It's  no secret that ours is a country run by politicians who are bought and owned by lobbies. The pawn lobby has things setup so that pawn shops can run profitable "fencing" operations and face absolutely no consequences when buying your video gear from the theif who broke into your home and stole it!

In most jurisdictions, you, the victim, must reimburse the pawn dealer fully for whatever he paid the thieves. And you must take his word for what that amount was.

After all, do you think the thieves are going to balk if the pawn shop shows an amount higher than what they actually receive? And what is the benefit to the pawn shop owner to "boost' the amount? He gets more of a break on taxes and he makes a profit even if you come to redeem your own equipment!

This is outrageous, but it is what you get when "free enterprise" only applies to small business and to buying politicians.

Your homeowners insurance will likely not cover your gear and any professional insurance you may have will likely only pay a fraction of what you paid to acquire your equipment and certainly will not pay enough to replace the gear and won't pay quickly enough to keep you in business anyway.

The only option is to prevent the theft in the first place. That is what our upcoming article is all about - how to thwart the video equipment thieves and do it in a way that is economically feasible. In fact, we'll show you a major step that will cost under $300 ! Stay tuned.

Imagine for a moment, that the powerful pawn shop lobby had not contributed to politicians' campaigns and had not pressured them to get this sweetheart law saying that victims must buy back goods that had been stolen from them..

When a thief comes into a pawn shop to sell stolen goods, it is fairly easy for the pawn dealer to tell that the goods are stolen. I know. I've had friends who owned pawn shops and I used to own computer stores where we bought and sold used computers.

First, the thief usually doen't know much about the equipment and this fact becomes apparent fairly early on. Second, they often use stolen or fake ID that is fairly easy to spot. If the photo on the drivers license doesn't look like the seller - that's a clue!

Second, the thief will often accept the first offer - usually a "lowball" figure thrown out just to set things up.

Third, they want the money in cash.

It is very profitable for pawn shops to deal with thieves. They can buy goods at a fraction of what a legitimate seller would accept.

Many law enforcement departments are corrupted with drug money - even in some large metro areas! They don't want to prosecute burglars because those are the customers of the drug dealers who financed their campaigns (for sheriff) or who pad their paychecks. So they tell victims that it is virtually impossible to find and prosecute burglars (not true) and impossible to locate and retrieve their goods (also not true).

Until Americans get tired of the drug kingpins corrupting politicians and law enforcement, until Americans get fed up with delivering their youth to the despicable drug industry, this will sadly continue, and the best we can hope for is to make our gear less attractive to burglars so they'll steal from our neighbor instead of us.

As background -

I was once in a recovery business that included such things as jewelry, autos, boats and even airplanes, which brought me into contact with pawn dealers, several of whom became friends. One such friend was "Rocky", the flashy Dallas pawn dealer who innocently sold the guns that were used to shoot President Reagan. Rocky was one of the nicest, most honest people you'd ever want to meet and would never knowingly buy stolen goods, but he gave me a lot of background on the business and I saw even more on my own.

I have had friends and.. shall we say, the "opposite of friends" who were sheriffs. To run our recovery business, we often had to pay kickbacks and bribes to sheriffs and police chiefs, who would sometimes brag about how much money they were paid under the table and by whom.

Once, during a recovery effort, I came across documents that could have led to the arrest of a dozen or more drug dealers and led quite high to an east coast operation. I turned this over to a big-city, north-Texas law enforcement agency. Minutes later, a detective returned the documents to me and encouraged me to keep quiet and to leave the area for my own safety! It was another year or so before this operation was finally taken down and it was in all the headlines.

Just recently, I had a lengthy conversation with a candidate for sheriff, who related the depth and power of drug kingpins and their influence into law enforcement jurisdictions was as strong and extensive as ever. He had worked with federal agencies who were aware and helpless to do anything about it.

Finally, a weekend that isn't booked! So you take the family out to celebrate, leaving your precious video equipment behind. The crackhead who has just crawled through your bedroom window is appreciative! As he bags your gear, he figures his favorite pawn shop dealer will give him five or six hundred bucks for the tens of thousands of dollars worth of your gear he's stealing.

The scream of your burglar alarm is annoying him and he knows he's got to be gone in under ten minutes. He's not worried if neighbors take the license number of the stolen car he's using, he's already anticipating his next fix.

We've talked about some of the problems that allow this situation to exist. The problems, more often than not, involve politicians and law enforcement - people who surprisingly may have more interest in perpetuating this environment than in finding a solution.

How to protect your gear economically

This article will show how you can take action today, to protect your possessions and tools of your trade, and spend less than $300.

For years, I've had a passing interest in safes. I understood that I needed to protect my video gear, but was hesitant to spend over a thousand dollars for a heavy chest when there was always a piece of video or editing gear I was salivating over.

Besides, the safes I saw were too big externally, while being too little internally. Then I stumbled upon gun safes. We bought one made by Stack-on, that was designed with two sections, each having its own door.

Rifles go on the right while the left section (with shelves) was for pistols and ammo. But the rifle rests and pistol shelves, like much of the office furniture sold today, was to be customer-installed.

No problem with the pistol shelves. They were just right for lenses, wireless sets, shotgun mics, etc. We tossed out the rifle rests and cut some shelving out of plywood. I set this shelving at heights that would let us store several video cameras and other larger gear, including our laptop.

Bolting down the safe

My office is a converted bedroom that has a closet. I cleared out a space for the safe and bolted it to the wall and flooring studs.

Now, maybe a professional, top-of-his-game burglar, could still get my gear, but he'd probably be found cracking a bank or jewelrystore safe where the rewards would be larger (or even more likely, he'd be found in the pennitentary, getting his "just rewards"!). Your average, everyday, crackhead burglar will likely waste his precious ten minutes cursing your video safe, and probably remove you from his "prospect list".

Item available at: Sports Authority, #964931, model # GC-924 $264.99

We're looking into video equipment insurance, and hope to have an article on this subject within the next couple of months. If you have anything you'd like to contribute to this (or any other) topic, please write or call. (See our contact page ).