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Sorry to hear about this pain. I can tell you from my experience running gyms for the past 15 years all over Houston, locker / car theft is not an uncommon issue. I have seen these things happen in poor areas as well as "upscale" parts of town. A couple of things I would say to anyone that goes to busy gyms:

- 99.9% of car breakins are from something valuable or perceived to be valuable is sitting in plain view. Thieves will break a window of a car sitting in the front row of the lot if they see a bag or briefcase in plain view. They almost never break into a car in hopes that something good is in their hidden. BG's like things as easy as possible and will go the path of least resistance. Hide your stuff before you go! BG's love to see people pull into the lot, open their trunk, place all their life's valuables in trunk, and then walk into the gym for an hour! BG walks up to that car, breaks window, pops trunk, grabs stuff, and gone before anyone knows anything.

- Locker thefts happen everywhere at any time of day! You would think that putting your stuff in the front row by the exit to the locker room will have enough traffic to prevent theft. Wrong. These guys can pop a lock in two seconds. Grab and go before anyone knows the wiser.

- I wouldn't carry a gym bag around with my weapon. Too dangerous for me. It takes seconds to grab my bag and be off with my gun. I wouldn't feel safe unless the gun is on my person. I would never leave bags on the side of the basketball court! I can't tell you how many things have been stolen sitting on the court!

What I would do:

- find a way to carry on your person or
- use the lockers that some gyms provide that are on the floor facing the gym space that you can lock and always keep within eyesight
- never tell anyone you do not trust to keep your mouth shut that you have a gun. If anyone knows you carry and knows you lock it in car or locker room and they happen to tell someone that tells someone that tells someone that needs an easy gun.... well you get the point.

I can tell you that I have had to deal with LEO's on several occasions that had their car or locker broken into. I can't imagine what it must of been like to tell their superior that their gun was stolen at the gym.