We are fortunate to have a number of news outlets in Amador County, in addition to the ACN, that inform us about what is going on locally. The Sacramento Bee has a Foothills section, but there isn’t a lot of detail in it about our area. A favorite news segment of mine is the Call Log in the Ledger Dispatch. As they put it, “The following is taken from dispatch logs created and compiled by the Amador County Sheriff’s Office on the dates and times indicated. This information is part of the public record and is presented here in the interests of public safety.”
Public safety being the paramount consideration, I was struck by these entries for April 22 and 23:
“9:55 a.m. Theft of Property at a supermarket on Industrial Boulevard in Martell. An insulated bag was stolen from the caller's vehicle yesterday between 4:15 p.m and 4:45 p.m. Some of the contents included a Kindle, a set of keys, a checkbook and a loaded revolver packing five live rounds.
“12:56 p.m. Burglary occurred in Sutter Creek. When the caller went to the grocery store at around 11:00 a.m., there were things like his Glock 40, his Glock 9MM, and his Swith (sic) and Wesson 38 revolver that were safely in their places. But when he returned from shopping, he found his front door open, and the weapons gone. The caller has been advised not to touch anything until law enforcement arrives.”
So that makes four firearms that are no longer in the possession of two law-abiding people. We can only speculate to what end(s) these weapons will be used. It isn’t far-fetched to think that they will be in the possession of people who are not so law-abiding.
I was reminded about the recent gun store break-ins. Four days ago, the Sacramento TV news stations informed us about the two that happened in Elk Grove. I wondered how often this happens, so I googled “gun store break ins”. Astoundingly, there were about 1,540,000 results from across the country. I have no idea how many of those break-ins were successful, or how many of the perpetrators were caught. Or how many of the weapons were stolen or recovered. Most likely a good many firearms became available to threaten public safety.
Even law enforcement is not immune. Again to the google. Under “guns taken from police vehicles” there are about 21 million entries across the country! Guns stolen through break-ins of patrol cars. Guns taken from unlocked or unattended patrol cars. Again, these entries may not all be about police vehicles. And I don’t know how many of the weapons were eventually recovered.
In February of last year, I wrote about the NRA’s influence on local jurisdictions in Pennsylvania regarding their ordinances requiring the reporting of lost or stolen firearms to the police. Under threat of NRA lawsuits after the passage of HB 80, many towns have elected to rescind them.
There is a lot of hand wringing about the threat to our freedoms around gun control. Despite dire warnings that started about eight years ago and continue to this day, no law-abiding person’s guns have been confiscated. I submit that our public safety is very much under threat by the diversion of guns from the law-abiding to the less so.
There are a lot of gun control proposals being proposed, including beefing up background checks. I’m willing to assume that the two thefts described in the Call Log were from people who had been background checked, but their guns are now out there in the wind. “Smart-gun” technology would address the loss or theft of legally owned civilian and law enforcement weapons. If only the gun owner or police officer could fire their weapons, case closed But I don’t know how it would work in the case of gun store robberies.
Yes, public safety is indeed of interest. Why does it feel so threatened?
D. Norman
