I was standing behind the counter at work when the phone rang.
Answering the phone, I was greeted by the voice of my friend and neighbour Dr. Michael Leventis.
"Hiya Mike!" I exclaimed happily. "What's going on brother?"
"Todd, the door to your apartment is busted open," Mike told me. "I think you got robbed."
I stood there for half-a-second trying to digest what I had just heard from the receiver. Snapping back to reality, I asked Mike to stay at the door of my flat but not go in.
I rapidly called for a taxicab, and closed the store, even though it was only 2:30 p.m. on a Wednesday.
It was about 15 minutes or so before I arrived at my building. Running up the stairs three at a time, I reached the hallway and made a sharp right. There, just 10 feet down the corridor, stood Michael.
In front of him was my shattered door.
Cautiously opening the door, I peeked into the front room.
Now, as a bachelor at the time, I didn't necessarily keep the neatest of flats. But what I saw was ridiculous.
Drawers pulled out and overturned, stuff thrown about carelessly.
And my safe, laying on its back, with the door bent open.
I cautiously went into the apartment and took a brief look at the rest of my rather small universe.
Every room had been tousled, every drawer opened.
It wasn't like that when I left for work at 8 a.m. that morning.
I went to my phone and called the police.
I had a safe because I had been collecting firearms for some time after I had quit the army.
I loved shooting, and was reasonably skilled at it. My passion was military small arms, and I had amassed a not sizable, but respectable collection.
Most of it was gone.
When the police arrived, they asked about the safe, about trigger-locks, and about who I might have let into my apartment.
They asked for a list of everyone who was in over the previous six-months.
They took my fingerprints, and the ident unit went to work dusting things down for prints.
I felt horrible.
Besides the feeling of being violated, I suddenly was responsible for some pretty serious firepower being out on the streets.
Lost in the robbery was my China North Industries Norinco Type 56s-2. This was a semi-automatic version of the Soviet AK-47. Same calibre as the AK (7.62x39mm,) and looked the same. Except the model two of the 56-series had a collapsible stock, which folded along the right-hand side of the receiver.
Another missing long-gun was my British L1A1. This was the UK version of the FN FAL, a 7.62x51mm battle rifle, again semi-automatic.
Four handguns were also stolen. A Browning Hi-Power 9mm high-capacity semi-auto; a Enfield Mark1*, a WWII British tankers pistol in .38 SW calibre; and two deactivated pistols, an American M1911A1 and a Parabellum P-08, the fabled German 'Luger' pistol.
Six combat firearms, four of them fully functioning, were now on the street, and I was responsible.
Years later, I let my permits lapse, and I handed in for disposal the remaining firearms the thieves had left.
Now, I had properly registered all of the firearms, and held all the valid permits.
I had purchased the safe, as per the safe storage requirements laid out by law, and had stored all the firearms separate from the ammunition, and with individual trigger-locks on.
None of this saved those guns from being stolen.
As the issue of the gun registry is now pulling some print again, as a major vote to scrap the gun registry comes up, I have to wonder where my feelings lie on the issue.
It was not long after I arrived in Carlyle, almost 15-years after the robbery, that I received a call from the police back in Windsor.
It seemed they had recovered the Type 56s-2, and wanted to know whether or not I wanted it back.
The registry had allowed the police to identify who the firearm belonged to, and also that the firearm had been stolen. The proper charges for possession of stolen goods were added to the firearms violations charges.
I don't believe that the gun registry does anything to hinder firearms crimes. I don't think it impedes the sale of such illegal arms.
I do think it allows the police the opportunity to identify the number of guns in circulation, and then chart the movement of illegally obtained firearms when they are recovered.
In the end then, I have to support the registry, but in a pared down format.
