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I Forge Iron

theft in my area


kburd

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This article was in my local paper saturday. I am glad that they caught these guys and that Mr. Zimmerman is a good guy and didnt just turn a blind eye and buy tools and items that he was conserned were stolen. I have never met any of these guys but have heard of them through the grapevine. I live about 45 minutes north of were it took place. see attached link hope it works. http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=250967&format=html

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An older farmer near Melba Idaho some years back was robbed. He had around 30 5 gallon fuel cans stored in an outbuilding that were used regularly to fuel his agricultural equipment. He drove into Nampa (nearest town big enough to buy 30 gas cans) and was trying to replace his cans at a N.A.P.A. store, but they didn't have enough and would have to order them. Fortunately there was a young fellow in the store who had several extras in his pickup that he was willing to sell. The farmer was badly in need and not averse to a bargain so he went to inspect them and quickly recognized his missing inventory. Police were summoned and the farmer went home with his fuel cans while the young men (turns out there were two of them) were ushered into the city jail. This is justice at nearly it's swiftest and most poetic! The older generations on the farms near Melba have given out quite a few lessons in justice, morality, and the perils of arrogance over the years. In these small towns the stories are told and retold so that everyone knows them and their lessons are absorbed by the whole community. Hopefully the same holds true for the Yater/Zimmerman teachings.

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When I lived in Missouri, I was out mowing my lawn one day and left the garage door open. This was in broad daylight, mind you, in a residential neighborhood. I had plenty of neighbors and it was in a nice subdivision. When I had finished mowing, I came up to get my weed eater and it wasn't there. As I looked around, I noticed a whole bunch of other stuff wasn't there. Apparently someone paid me a visit while I was mowing the back yard. I think it came to about $500 to $600 in tools; a lot of birthday and Christmas presents and stuff I had worked for over many years.

I couldn't believe that someone would do that in broad daylight, but according to the police officer who responded to my house it happens all the time. They never caught whoever did it. I still sometimes pray for whoever it was that they come to their senses and repent and get themselves right with God. There isn't anything in this world worth losing one's soul over. They may not have been caught by man, but they didn't escape the watchful eye of God.

I'm glad the guys who did this got caught and that the goods were returned to their rightful owners. They'll have plenty of time in jail to think about what they've done; hopefully they will use that time to really reflect on the path they chose and where it ends.

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I tend to want to help those unfortunates who were badly raised by demonstrating the hazardous nature of their occupations! When I was in France getting on the metro in Paris I met a young gypsy lad who showed me how easy it was to steal someone's wallet right out of their pocket. I had the pleasure of reminding him that such doings tend to make people angry and getting your hands on someone's wallet is NOT the same as getting away with it. Had I not had a wife and young son with me that distracted me momentarily I believe that I would certainly have altered that young man's career path if not possibly have brought it to an abrupt halt altogether. As it were my right arm was sore for several days and I assume that he might have realized that dental expenses can be very high for people in his line of work. Hopefully he will choose another way of life in the future but I stand ready to give stern lessons whenever I run into an opportunity. It is my duty!

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He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.

Hopefully these thieves will learn a trade while they have time on their hands. At least learn of and from the Master Carpenter.

Lock your stuff up smitties.
<><

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In one congregation I attended for awhile there was a long time member that was out of work and was willing to do odd jobs. I hired him to do some fix up jobs at my mother's house. boy what a mistake! He was an outright thief. He would walk off with all sorts of hand and small power tools. I think about half of my late father's tools went missing. He did some work for other elderly women in the church and they had the same experience too. I talked to the preacher about it and he naively said surly not so I called one of the other members who was a police officer and he followed the guy after he had worked at one of older ladies home one day and he followed him to a pawn shop where the poor unemployed fellow hocked a bunch of tools. He called at work for me to come down to the pawn shop to see if any of the hocked tools were my father's and sure enough they were. The owner of the pawn shop said the guy had been bring in lots of tools for a couple of months. He still had tags that indicated what the guy had brought in so he boxed them for the police officer and then the next day they arrested the poor unlucky guy when he tried to hock some more tools. He got five years for his misdeeds. I was the only one that was able to identify the tools because my father always put his name or initals on his tools. After this guy got out of jail he tried to come back to church and do odd jobs until he got on his feet but nobody was up to it. He said he had repented but most folk weren't ready to forgive him. Kind of sad. <_<

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Yes, it is very sad - especially when it's from someone you trust. Some very good friends of ours borrowed a large sum of money from us a long time ago, a lot more than had been stolen from my garage, with the promise to pay it back in monthly payments. They won't even return phone calls any more - the money is as good as gone. We forgive them, and we pray for them.

We have to be ready to forgive those who trespass against us, or we better not even pray the Lords prayer. If we don't forgive, we will not be forgiven; if we show no mercy, none shall be shown to us - and our debt to God is great indeed.

As Abigail Van Buren put it, "The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints."

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I am guilty when it come to locking up my shop when I have to leave for a short time, even though I am in a secured fenced in property away from the street. After reading this I think I need to change my ways. Thanks for the slap in the head. :huh:

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while I was away from my shop, one night, someone stole my entire five ton scrap pile! The pile included spring swages from a steam hammer that I had acquired from the now defunct Delaware and Hudson Locomotive Shop. Talk about audacity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That kind of theft takes some planning... Sorry to hear you lost all that. I know it sure stings.
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I has my shop descimated by thieves. at the time my shop only had 3 walls and a roof. I originally built it for a motorcycle shed. when isold the bike It bacame my work shop. for years I kept my power tools ahand tools and what ever projects I had going in there. On day last yeaar I went out to get a power saw and my tools were gone and all of my scrap materials thrown everywhere.

To remedy this I tore the thing down and rebuilt it. I know have a workshop with a lockable door. while it provides only a bit scurity that the first one, it appears ,from the ouitside, to be solid. I will ,eventually when I can afford, it build a proper workshop, somethignt big enough and with enought ventilation and utilities available. but for now atleast my tools are a bit safer.

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You thieves out there, if you have ears to hear, then listen: you will one day stand before your creator and will render an account of your deeds. You know it is true, and you will have no excuse, because God's laws are written on your hearts.

One thing is for certain in this life - you will die. There is no escaping it. You will fall into His hands, and "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31).

"In the end.... forever.... you and I will be in heaven, or hell...... Period." -- Father John Corapi


Two Ways Are Set Before You O’ Man..

The way of Life and the Way of Death

Therefore, Choose Life

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I used to work evenings and weekends for a friend at his scrap yard and you would not believe the amount of people that try and bring in stolen metals and I am not in what would be considered a high theft area but after spending some time there it got me to being more cautous at home with locking up my shop and sheds. I feel really bad for those who have to live in high crime areas, up until a couple years ago we never even locked our house when we left and even now it has just become habit, not really nesecary.

welder19

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Yes i also agree that their sentences should have been left alone, and not reduced.

It is amazing what tweekers try, and do pull off in thefts. Someone stole about 1/2 a mile of wiring for the freeway lights on the I-15 that runs through Las Vegas. They figure they were on the other side of a sound wall, or had a van with the floor cut out. Cost to replace was something like $500,000. Foreclosed homes are stripped of wiring, and appliances, vacant buildings lose copper piping/wiring, one place I worked at had a 3" main communications bundle cut, and pulled overnight. Every once in awhile the power company will find a burned off finger in a raceway :D . A friend had his entire 8--#-1,000# safe stolen out of his house by his daughters friends.

Out where I live someone trying something like that may just end up coyote, or buzzard food in the desert. There is nothing out there, and lots of it.

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Way to go Mr. Z for helping put those genetic defects behind bars!

I've been lucky and have had nothing more than a chainsaw and a few garden tools walk off. About 6 years ago my wife saw someone skulking around my shop at night - I stepped out and lit him up with "The eye of God" (2 million candle power light) - He jumped about 4' in the air and took off running . . . I'm hoping that after he cleaned out his pants, he cleaned up his life and tried out for the Olympics because he cleared the front 100 yards of my property in about 8 seconds flat!



Every once in awhile the power company will find a burned off finger in a raceway - - Out where I live someone trying something like that may just end up coyote, or buzzard food in the desert. There is nothing out there, and lots of it.


Your area sounds like mine, go up the wrong driveway for the wrong reason and you might not come back down - and there's forest, lots and lots of forest . . . Speaking of charred body parts - Last year, the Power Co found the smoking husk of a fella still gripping the cable cutters he tried to use on an open main-line inside of a substation.
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I made a deal with the local scrappers when I lived in Columbus. I told them that anything I left in front of the shop doors was fair game for them and if they took anything in my scrap pile they were fair game for *me*---no season, no limits!

We got along well and sometimes they would stop by and howdy or I would flag them down to get some stuff that didn't make it to in front of the doors yet.

Out here in the country my shop is getting crowded as I'm not putting anything out in the expansion until it can be locked up tight and I can throw in a couple of rattlesnakes with their rattles cut off before I leave on trips...

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  • 4 weeks later...

I made a deal with the local scrappers when I lived in Columbus. I told them that anything I left in front of the shop doors was fair game for them and if they took anything in my scrap pile they were fair game for *me*---no season, no limits!

We got along well and sometimes they would stop by and howdy or I would flag them down to get some stuff that didn't make it to in front of the doors yet.

Out here in the country my shop is getting crowded as I'm not putting anything out in the expansion until it can be locked up tight and I can throw in a couple of rattlesnakes with their rattles cut off before I leave on trips...



I like the idea of rattlers without rattles, and as as far as I am concerned a thief needs an arranged meeting with his maker. I know about where thieves live around me, but I actually get along with them, I have given them old air conditioners and steel I have no use for, but then again I always have a 38 special on my hip or near in the shop.
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ever since my original shop was ransacked and all of my power tools stolen I have put up cameras and I keep my 9mm and AR-15 nearby. I have an uncle who is a scrapper and a friend who is as well so when I have scrap these two get a call and the first one here get the gold so to speak. anyone else comign on my property I view as someone looking to steal from me. I have had scrap metal visable on my property for years even before I started smithing, no one ever asked if they could have ot or buy it. now once a week I get a guy(always one the same 4 guys) asking if a certain car is scrap. they always come asking when one of my two cars is gone. I've had my house broken into and my shop too, all in the last year. I think these "scrappers" are trying to find me not at home. too bad for them.

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Cutting the rattles off tend to make them peevish and prone to taking offense; but rattlesnake bites are usually not fatal---though the one that took almost the full lane of the road when it was crossing the "explosive laden vehicle" route in front of my pickup recently might be an exception to that generality!

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