Well, I have another take on the topic, as a person who has worked behind a gun counter for 40hours a week for the last 4 years (after 30 in the Advertising field), and I make more than minimum wage. It gets tiring (especially in current times) to try to explain the function and use of a firearm. Do you expect car salesman to teach you how to drive? Most of us grew up with firearms, but if you are a “Barbara Streisand” type, you should seek out a firearms instructor. I work at one of the largest, privately owned LGS’s in my area, and we have lines forming outside the store, 1.5 hours before we open in the am, and it doesn’t stop until we close (hours 11am-7pm Mon-Fri). I am one of five salesman that work behind the counter. We have 2 gunsmiths on staff, and lately about 40% percent of the “broken firearms” that come to the counter lately (about the last 6months, but the buying insanity started March 2020) are OPERATOR ERROR.
Below, I’ll list a FEW of the conversations I’ve had lately:
Customer (walking in with a recently purchased Stoeger Coach gun): “I want to return this firearm, it’s not working right, and it’s too hard to open”
Me: “well, unless there’s some defect, all gun sales are final. How many times have you fired the gun?”
Customer: “oh, I haven’t shot it yet”
Me: smack forehead
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We had a doctor pull his car in the lot, get out with a Sig 320 (in hand pointed in the air), walk past 20-25 people on line, walk right up to the counter and DEMAND we install sight on his pistol right away, because “he had to get back to the hospital”.
..... we threw him out.
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My personal favorite over the past few months are the people that walk up to the counter and ask for a Mossberg 500, or Remington 870 with an 18” barrel, expecting there to be dozens in the shop. It’s like they’ve had their heads in the sand, or somewhere else for the last year. “Remingtons bankrupt”??? .......shocker!
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People that walk in and go from, I want to see a hunting rifle, now a shotgun, now a handgun........are usually a waste of our time.
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The 20 phone calls a day we get from customers asking “how long is the line?”. Our stock answer is 37’ 8”
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Now, don’t get me wrong, as I work at a gun shop, because I enjoy firrarms, and helping people, but you can’t turn Barbara Streisand into Jerry Miculek in 15 min at a gun counter. I’ve taken guns away from people that can’t follow the simplest instruction of “DON’T SWEEP PEOPLE WITH THE BARREL” and “KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER”. I get a lot of “Isn’t it unloaded?”...... again, smack forehead!
-the ravings of a gun shop guy.
