My neighbors just had a small house fire Thursday, which damaged a section of outside wall, some smoke damage, etc. Started from an exterior electrical outlet, fortunately the fire burnt through a small water line, that extinguished the primary fire, the rest self extinguished. Happened during the afternoon, the husband had just left. When they came home about 4-5 hours later, and he checked everything out, including an attic and crawlspace check, it was all out.
They're insured, the insurance company is sending out a restoration company Monday morning.
They have a decent "hunter's" gun collection, stored in a "nice" oak glass-faced gun cabinet in the living room!!
Now, I've been down this little road before about 20 years ago, in a fashion. It cost me a REAL nice HK91 system, an SKS, and a Remington .22 target rifle, and other goods.
I stopped by to visit him last evening, saw the damage, we talked.
His guns will be visiting my house for several days while the (probably heavily "import laden") work crews/contractors/subcontractors fix his house, and are "looking around" in the process. He had said that they will be there the whole time the workers are there (he's self employed), "Everything will be alright, we'll be here." He has a whole lot more faith in today's moral standards, than I do...
I changed his mind about getting the weapons out of the house, when I pointed out that "just because they didn't take anything while you were here, doesn't mean that they can't do it next week, next month...or, tell others about what's in your home."
I'll supply what guncases he needs to pack 'em up, we'll move them to my house. I'll suggest that he leave his beater .22 boltaction and the cheap pellet rifle in the guncabinet. His knife collection comes out for the duration, too.
I'm not paranoid here, just "experienced." I wish that we could get the guncabinet outta there completely... -FNR.
