Tourists report missing guns; one was replaced with stapler
After coming back from a weeklong Walt Disney World vacation, a Texas man checked the glove compartment in his pickup and noticed the case where he normally kept his gun felt strangely lighter.
Marshall Fox pulled it out, expecting to see his .45 caliber semiautomatic. Instead, it was gone, and a thief had left a stapler in its place, Fox reported to Orange County Sheriff ’s office Monday.
It was the second time in two days that a tourist reported a gun stolen on a Disney vacation, according to recently released sheriff ’s office reports.
Both cases are still open, the sheriff ’s office said Friday. Disney declined to comment because of the ongoing law enforcement investigation but pointed to its policy that prohibits “firearms, ammunition, knives and weapons of any kind” at Walt Disney World Resort.
Fox, 56, said he feared his $500 gun had been stolen from the locked glove compartment when he valet parked at the Animal Kingdom Lodge Resort in midJune.
In the other reported case, the last time a 35-year-old Missouri man remembered seeing his gun was in the parking lot at the Magic Kingdom, he told the sheriff’s office June 30.
But Kristoffer Lumby’s trip had been a six-day whirlwind.
Lumby park hopped, stopping at all four Walt Disney World parks, and the Magic Kingdom twice, and went to Disney Springs.
He “asked if the Orange County Sheriff’s Office had recovered any lost firearms from theme park parking lots in the last week,” the report said.
Maybe the Glock pistol fell out of the door pocket while he was busy helping his five children go to the park, Lumby said in the report.
Lumby told the Sentinel he suspected the gun had been stolen and wondered if it happened on the day his parking pass went missing off the mirror while parked at Hollywood Studios.
He usually brings his gun on long trips “for safety reasons, you never know,” he said. And he didn’t want to leave the weapon behind at his rental home, so he left it in his vehicle.
“I put it away and didn’t even think about it,” Lumby said. “It wasn’t until we were leaving, I realized it was gone.”
Both men said they wanted to press criminal charges, if anyone were ever arrested.
Fox could not be reached for comment Friday.