Everyone has their pet peeves and I’m no different. I have plenty and most of mine tend to, in turn, annoy my wife. It’s the natural order of things in the universe, after all.
However, one of my biggest pet peeves is people failing to exercise the least little bit of common sense, especially when it comes to firearms.
Let’s be clear, firearms aren’t toys. They’re tools, but deadly ones that deserve our respect, whether they’re in our hands or not. Unfortunately, far too few people seem to understand how to exercise that respect.
Especially with a number of guns snatched out of unlocked cars in yet another place.
The Rapid City Police Department is urging residents to lock their firearms in a safe place after five separate incidents of firearms being taken from unlocked cars took place over a 16 day period.
On Tuesday, April 14th at around 11:20 a.m., RCPD officers were dispatched to a residence in the 2100 block of Oak Avenue. The reporting party who stated they had left their pickup parked unlocked on the street. Sometime between that morning and the evening prior, an unknown suspect had entered their vehicle and stolen a handgun from the vehicle’s center console. Two magazines were also taken.
The police note at least four other robberies where guns were taken out of unlocked cars.
Meanwhile, I’m absolutely dumbfounded that anyone would leave their firearm unattended in an unlocked vehicle. Honestly, I don’t walk away from my car unlocked even without a gun inside. How in the hell are some of you managing to leave guns inside unlocked cars?
The answer, of course, is carelessness.
Absolute carelessness.
In the process, though, they make things harder for the rest of us. When we talk about responsible gun owners, this is what the other side thinks about. They throw this in our face because you turdnuggets couldn’t lock your damn cars up. Or, failing that, take your gun out of the damn car!.
This isn’t rocket science, people. We all know there are folks who just walk through parking lots and neighborhoods looking for unlocked cars. They’re not skilled thieves, after all, just opportunistic. Half the time, they don’t even know where to get a gun because they’re not career criminals. Not yet, anyway.
But then they get a gun. Your gun.
Now they can graduate up to the big leagues. Now they can rob convenience stores and little old ladies for their retirement checks. Now they can hurt innocent people. They’ve upgraded their criminal lifestyle from the most basic level one stuff and into some real crime. They’ve upgraded thanks to your downright incompetence.
Of course, I suspect most of our readers know better. They never leave a gun in an unlocked car. Maybe they lock their doors. Maybe they just bring the gun with them. Who knows? More importantly, does it matter which? What it means is that you all aren’t functional morons who are arming criminals through stupidity.
Unfortunately, I have a feeling at least someone reading this doesn’t. They think they’re somehow immune to this, that their car won’t get broken into, that their gun won’t get taken. Maybe they’ll say they live on a quiet street or out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the’ll argue the crime in their town is stupid low.
Whatever the excuses, knock it off and lock your damn doors. It’s not that hard to unlock them and if it keeps some low-rent crook from leveling up, isn’t that worth it?
