Here lately, half the stuff in the pawn shops around here is stolen. I was looking at a chain saw the other day that still had the engraved name of a tree cutting service around here on it. I asked the guy that owned the shop, "is this stollen?". He said "nah." Funny thing, the man who owns that service never sells anything. He dang sure aint going to sell a perfectly good arborist saw to a pawn shot three counties over. When I was an investigator at the P.D., I lost respect for most pawn shop operators. Even the best ones don't want to tell you the truth when you walk in and they know you are about to haul several thousand dollars of stolen stuff out. One even had the audacity to ask me if the P.D. was going to pay for it. Pawn shops do two things: Prey on people down on their luck and enable thieves to unload their stolen merchandise much easier. I wish they would all close.
