Something that I thought I’d mention in case anyone ever has the same situation….

So, a few posts back, you saw that I picked up a new Ruger rifle, yes? Big rifle comes with a big box. With big lettering that says “RUGER” running across it. Now, I am not one of those guys that saves the boxes that guns come in with the idea that twenty years from now I will have saved the box, it will be in immaculate condition, and it’ll add 20% to the resale of the gun. Why? Because when you get into as many guns as I have, if I saved all the boxes I would literally need a shipping container to store them all. Plus, Im not much for reselling a gun once I take it into my collection.

So..what to do with thebox. Well, it sure as heck isn’t going out in the alleyway to await the garbage collection. Why? Because doing so announces to the world that there’s a guy in that house right there who has a nice shiny new expensive rifle. Who wants that kinda info sitting out there for the homeless dumpster diving wretches to discover? Next thing I know some tweaker is staking out my house waiting for me to leave on a shopping trip or something so he can kick in the door and hope to snatch whatever rifle that cardboard box housed.

So. No. The box goes elsewhere. Where? Well, logically you might just kick the can down the road and leave it in your neighbors garbage a block away. Two problems with that – first, it just transfers the same risk to my neighbors which isn’t really a nice thing to do even though they are complete strangers to me, andsecondly putting your garbage in someone elses garbage collection is a pretty sleazy thing to do, as well as being a theft-of-services kinda thing.

So..where does it go? Easy…just about any gun store will either take the box for themselves for use in shipping, or if you ask nice they’ll let you toss it in their dumpster once you explain why you don’t want it at your own garbage collection point.

Paranoid? No, I don’t think so. I do the same for any high-end item…computer, television, etc. Why let the dumpster divers know that there’s cool goodies at this address just waiting for them?

Alternatively, I could chop up the box into small pieces and mix it in with my usual garbage but thats too much like work. The point here, though, is that this is just another angle of PerSec that might not seem obvious to most people. but..there it is.