The problem for Houston is the crooks will just drive out of town.
However, if the law covered a broader geographical area, it would force crooks to sell into the "black market" - which would cut what they receive for the goods in half or more.
There are only a few things that payoff for most home burglaries -
Cash
Gold and Silver
Firearms (increasingly being locked up in stonger safes)
Apple products
Drugs, usually prescription pain drugs
Everyone has flat screen TVs, CDs and DVDs are only worth about 1-2 bucks each (worthwhile if there are 50 + and with packages)
Desktop computers are hardly worth enough to carry out, except for some game machines.
Ordinary laptops don't get much - only Apple and the very high end Lenovo / HP / Dell machines
Basically, everything can now be manufactured so cheaply, because of Moore's law and Asian volume production, that there are few manufactured goods worth stealing.
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If the law could cut the amount of money that crooks get for gold & silver, it would cut burglaries.
Also, some crooks will be stupid enough to sell to the gold buyers and get their names recorded as selling 7 times in 6 weeks, and some of the items will match the descriptions given by the victims.
(We can also bet that at least one person will sell a stolen collectible coin that is slabbed, graded, and has a serial number. Yes, really)
The big industrial theft driver is still copper, by the way. |
