Ever since he opened the doors to Lateral Limits four years ago, Garland, Texas gun store owner Keenan Allemond has been taking the utmost precautions to prevent thefts from his shop, including locking up every firearm and other high-dollar items in a safe at the close of business. But on three different occasions over the last four years, Allemond says burglars have broken in and caused major damage to his shop; most recently a little more than a month ago.

Security cameras captured the moments when it happened. The video shows the thieves driving a silver Kia through the front of the store. Once inside, the driver tries to pull back out but gets stuck on the framing. The video shows one of the suspects stuck under the frame as the car backs out.

Allemond said they only stole two knives and a flashlight, but the cost of the repairs reached well into the thousands.

“I’m out of pocket every bit of about 20 grand,” he said. And police haven’t made any arrests.

When I saw the headline about Allemond’s shop being robbed for a third time, my first thought was that he should put up a variation on the signs I used to sometimes see in the front window of cars parked in not-so-great neighborhoods warning that there was no working radio or anything worth stealing inside. As it turns out, Allemond already had that idea. It just hasn’t done any good. 

After the first incident, he put a sign on the door that reads “Please note, all firearms and optics are locked up when closed.”

Allemond said they finally completed the necessary repairs on Wednesday.

“I’m not going to cut any corners when it comes to the security of the front of the shop,” he said.

Ths time around it sounds like there were some substantial upgrades to the outside of the gun store, but the owner says he’s been sleeping at the shop so he can keep an eye on things while the rebuilding was underway.

This week, his storefront was finished with concrete barricades and an inside locked gate.

“I just want people to know our stuff is safed up. It’s a difficult task to get your hands on our stuff. That’s the big thing, and we want the community to know that this is going on and this is a problem. People need to be more aware,” Allemond said.

The concrete barriers should be a big plus, at least when it comes to thieves using a stolen car as a battering ram. But we’ve seen other gun store burglars get pretty creative in their attempts to abscond with stolen merchandise, including some recent thieves in California who broke through the wall of a neighboring store in order to gain entry to the locked and secured gun shop. 

I don’t know what the statistics on these smash-and-grab robberies say, but it seems to me like I’m seeing more and more of this kind of gun store burglary reported in local media accounts. When arrests are made, juveniles are often involved , and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case in Garland. Based on the surveillance video, which can be seen here, the suspects are definitely young (and plenty stupid), but there’s no way to tell if they’re actually underage. 

Though the suspects are still on the loose, Allemond says he’s planning to officially reopen Lateral Limits on October 12th, which also happens to be the store’s fourth anniversary. Here’s hoping that his shop makes it unscathed until then… and that Garland police make a bust in the burglary that happened back in July.