insurance covering losses of unsecured guns.
Double whammy!
I get that the government has an interest in preventing criminals from being armed with stolen guns. And gun stores have a responsibility to prevent it.
But between 200,000 and 400,000 guns are stolen in this country every year, and fewer than 2% are stolen from businesses. The vast majority are stolen from houses, apartments, and cars. So this won’t even move the needle on restricting the supply of guns to criminals. Just a feel-good measure that imposes an unnecessary burden on businesses, like most regulations.
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