Thanks for the comment, and your point is well taken about assuming negligence.

To be clear, I didn’t intend to call the officer “negligent,” since that is a rather loaded word. Instead, I only intended to point out that it seems the gun wasn’t stored as securely as *I* (an ordinary citizen) store my guns, and that as a result it is wrong for Daley and other Chicago politicians to take the gun control stance they take.

With that said, if I had to make a bet, I would guess that the gun wasn’t properly secured, since it is rare that an ordinary burglar will be able to defeat a proper gun safe. I also get the feeling that if it were in a safe or otherwise properly secured, the Chicago police department would have gone to great lengths to make that clear when speaking to the press.

The only thing that troubles me is your assumption that this police officer was somehow negligent in storing his pistol (seemingly just by virtue of the fact that it was stolen).

Do you know for a fact that the pistol was improperly stored? Burglars can (and do) defeat strong boxes and other security measures.

I admit I DON’T know the circumstances of this theft, but the general “if anything bad happens involving a gun it’s negligence by definition!” attitude that some folks have worries me. Sometimes people CAN be responsible and STILL have bad things happen to them.