Smash-and-Grab Gun Thefts Threaten Communities, Small Businesses. NSSF Has Real Solutions.
By Lawrence G. Keane | 4:01 PM | August 30, 2024
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NSSF in partnership with ATF launched Operation Secure Store®. It’s just one part of NSSF’s Real Solutions. Safer Communities® initiatives to provide answers to the problems the firearm industry faces. Operation Secure Store (OSS) proactively educates federal firearms licensees (FFLs) in identifying and quantifying vulnerabilities and risks associated with the business of firearms commerce and industry-related operations as a whole. NSSF offers firearm retailers a free Risk and Security Self-Assessment Tool to begin to understand how firearm retailers can layer security to help stop these crimes.
Operation Secure Store started when ATF noticed a concerning trend and approached NSSF to help stem the problem. That led to OSS. ATF now responds to every burglary to work with the FFL and local law enforcement to ascertain the number of firearms stolen and put the information into the stolen gun database. This is not a compliance inspection. The ATF treats the FFL as what they are – a victim of a violent crime. ATF will also alert firearm retailers in the area to be on guard because these gangs will often victimize other local area gun shops, and even at times hit the same firearm retailer a second time.
For any firearm retailer, regardless if they are an NSSF member, a security consultant team is available to help with this. NSSF set up a hotline for any firearm retailer to get more information – 1-800-FLLNSSF. That’s not just for security questions, but also federal regulatory compliance questions, lead and noise Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) noise compliance questions and access to NSSF suicide prevention resources.
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Politicians Punish Firearm Retailers
These Real Solutions are imperative because gun control politicians see these crimes as opportunities to punish firearm retailers with state-level laws that make it increasingly difficult and costly for small business owners. They want to treat the victim of the crime – the dealer – as the criminal and blame them for the crime committed by gangs. Washington state passed a law earlier this year that requires gun shop owners to have bars, grates and security screens on all windows and commercial-grade metal doors at each point of entry. The law mandates firearms be stored overnight in a fireproof safe. The state also requires security alarms systems monitored by a remote base that’s capable of notifying law enforcement and retain those recordings for seven years. Those systems must include motion and sound detectors. Those system also require monitoring of customers.
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Jason Rantz, a talk-show host for KTTH, called these requirements an effort “to put gun shops out of business with insurmountable, frivolous costs under the lie that it’s about public safety.”
He’s not wrong. And it’s happening. Stan’s Merry Mart in Wenatchee, Wash., announced they would no longer sell firearms after 11 years in the business because of the new burdensome requirements.
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Politicians and bureaucrats don’t want to solve the gun problem. They just want to restrict law abiding people from exercising their natural right to keep and bear arms. Crime would shrink drastically if the victims MIGHT be armed.
“Victim disarmament is the view that it is somehow better to see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose, than see her with a gun in her hand.” — T.D. Melrose
“I particularly like unlimited concealed carry. If the criminal regards the general public as sheep to be shorn, then let’s sprinkle in a few “sheepdogs” with big teeth in the flock. Guess which gay to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Pink Pistol and you’re dead! Guess which woman to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Paxton Quigly and you’re dead! Guess which brown person to bash? Buzz, wrong, you picked a Massad Ayoob and you’re dead!” — GUNS: Let’s sprinkle in a few “sheepdogs” with big teeth in the flock
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Reinke Faces Life 