Double tap

My favorite was watching an older gentleman walk in, hand bandaged to the size of a softball. He heads straight to a clerk and demands to know how his Glock fired without him pulling the trigger.

According to him, it just went off while he was holding it sending a round through his hand.

I stopped browsing and concentrated on eavesdropping. It was too good to miss.

So your friend pulled the trigger on a display MG that was loaded with blanks?

LGS owner is a dumbass for having a loaded firearm accessible, even if it was loaded with blanks.  It's not like blanks aren't dangerous.

I doubt that Gander Mountain was paying him enough to make it worth trying to wrestle a loaded pistol from an obvious criminal.

If I wasn't armed, I would made tracks out of there too.

No ND's but I have been around when someone brought in a loaded gun for the shop to look at.

Well, it had at least one blank in it for sure.  There was belt fed ammo going "into" the receiver (if that's what you call it on an MG) for display purposes I assume which appeared to real ammo.  We definitely didn't open anything up and check.

I worked weekends at a LGS, and the manager had the habit of letting some of his pet customers come behind the counter and in general act like employees if the owner wasn't around. Well, good ol' "Hal" comes in carrying a Savage 110 in a soft case. Walks behind the counter talking about the great trade he just made. Takes it out, cycles the bolt 4 times ejecting 3 live rounds. Assuming it was empty he put it in the display stand we had on the counter to hold rifles that were being inspected and or discussed and very deliberately pulled the trigger as he closed the bolt. To "relieve the tension without snapping the firing pin".  BAM a 30.06 Silvertip goes through the wall, through a customer's hard case on shelf in the backroom, through another wall and it's stopped by a steel beam. Upon further examination the follower would occasionally bind and not lift the last round. When the round didn't eject he assumed it was empty but the last cycle of the bolt popped the remaining round up and it fed. Luckily he wasn't flagging anybody and didn't hit the customer's gun that was in the case. If it hadn't hit the beam it would have gone through a thin wall and down a busy street. He never came back and customers were no longer allowed behind the counter. All guns brought in had to be checked in before they could be handled. There were only a few regular customers in the store and we didn't call the law. Hung a poster over the hole in the drywall. I quit soon after.

I'd love to see that code that indicates prison time for an accidental discharge with 3rd party negligence.

I was at a gunstore in tacoma , a group of urban "teens" came in looking for .32 and 9mm ammo.
Clerk went and got her boss and he refused to serve em. He was called all kinds of racist as they left.

She said it happened from time to time.

And right past the trial stage, apparently.

Here is an American indoor gun range, open to the public.

Like every range open to the public, there is evidence of negligent discharges on the overhead baffles, the floor, the walls, etc.

We suck at safe gun handling as a whole.  Sad to say it, but it’s true.

I just read that last sentence in Val Kilmers voice from Tombstone

At a recent gun show and was buying a 10/22 when someone dropped something, got real quite.  The wife doing the BGC and money told me about a couple of other shows.  At one, someone was driving their motorized scooter and a tire blew out, got real quiet.  Not as bad, though, as the time someone in a motorized scooter ran over somebody's rat dog on a leash.  Lots of noise with that one.

At one gun store one day looking around and an employee went out to smoke.  About 30 seconds later 3 hood rats stroll in with the employee behind them.  Same store another time a guy brings out n an Uzi, having issues.  Owner asks him if the weapon is hot.  Dude got all offended claiming it wasn't stolen.

At another looking around hood rattish looking guy comes in saying he is looking for a holster.  When asked what for, he whips out a pistol.  Hands went to CCWs.

When I worked the rental counter at a gun range, that was easily a weekly occurrence.

We had a uniformed police officer from the city come out and sign in to shoot on the "pistol only" steel range. The range is VERY clearly marked "pistol only" and before you are allowed on the range for the first time, you must acknowledge this fact. The officer drove his patrol car to said "pistol only" steel range, removed his AR-15 from the trunk of his car, and calmly dumped a magazine into our steel headplates before he loaded back up and drove off. All captured on video.

We had the usual suicides, and my nephew was working recently when a guy ND'd into his wife on the range.

I can't even count the number of times somebody brought in a random gun with what was very obviously the wrong ammo loaded into it.

I was in a shop in West Palm Beach a few years ago, browsing at a glass case near the front of the store with my back turned to the majority of this rather large business.

I was vaguely considering a purchase when I nearly shit pants when a gun goes off directly behind me.

I spun around to see a woman (who I later learned was an employee there) with a pistol in her hand, aimed at the floor. I looked around to see if there was an indication of where the ND ended up. On the floor less than a foot behind where I was standing was an obvious gun shot hole. No clue where the ricochet ended up.

The woman immediately became emotional, and was immediately consoled by a few other employees who rushed over. She was lead away to the back room for additional consoling.

It rattled me for a minute for sure, but once it was clear nobody was hurt and it wasn't a crime in progress, I continued browsing for about 20 minutes. A manager was on the other side of the last counter I was looking at and right before I left I said to him "Hey, this is your shop but allow me to offer a suggestion. When one of your employees negligently discharges a firearm in your showroom, that comes inches from hitting one of your customers, in addition to providing group consoling for her, it might be a good idea to offer a brief check in with the customer she almost shot. Maybe a quick apology or some basic acknowledgment of what just occurred would be good form."

He seemed slightly confused and apologized.

A certain RSO at the NRA HQ range used to routinely send rounds into the floor and ceiling.

Huh?
There's a law that send you directly to prison for NOT discharging a firearm?

I call BS.

I was at a range yesterday and couldn't believe the bullet strikes. Literally everywhere on the walls past 5 feet or so downrange; ceiling, target holders, etc.

I overheard a younger gentleman returning a box of 40 S&W, because it wouldn't fit in his new forty Smith & Wesson.  

After a few questions from the sales clerk, it was determined that the pistol was a Smith & Wesson M&P 9.

In this case I was with the dipshit involved.

I was home for Christmas break from college and had a buddy of mine with me. He was from a state (don't recall which) that didn't have machine guns to rent at ranges and we decided it would be fun to go shoot some full auto.

We went to a now closed range that among other items, had a full auto AK for rent.

We decided that would be our gun, so we rented it and very fortunately for me charged it on his credit card.

The guy behind the counter asked if either of us were familiar with how an AK works and if we had ever shot full auto before. Both were "yes" from me, so he handed me the gun, my buddy took the ammo and we went to the lane he told us to go to. As luck would have it this was in the morning on a weekday and we were alone in that set of lanes.

We load up a few mags and he wants me to go first, just to see how it works and all that. I squeeze off bursts of 3-4 rounds at a time and I guess everything looked as straight forward as it appeared.

His turn.

He's got the gun, pointing down range. I hand him a mag and he gets it seated properly and chambers a round. So far so good.

I explain to him where the safety is and to leave it alone until he's ready to shoot. The last thing I said to him was "Ok, so you're going to want to shoot short bursts and not just empty the mag. The reason for this is that continuing to hold the trigger down will make the muzzle of the gun rise up and your shots will be completely off target if you do that. So don't do that. Ok?" "Got it, ok."

He shoulders the rifle and aims down range, steadies himself and flips the safety off. What immediately followed was a 30 round mag dump. As predicted, the muzzle did in fact rise up.

This range had tiers of angled ceiling tiles all the way down the range, each with a fluorescent light behind them. Very much like this:


As the mag dump occurs and the muzzle immediately starts rising, the destruction begins. He hit paper, then the clip holding the target, then the cables above the clip, then in to a succession of ceiling tiles and the light fixtures behind them. It all happened very fast,

By the time the mag dump was over, the floor of the lane had his target laying face down, pieces of the destroyed clip/clip hardware and a shit load of ceiling tile pieces spread all fucking over the place. The cable for the targets had been cut and flopped down, two separate fluorescent light fixtures were  now visible and dangling from the ceiling, one completely out, one still flickering a little, both shot to shit. It was a pretty remarkable amount of damage and it's right about then that I was at least glad he put this event on his credit card.

Needless to say that second mag was the last one of the day. I wish I had a photo of the before and after because the transformation of that lane was pretty incredible.

It was a very expensive day for him.

Shortly before the pandemic, I was in a gun store with several large racks out in the open filled with used guns (rifles, shotguns, muzzle loaders, etc.) I was looking in the pistol cases when a bus full of Asian tourists showed up and began pointing them at each other and playing war through the aisles. I GTFO of there. Typical gun store employees didn't seem that concerned.

I was at an Appleseed a few years ago and a guy brought a couple Asian foreign exchange students. It probably would have turned out like your range trip if it weren’t for the guys running the program. They were constantly yelling at them, I don’t think their English was very good. At least nobody got shot.

Guy went to a local shop, rented a couple range guns to shoot, an AR and a pistol. Finished shooting and returned the AR but took off with the pistol. They noticed immediately and called PD to report. While that was going on he went to his ex-wife's house and shot up her car or house or something.

Turns out he had a domestic history with her and he had an active restraining order. Was not supposed to be in possession.


___________


Worked at a shop in the early '90s and we would occasionally get the hood rats wandering in looking around suspiciously. Figured out they would walk through our ammo shelving and lift a few rounds out of the boxes. So we had to spend a few days building new shelves behind the counter for the ammo.

Champions in College St, TX range looks just like that and a few years ago the picture of the range on their web site had marks from bullet hits all over on all the range you can see in that pic.

Was at a gun show in Lewisville, TX around ‘12-‘13 I’m just cruising around and browsing at everything. Some kid picks a Colt Python up off a table, squeezes the trigger and shoots through the vendors table. Hundreds of people inside the building and it’s just dead silent, not sure what happened to the kid or the vendor afterwards but it was definitely a WTF moment.

Years ago a young black guy came into our local shop. It was a really tiny place where there were always the same three or four guys sitting around just shooting the shit. Very few strangers wandered in, but we were the only gun shop and there were vibrant neighborhoods a town or two over so we got a few. Anyhow, the guy had some kind of small caliber pistol that was just beat to shit and covered in rust and dirt. It wouldn't work and he wanted our guy to fix it, said he had to "bury it for a while to hide it". Owner just laughed and said he couldn't do it.

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) how many hood types would come in and have no idea what their gun was chambered for. They'd ask for "them little nines" or "them big nines". Apparently everything was a nine, and usually they'd just show you the gun and ask for "bullets for this".

Down Syndrome teen trying to load buckshot into his dads shotgun on the sales floor. Mom and dad are refusing to do anything other than ignore the kid and are not assisting in our efforts to take the gun/ammo away. My coworker thought he was gonna have to shoot him. In the end our office manager came out and she sweet talked the kid down. I firmly believe that if you cannot behave like the rest of public while in public, you do not belong in public.

Cult leader/former pro football player straw purchased half a dozen guns for his cult, and spent 4 hours telling our boss what racists we were when we wouldn't transfer them. I laughed like an idiot when he got tasered like 8 times at his divorce proceedings. Then his lawyer (who got tased in the crossfire) comes in looking for a gun to protect herself from him. She tests the trigger on an M&P by pointing out at my chest and pulling through. Knew it wasn't loaded, but my heart stopped for a second. She didn't get a chance to do that again.

Tons of drunk/drugged customers, they always do odd things. Boss told the last one who swept him with a loaded SR40 to get out of the store while the gun was still in his hand and not in his ass.

Similarly, I told my boss that if we sold a customer an AR9, the guy would be taking it home in his ass, because he kept sweeping me AND his family with it, WHILE his finger was on the trigger. We all have authority to stop a sale if we're not comfortable with it, and I had corrected the guy twice before, once nicely, and he still kept pointing the muzzle at his sons head while sending pictures to his friend trying to look tough with it.

Lots of attempted straw purchases that we shut down and are then accused of racism for.

More people than I can count who don't know that it you need a current government issued photo ID to buy a gun, or cannot buy a gun if you are a felon. Those boggle my mind.

Lots of people still think the gun and ammo supply shouldn't be affected by current events and are surprised that it is.

Current favorite is a dude who spent probably $2500 tricking out a pistol to look like something issued by The Power Rangers, knows it doesn't work right before he even fires it, and wants us to diagnose and fix it. The concept of dwell time and the operation of the recoil system totally escape him.

My customer experience was having 3 BHP slides milled for Novaks. 2 came out perfect, the third was canted because "the bit slipped." I asked what he was going to do to make it right. He replaced the slide. The gun never worked right. Still want to get it going.

This one made me lol. My local indoor range has an uzi for rent. The ceiling has soooooo many holes in it, walls as well. The owner has a rule, if you shoot his hangers, you buy them

Yeah, saw that happen more than a few times.

Well, to be honest, if I had seen that there were blanks in there, I would have probably pulled the trigger too and then acted stupid about it. Then blame the owner for my permanent hearing loss. See? Everybody learns a lesson and I had a blast!

Employee ND’d an AK into the ground, behind the counter.

Ah... The good ol’ “store pop” law. I’ve seent it. Attached File

Some time back I  sold a good friend of mine her first AR. It was a BCM lower with a Doublestar upper.  Nice rig and I sold it for way less than I had in it to help her out.

Of course, she was hooked, and in the subsequent weeks I had explained to her about Colt making them for the military, etc.

One day she asked me to meet her at the LGS to get her AR boresighted with a red dot.  

The gun shop just happened to have a couple of the Colt CR6920's in stock.  Naturally, I teased her about "needing" a Colt to add to her just-birthed collection.  She finally relented and started the paperwork. First she had trouble getting the bank to release the funds on her debit card, and when that was all taken care of she proceeded to dive into the 4473 form.

She got to the question about being an unlawful user of controlled substances, and looked up at the gun shop clerk with a sheepish look.  "I've got a medical marijuana card," she said blankly.

I about shit right there.

The gun shop clerk didn't say anything for a few seconds, then chimed in, "Sorry, ma'am.  I can't sell you a gun."

She looked down at the form again, and added, "Well, it's expired.  Does that count?"

He thought for a minute and breathed an obvious sigh of relief, "Okay, as long as it's expired, ma'am.  It is really expired, right?"

She nodded and finished the form.  She passed the NICS check easily and we got the Hell out of there with her new Colt under her arm.

"I didn't know you couldn't buy a gun if you have a marijuana card," she shrugged.

I just sat there in her car and didn't say a fucking word until I had a chance to change the subject.

This.

Why does owner have a live and loaded (blanks can injure you severely) firearm sitting out in the open floor.

What a dipshit.

If I was him I’d be scared shitless of being sued.

Not a LGS story...  I once had a customer toss a revolver on the counter of an auto parts store and just left it there.  I could see through the chambers that it was loaded and it was pointing right at me.  I stepped to the side and emptied it before he could grab it again.  He just wanted a screw for the wooden grip.  He didn't even care that it was loaded and how stupid he was to just toss it on the counter.

Guy walks in, rents a HK mk23, walks 30 feet... Loads it up, blows his brains out.  

I was about 5 feet behind him, but on my way out.  



Couple weeks later, the owner of the place told me the guy came home from work and his wife told him she was leaving him, and taking their kid.  He didn't own a gun...  So he rented one just to off himself. The owner ended up selling the place, and eventually, they stopped gun rentals.  


I guess that's about the "wildest" thing I've ever seen at a gunshop. Not something I want to see twice.  

To be fair, it's a stupid rule and I can see why she would think that.

I’d have immediately turned to the owner and inquired about a discount sale price on the HK

Not all that uncommon. A lot of shops have started to adopt policies of you have to be with someone else to rent a gun, be known to the shop, etc. to avoid those types of issues.

Local LGS/range had a suicide with a rental. Customer took the gun into the women's restroom and shot herself in a stall.

She was missing so long her SO called in a missing persons report with the police. I guess no one from the store thought to check the bathrooms before closing or even look for the rental gun back!

Guy came in two nights ago looking for help getting the castle nut off on his AR pistol. He wanted our help installing a UBR. We VERY quickly explained to him why that was a terrible idea.

Along those same lines, I had a customer two weeks ago quizzing me about a short barrel shotgun that he had but didn't have a stamp for. Lots of customers think they can slap pistol uppers on rifle lowers. It would not surprise me in the least to learn the number of unregistered SBRs is astronomical based on what I've seen.

Another guy discussed turning out lowers by the dozen for his friends on a Bridgeport.

Fat guy with an M&P sagging off his rope belt inquiring about a plate carrier because he's into "all that tactical shit" and he wants to be able to fight off a herd of antifa. I told him running was a better option and to get in shape.

Customer ordered a custom safe in which to store tens of millions of dollars in gold. He did not look like the type, and I think he was fibbing us.

My least favorite customer has racked up probably 40 man hours of work in about a year between all of as she looks for the perfect PCC and the perfect light, optic, magazines. We bend over backwards to help her, but she NEVER buys anything. Until last time. A $400 Keltec.

I was at Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma, the one that was said to have sold under the table the Bushmaster that involved the D.C. sniper shootings in 2002, when they were raided!

Fun times seeing a lot of guys storm the place and all of us just freezes. Damn, I was there looking at some holsters and belts. I went there quite a lot for the indoor range. I looked at one of the guys at the counter and I said to him, well, I guess you will be closed for a while. I was then talked to and free to leave afterwards.
.

Dude, it's the "non-discharge law"!

Absofreekinlutely!

In line with my wife as she was buying her new M&P shield. Clean cut military guy in front of me and a couple at the end of the counter with an XD .40 asking to buy mags for it. The XD guy is wearing filthy clothes and the toothless chick is wearing one of those carnival bought t shirts with a bunch of cuts in it to make tassels. Line is moving slow for just two people but we are hanging out and I hear the counter guy tell the couple they "have mags but they just came in and are in back". They would look through the boxes. They kept coming back out and telling them to be patient and they would have the mags in a minute.

This store had just been robbed a week prior and they thieves got a LOT of expensive guns.

We are waiting wine the police come in and grab the guy in front of me and ask for his ID. Guy pulls his military ID, DL etc and keeps asking wtf is going on when the gun counter guy walks up and says "no, that guy at the counter"

Cops walk over and grab the XD. Turns out it was stolen from the very shop they were in and came with no mags from whoever they bought it from. While we were buying they questioned them separately for abut 35 minutes and took them both away in cuffs.

Counter guy said it was the 3rd gun that came back in that way and several arrests. Commented that the thieves used some $8000 OU shotgun as a stick to knock down the high mounted ARs, Kriss Vectors and CZ scorpions and tossed it aside when done.

This happened at a gun show, and not a gun store.

Back in the 1990's I used to drive to every gun show in every little town around here trying to buy up pre-ban AK's that somebody just happened to have in a closet and was trying to sell.  I found a lot of older pre-bans that way, mostly Chicom AK's.

At one gun show a couple of guys had a very worn looking German MP40 on their table.  My first thought was that it was a DEWAT or a pretty authentic looking replica.  The thought crossed my mind that'd be a great wall hanging conversation piece for my shop if I could get it for a bargain price.

As I picked it up and looked at it thoroughly, I began to realize it wasn't a DEWAT or a fake, but a real, live MP40.  The barrel looked like a dirt road; it had obviously been fired with sand in the bore.  Other than that, though, it appeared to be a perfectly serviceable World War II machine gun.  I looked at the seller and said, "Is the inside of the receiver welded up or something so you can't tell it's been deactivated?" (I don't know the law on DEWAT's, so I was just making conversation).

He replied, "NO, it's LIVE."  Then I noticed the price tag.  It said $1,400.  I knew that wasn't a lot of money for a functional full auto--not to mention having it on a table at a show where anybody could pick it up and look at it.  "How are  you selling a live machine gun at a gun show?" I asked, "Even I know enough about the law to know you can't just sell it to someone and let them walk out with it the same day.  It takes months of waiting for approval from ATF and whatnot."

"Oh, no, that's not true," the man said.  "You just pay the $200 tax  and it's YOURS."

About that time another man walked up to us and chimed in, "He's right you know.  It's not all that complicated."

I quickly handed the gun back to the guy behind the table.   I was and am smart enough to know when I'm being bullshitted.  To this day that had to either be an ATF sting, or it really was a couple of guys working together to illegally sell a machine gun at a gun show.  I went to several gun shows in that town after that and I never saw those two guys again.  I don't know if they got arrested, or if they were agents, or if they sold their illegal machine gun and moved on.

I worried for weeks after that gun show that I had left my fingerprints on that gun.

That incident still gives me the shudders.

The law reads as “you’ve mustn’t or may so discharge a firearm in a store that doesn’t or does sell firearms or chili with/without beans in a accidental or purposeful manner”...or something like that.

Penalty is “fines of up to many threads of GD debauchery and/or 5-25 years in prison without a trial”. I think the other name for the sentencing is “The go to jail and do not pass go to collect $200 sentence”.

ETA: I want to add that this is BS and I’m not a lawyer...

I immediately looked to see if all the blood on my arm was ONLY his, and next I checked my shorts.  

Someone's head going full canoe, at arms reach is an altering experience.

When I take a new shooter to the range, I point those holes out, and tell them they were made with unloaded firearms.

As in, the first words out of the offenders mouth being "I didn't know it was loaded"