let me tell you a little story about my brother; we live about 2miles from each other in douglasville GA, not a terrible part of town, but definetly a mix of low-middle-high class residence(sorry, my period is broken, so i will have lots of run-ons,,,,,wifes is still working fine though)
we both got into guns at the height of the AWB a little over a year ago, he bought a couple AKs and a mossberg AR22 thingy, i would pick him up from his house on sundays to go out to our spot in the woods and shoot(he lived in a slightly crappy apt complex), i liive in a quiet subdivision just down the road(although nearby, it seems like two different worlds)
his wife has a disease and is on in-home nursing care 3 times a week, at 9am on a weekday morning, he recieved a knock at the door as always, assuming it was the nurse like usual, he cracked the door open, he immedietly knew that it wasnt the nurse at the sight of two black males(both brandishing pistols); he attempted to slam the door on the attackers without success, they pushed themselves inside, beat my brother to the ground and hog-tied him with an extension cord
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/23761280/trial-continues-in-hospice-patient-robbery-case
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/237...an-on-hospice-care-pistol-whipping-her-finace
after beating him with the butt of thier pistols into submission, they drug him into the bedroom, while the younger assailant kept his wife hostage at gun-point
in the bedroom the other intruder said one thing to my bro; WHERE ARE THE RIFLES??!! those were the only words spoke in the entire ordeal
brother directed them to the guns, the intruders took the guns and consfisgated their cellphones and stomped them to peices, gave my bro a couple more whacks and gave the direction to not call police, blah blah blah
long story short, how did they know to ask for rifles and only rifles? because as the investigation unfolded, they found out the the neighbor(14 years old) told his cousin that he had seen his neighbor with rifle cases going from apt to car, the cousin drove from marietta(40miles away)just to rob my bros house
luckily the thugs were caught after a high speed chase, the younger took a plea deal and testified against the older, but the older just got out a couple months ago after a mis-trial(after being caught red-handed with weapons in the car AND having his partner testify against him); one juror just wouldnt give in) new trial coming soon
just goes to show that you need keep your weapons ownership totally private, bumper stickers and vanity plates are only advertising to two people; criminals and law enforcement; mainly CRImINALS!!!
although my bro made a ton of mistakes in his scenario, why advertise? whats the point? to look cool? are you that ill-endowed to need to let everyone know what a bad-@#$ you are? not trying to be mean, but there needs to a be a level of maturity and saftey when owning any kind of gun collection
i am guilty as any, when i first got my guns, I wanted to tell all my buddies, and make sure the neighbors saw me walkking guns to my car and tumbling brass in the drive-way, but that incident really woke me up
i promise(especially these days with the inflated prices and lack of availability) there are criminals that are targeting those shmuck vanity plates and bumper stickers; most lkely, they will just case your house and wait til you go to work, but in my bros case; you can see just how brazen these idiots can be\\just ask yourself one question, is the small posibilty of being targeted worth having a vainty plate? you shoud be able to answer your own question in a split second