doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com L C Smiths and others ? Removed from Julias'

Difference being it was lost....not stolen.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The Fan Belt Inspectors shoul d be along soon.

Assuming the information I have been given is true (and I sincerely believe it is), the disappearance of these guns was much more than a matter of loss or theft/burglary; this instance involved a conspiracy to defraud the insurance company by filing a false claim. And as this incidence took place almost 30 years ago, the parties originally involved may no longer be living? And if they are not, the party/parties who consigned the guns for auction may have purchased them convinced they were legitimate; and if so, I feel badly for them. On the other hand, if the parties originally involved in this scam placed these guns at auction believing that events surrounding their alleged disappearance had been forgotten thru the passage time; and now find themselves under investigation as a result of the confiscation of these guns, for those individuals I have no sympathy.

The guns will first go to the law enforcement agency - they are evidence of a crime. From there, I am sure that they will go back to the original owner who reported the stolen in the first place. The owner would still have good title to them and the police will not be interested in what the Insurance company has to say. As for how the matter will be settled between the insurance company and the insured...

If I understand Topgun's last post correctly, the owner of the guns was involved in a scam to defraud the insurance company. If so, I don't think they will be going back to the owner.

Kinda gray on that point. It was accidentally left behind, not abandoned in the true sense, and Buckingham returned shortly after to retrieve it and then made a well-publicized effort to recover it. I don't know how finders/keepers laws work exactly, but it would be hard to argue that he abandoned the gun for someone else to take possession of.

On the other hand when Bo-Whoop did resurface, did anyone contend that it was stolen property? I wonder if the statute of limitations had run at that point.

If an insurance company paid the prior owners on a loss claim, then the guns will eventually belong to the insurance company. If that does indeed occur, one suspects the insurance company may then send the shotguns to an auction house for sale.

You may have another chance to bid....

The general common law rule on lost property - finders keepers, if you will - is that the finder of lost property has good title to it against the whole world, except for the true owner (who lost it). As to abandoned property, good title goes to whomever picks it up.

The difference between "lost" and "abandoned" is not subject to a bright-line test but rather depends on how much of an effort and what kind of effort the original true owner made upon realizing it was missing. In the case of Bo-Whoop, putting ads in the paper and otherwise publicizing the loss moved it strongly in the direction of "lost" rather than "abandoned".

In theory, there is no statute of limitations on recovering lost or stolen property and returning it to the true owner. Just ask all those families of Jewish victims of the Nazis still following up on and recovering artwork taken from their ancestors 70 plus years ago. Of course, the person who held it during the interim is often deemed by the court to be entitled to something for their trouble in preserving and maintaining the property and that might wind up being more than the property is worth. And, the longer the time between loss and recovery, the harder it is to prove the underlying loss was wrongful.

Finally, as to intermediary purchasers, the guy who winds up having to give up the property - so long as he was a bona fide (pure heart, no knowledge of wrongdoing) purchaser for value - gets to look to the guy who sold it to him, to return his money. This goes up the chain to whomever it was first sold their found property.

Many states have statutes on found property and the related topics, and the law does vary widely. What I've stated are the general principles taught in the first-year property class in law school.

Isn't this how it went.
Ca. mid 1880s
Guy bought some guns.
Guy finds out he paid too much.
Guy gets an appraisal on the guns.
Guy gets a relative to steal the guns.
Insurance Co. pays off.
Relative later shows the guns at a gun show.
Guy and Relative get scared and report evidence is thrown in the river.
Later in 2012, guns show up at Julias.
After an alarm, Julias find the guns on a stolen gun registry.
Police or other pick up guns after the Julia report.

Isn't that where we are now ?

What's all this stuff about returning guns to the original thief or original insurance fraud perpertrator, who was the original owner ?

I don't get it .
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As a professional FanBelt Inspector, and knowing nothing of these LCS's nor the auction,,just what's been posted,,I can say only this:

The 'stolen gun registry' in the USA would be NCIC,,GunINQ File. It's only accessed by L/E.
Firearms are entered by any L/E Agency only after a proper report has been filed by the owner who must show some sort of ownership proof.
They can be entered as 'stolen' or as 'lost' firearm.

The entry stays in NCIC forever.
The entry can only be removed (recovered) or modified (added info) by the agency that entered it originaly.

Someone at the auction knew enough to suspect the gun(s) were in the NCIC file.
A L/E agency had to be called in to 'run' the numbers in NCIC (the file only searches by ser#,,all other data for comparison only).

When the 'hit' came up, the agency that originally entered it into the system back in the 80's had to be contacted to verify it was still active.
Obviously it was,,and those guns will go back to that agency.

They may be nothing more than have been listed as 'lost'
(misplaced,,it happens quite often).
An original report will be on file with the agency reporting giving them the owner, circumstances, last known location, ect.
The report # is often listed right on the NCIC entry so it's available years later as in this case.
The agency will do a followup from there with this info and any new info on where the guns have been since. As always all possible angles are looked at,,theft and even insurance fraud.

If listed as stolen originally, then the original CR# from the agency will likely be on the NCIC hit. It will be used to come up with the actual report.
On it will be the crime and circumstances surrounding the theft (burglary, robbery, auto theft/GL, ect), suspects if any, names, phone#'s, ect.
Any followup will be done by the originating agency from there
including any insurance claim payout/possible fraud.

I'd guess they'll sit for a while in a Property Clerk's closet.