Gun Store Insecurity Puts Public At Risk

What if we close the gun-show loophole? What if background checks become serious, consistent and coordinated? What if Marion Hammer stops channeling the Founding Fathers on the Second Amendment?

How much does that help if a bunch of gangbangers or would-be terrorists can just ram a pick-up into a serious gun store and make off with a small arsenal of weapons–including semiautomatic rifles–in less than two minutes?

That’s what happened last week as hooded thieves made off with a cache of arms at the Tampa Arms Co. It’s the latest of at least four such brazen burglaries around here in a little more than a year. It’s worrisome, scary–and unnecessary. And, yeah, there ought to be a law.

Put it this way. If your business must be guns and ammo, your defense against would-be robbers has to be better than burglar bars, alarms and state-of-the-art surveillance. Off-hours, armed guards would add to overhead, but would lessen the risk to the community. How’s that for a trade off? And vaults that would hold a lethal inventory should be mandatory. In the case of Tampa Arms Co., its vault was impractically small and useless.

In short, if the cost of security is an issue, then get out of the gun business.

Here’s the societal bottom line: The Tampa Arms owner will have his inventory losses covered by insurance. But there’s no ensuring the public at large–that’s everybody else–that they won’t pay the ultimate price for more weapons on the street.

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