Chased a thief

Ben did pass the time by typing:

Glad to hear your ok and the thief didn't make off with your property.

It's all good and well to think about chasing down a thief, but remember that SOB may be armed or drugged from next day to tuesday. No property is worth your life.

Safest thing anyone can do is install exterior motion-detecting lights. Thieves hate light, the mear thought of someone knowing they are there is usually enough to make them find someplace else.

Car alarms also help. Although it's not going to stop them all, even a blinky light will make your vehicle less appealing. But don't confuse that with the "security stickers" sold at stores. Thieves know what the fake ones look like too, and use that as a sign the owner doesn't have an alarm.

Or move to Texas where it's legal to shoot a thief at night. Just don't poke a hole in your jeep and watch the splatter. :)

What state/city are you in?

Yeah.. I should have thought about it more.. I wish I still had my guns.. I had to sell them when I got laid off a few years ago and have never replaced them... As for tonight, the Jeep is already in the garage.. I found these devices at Quadratec and was wondering if they are worth installing..

Thanks, Ben

I am in Charleston, South Carolina

Well that does make your doors harder to take off than Bill Hughes, so use them and park by him (or anyone else with easily removed doors) and you should be ok.

Bill, My Jeep doesn't have a radio... I used to have one.. It got wet.. Died.. Now it is an empty spot... Thinking of mounting my CB in that spot..

>

You could tie a rotweiller to the steering wheel ...

At risk of getting holes in your Jeep, you could just shoot the bastard and go back to bed.

they will only deter a casual theif. If he want's it, those will slow him down for, oh... about 20 seconds. The locking mechanism is like those "kryptonite" type bike locks. You know the ones... they're all over the news for their heralded unpickability... Someone realized that if you stick the open end of a bic pen in the lock, it opens like you have the master key...

For your edification:

Wow, those are some insane videos they show on a link off that site. The guy opened one in like 2 seconds. It was like when they had a rash of car thefts in this city ...all of the cars had clubs on the wheels. When the cars were recovered, the clubs were laying on the passenger seat. I guess a simple tool can snap the lock (looks like a steering wheel puller in reverse ...puts pressure on each side of the club arms and then presses down/drills into the lock like a small clamp head).

As for GM's claim that their immobilizers are theft-proof. My friend (owns a

2001 Grand Am GT) and his Dad were changing some stereo components in the car and figured out a trick for disabling the immobilizer. I won't post it here for obvious reasons; however, it would take them under 2 minutes to steal any "immobilizer-protected" vehicle. When my buddy called the local GM dealer, they told him he was lying. He said he'd go down and show them and they declined. Pure arrogance. One day a real car thief is going to figure it out ...

NOTHING is theft-proof ...nothing.

I've got a few rounds of salt crystal shot next to my shotgun for these very instances.

"I'm not sure why he's got all those holes in his ass officer, it doesn't look like there is any lead though. I really wish he'd quit crying."

Even easier than that is to hacksaw through the steering wheel itself. A sharp saw will cut through most steering wheels quickly, then you just have to bend ithe wheel away far enough to slip the club off.

This is true, and that includes the fact that the car can (possibly) be taken from you by force, which makes the immobilizer worthless. My 80 year old great-aunt was murdered by a 19 year old man for her mid-90's Honda Accord about 3 years ago. He shot her, put her body in the trunk and drove around making purchases on her credit cards, all done in broad daylight and starting from a mall parking lot. Finding him was an easy job for the police. The point is, if a criminal wants something badly enough, they will probably find a way to get it, though not all of them will physically harm or kill their victim to get it.

Pat

Here's an interesting essay on the subject, non-political

Yeah.. We used to have those around the farm I grew up on.. I miss my great uncle's old Double Barrel Winchester.. LOL.. Thing had hair triggers.. If you didn't watch it.. Both barrels would go off at the same time...

Wow, that's the most coherent, well written treatise on the subject I have yet to read.

/Peter