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SGC/FAC, at all time high and burglars.


old'un
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Had my phone call, 'can I come Monday about your SGC/FAC' yes no problem, all went well and I should get them in about two to three weeks! Its only taken 6 months.

 

I asked why they are taking so long, 'its lack of foot soldiers' West Midlands and Staffs did have 19 foot soldiers they are now down to 6 for both West Midlands and Staffs, was told it was due to cut backs.

 

Couple of interesting things he mentioned, new applications are at an all time high for SGC/FAC, and shotguns are being targeted more by thieves/gangsters as handguns are now becoming more difficult for criminals to get hold of due to the higher security at airports and docks (due to terrorist threat) he noticed we had an alarm on the house and said, I would recommend anyone with guns to get one fitted (wonder if that will be made mandatory?) interestingly he said it was not the petty thief stealing guns but organised criminal gangs who get info on gun owners from petty thieves/burglars.
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I hope your renewal (?) goes according to plan old'un.

Very interesting sentiments there. More demand for firearms, a nasty up turn in criminal activity and a huge downturn in licensing officers.  

Humm   ???

In today's world there is an awful lot of clap trap talked regarding risk assessments. The case in point is that if there is no dollar to deal with the risks then ****** all will change.

All us ticket holders have a part to play and i don't need to state the obvious here.   

    

    

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33 minutes ago, ordnance said:

I wonder are their any facts to back up what the licensing officers assertions.

Don't know which comment by the licensing officer you are referring to but here is one on Yorkshire....http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/crime/revealed-the-growing-number-of-legally-held-firearms-stolen-in-west-yorkshire-1-8507737

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I take any stats from the police or government with a pinch of salt, as both would prefer it if no civilians owned firearms. 15 in one year is to many but hardly a firearms thieving frenzy. 

 

 

 The rifle was one of 15 legally held firearms and shotguns stolen during the course of 2015/16 

 

 

Edited by ordnance
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In rural areas, house alarms are utterly useless. Only exception is if they are connected to local police. Honestly, I don't know why people bother with them. If somebody wants to break in to a house, they will do so. That's why we have gun safes.  The bad guys normally want to be a in and out quickly anyway. My local FEO took one look at the remote place where I live and then said "there wouldn't be much point in having an alarm here, would there? Who would hear it?"

And even in towns... who takes any real notice? My friend owned an office building in a big city. The alarm system maintenance was costing him a fortune, so eventually he asked his insurance company what would happen to his premiums if the office no longer had an alarm system. The answer? Absolutely nothing. No difference whatsoever.  So they got rid of the alarm system and saved a lot of money.

CCTV? Now you are talking. That has real deterrent value (almost as good as a dog) and sometimes also helps to catch/identify bad guys. 

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12 hours ago, stagboy said:

In rural areas, house alarms are utterly useless. Only exception is if they are connected to local police.

 

They're virtually useless in any location. I live on the edge of a medium size town but even though there is police station it's only staffed during office hours. At night there isn't an on duty officer within 9 miles.

This was put to the test recently when a local emporium was broken into. The crims obviously knew precisely how long it would take for the police to arrive and they are on cctv unhurriedly collecting the jewellery from display cases before leaving the premises several minutes before the police arrive. This happened less than ½ mile from the town's police station, but of course it's closed during the times that most crime happens.

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I now live in a very rural area ( only two street lights! ) and the nearest police are 9 miles away.

The town I moved from is also rural ( 100’s of street lights ?) but nearest police are 13 miles away.

Cumbria is a huge area to patrol, but even if it weren’t, how often do police apprehend a burglar in the act of committing a crime? By the very nature of crime all responses are reactive.

Like they say; when seconds count the police are minutes away. 

Secure and take care of your own stuff; the police won’t be there when you need them.

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5 hours ago, Scully said:

Like they say; when seconds count the police are minutes away. 

Secure and take care of your own stuff; the police won’t be there when you need them.

Take your point but if our local station (which is a fair size building BTW) was still staffed 24/7, the police  would have been close enough that the robbers wouldn't have dared commit that particular break in as the premises were fully equipped with a modern silent alarm.

I'm saddened at the ever increasing gulf between what the public expects of the police and the way the police have taken the power to decide their own priorities. The days of the police being 'citizens in uniform' are long gone; what we have now is a paramilitary response force.

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I think you may be right; like most things it all comes down to money.

When I was a kid there were six police houses in town plus the station was manned 24/7.

I can point out all the police houses in all the local villages, all now sold to the general public, which means of course that the local Bobby has long gone and with him the last link with the much underestimated local knowledge. 

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I sometimes go to petrol stations to fix equipment there and I was chatting to the manager and he essentially told me that the Police aren't even investigating some crimes and blaming the victims for others. What he was told, by an officer, was that the local cop shop has gone from 30+ officers per shift to 9 so they cannot investigate even if they wanted to and crimes like a shed break in the victims are told they should have the shed secure! So how long before it's a mugging victims fault because they had valuables with them? He was talking with the Police because his place was causing a huge statistic blip due to the high drive off rate.

 

Edited by Lord O War
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I'm not entirely convinced house alarms are worth anything much.

 

Mine had had a fault the other week and went off at 0100. Took me 20 minutes to silence it and didn't see anyone check up on it (living in reasonably densely packed suburbia). I don't think I have ever got to a neighbours alarm that hasn't been going off for at least 30 minutes all said, by which point any burgler would be long gone  

 

I do have a big 'guard dogs' sign, though that occasionally puts couriers off dropping things round the back. 

 

My my gut feeling is that if people really want something specific they will get it, otherwise you only need to look slightly more troublesome to burgle than your neighbour. 

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18 minutes ago, Wb123 said:

I'm not entirely convinced house alarms are worth anything much.

 

Mine had had a fault the other week and went off at 0100. Took me 20 minutes to silence it and didn't see anyone check up on it (living in reasonably densely packed suburbia). I don't think I have ever got to a neighbours alarm that hasn't been going off for at least 30 minutes all said, by which point any burgler would be long gone  

 

I do have a big 'guard dogs' sign, though that occasionally puts couriers off dropping things round the back. 

My my gut feeling is that if people really want something specific they will get it, otherwise you only need to look slightly more troublesome to burgle than your neighbour. 

Intruder alarms are only any good if they are monitored with police responce,  eg. silent bells and the first the intruder knows about an alarm is the police arriving.

Edited by Newbie to this
Bad spelling
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9 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

Intruder alarms are only any good if they are monitored with police responce,  eg. silent bells and the first the intruder knows about an alarm is the police arriving.

I would be interested in the cost of such an alarm and  just what the Police response time might be!

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Don’t think anyone thinks that they will never get burgled if they have an alarm, its just a deterrent, like high security locks on entrance/exit doors, cameras, signs saying beware of the dog, it just might make someone think twice about picking your house to burgle.  

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3 hours ago, TIGHTCHOKE said:

I would be interested in the cost of such an alarm and  just what the Police response time might be!

I have no idea on the cost but it wouldn't be cheap and would be an ongoing cost (usually monthly) as for the reponce time again no actual idea but when we had one in the 90's the response was no more than 20 minutes I think

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Speaking to a mate last night who lives about half mile from me, said this week two fellas walked into his neighbours house at about 7pm, got a knife out the kitchen draw and walked into the living room where he and his wife sat. They demanded the keys to a bmw which was parked outside and the man told them he did not own it and it was not his. The fellas eventually left and said to him, "you want to keep your door locked as it ain't safe out there" and then laughed at him. Bloody scumbags, he said they were in no hurry to leave and got in a car which was waiting outside for them on a well populated estate. How traumatising that must have been. Bit off thread but just goes to show the lengths these toeragswill go to.

atb

7diaw 

 

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2 hours ago, Jaymo said:

Ours is a normal non monitored, our camera system does however send us a message when it detects motion so we can take a look and make a phone call if required.

But I do like the look of this Company/System

http://www.alarm-monitoring.co.uk/compare-our-prices

The AMCO system looks quite good especially the talking feature.

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