Thieves Plow Into Texas Gun Range, Steal Weapons

HOUSTON, Texas — Two thieves used a truck to plow into the side of a gun range in Houston, Texas, early Thursday morning. They took off with all the pistols and rifles they could grab.

“Two young males drove a pickup truck into the side of the business, went in, and took assorted rifles and pistols at roughly 4 in the morning,” said Capt. Eddie Martin with the South Houston Police Department, reported the Houston Chronicle.

The alarm was sounded but law enforcement authorities were not notified right away. Officers showed up at the Marksman Indoor Range in South Houston early Thursday but the burglars had already taken off. The South Houston Police Department officers were on the scene within seven minutes of the burglary.

“They were in pretty quick and out pretty quick,” Captain Eddie Martin was reported to say.

Law enforcement officials are going through surveillance video tapes but do not have a license plate at this time, reported the hometown paper.

The Houston Chronicle reports that approximately 32,000 guns have been stolen in the Houston area in the last eight years, and that only seven percent of those have been recovered. The firearms were heisted from Houston area homes, automobiles, pawn shops, and gun dealers.

Texas leads the nation in thefts from unlicensed gun dealers and has a robust black market for guns that have been stolen. Moreover, stolen guns are frequently used to commit other crimes.

Breitbart News reported in April that thefts from licensed gun dealers were at a rate of .039 percent in 2015. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, approximately 16 million guns were sold by Federal Firearm License holders in 2015 and 6,163 guns were stolen from them.

Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wanted to make gun makers legally responsible for the misuse of stolen guns, as reported by Breitbart News in October 2016. Clinton responded to the dismissal of a lawsuit against Remington Arms by families of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims by calling it “incomprehensible.” She doubled-down on her promise to change laws to allow gun manufacturers to be sued by crime victims.

Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.