About 7 or 8 years ago my dad was flying up from Houston to my home in Minneapolis. Of course we planned on spending some time at the range so he was bringing his 308 and 1911 45. At the checkin at the Houston airport he did the security check with the firearms. The rifle had it's own case and the 45 was in a soft case in his suitcase. When he arrived at my house and opened the suitcase, the 45 was gone. Very disappointing as you could imagine. Well after a lot of paperwork, a police report, and time, he was able to get the airline to reimburse him for the cost of the pistol because he had been able to produce the purchase receipt. He soon replaced the pistol.

Well about a month ago Houston PD called my dad and said they had recovered his 45 during a raid on a house and if he wanted it to come down and pick it up. He and my mother did that last Friday and it looked the same as it did 7 years ago, in excellent shape. Seeing as he already had one and didn't need two, I am the new owner of a Springfield 45, yeee hawww.

Alls well that ends well, I guess.

Oh My! THAT is a long time to result in a happy resolution. Congrats!

I hope the got the original thief in all of this.

Congratulations to you both!

Prewar


That does not happen very often




Cal30

Congratulations on the recovery. However, I hope that you subrogated the insurance compnay in order to prevent unjust enrichment.

"I hope the got the original thief in all of this."

I hope so too but I doubt any real effort was made to find the culprit. The airlines have very little interest in putting a finger on the thieves in their houses, not politically correct, you know?

I have an uncle retired from the USPO. For a few years he worked in the huge Atlanta distrubution center. They had supervisors whose sole job was to cruise the toilets during work shifts. They had to roust out employees sleeping in the stalls and then to watch the exits at the end of shifts to make the thieves return anything to big to stuff in their pockets. No one could ask why certain pockets were bulging, what could not actually be seen was protected as the thiefs personal rights.

Nothing was done for penalties. And why not? Well, at that time, few of the sleepers or thieves were white so it would have been "obvious discrimintation against minorities", understand?

Doubt there is much difference between any of the employee groups today; without fear of penalty why should only one group get all the dark side "benefits" of working in a protected government facility?

Ditto airline baggage handlers or agents today. Unlikely anyone would have attempted to find the thief, they just expect the insurance to provide compensation and ignore the thieves.

The insurance companies know the game and play along with it, without any real encouragement to the Post Office or airlines to find and penalize the crooked employees. It's all just the cost of doing business for them, the public be damned but don't rile the guilty groups.

Its nice to here a story like this. Doesnt happen often enough and to get it back in the same condition...SWEET.

I dont know how many times someone would come in the shop with a list and no serial numbers, they never wrote them down. I preach this to any and everyone, make a list, write em down!

Similar thing happened to me in Houston about 20 years ago. Burglar got two pieces that were not in my safe. One turned up about a month later when a low-life was stopped on a traffic violation.