Gun dealers - fix yourselves Any one who has had any experience with gun store clerks has probably had some of the same experiences I have had. Know-it-all clerks who want to sell you something you are not interested in. Clerks who want more to push the product they got the best deal from their distributor on, rather that consider the specific needs of a small framed lady. Clerks who huddle with their buddies in the corner telling war stories while you wait. I could go on - But I had a new experience Saturday. Let me begin a couple of weeks ago, when I was shopping for a gun. The shop owner agreed to order the one I was interested in from the distributor. I paid my money, and struck up a conversation with a lady I had been acquainted with some years ago. The owner joined our conversation, in which we were talking about carry guns that might suit a lady. The owner pulled out his pocket pistol, a diminutive 1911 style handgun, pointed it at the wall to his left, then brought the gun around to re-holster it. In the process, he swept the gun across my midsection. I departed the premises, however without saying anything, planning, instead, to return and bring this to his attention privately. . . . In case you are new to this, Jeff Cooper, the father of modern pistolcraft, long ago set down the four basic rules of safety for gun handling. All guns are always loaded. Even if they are not, treat them as if they are. Never let the muzzle cover anything you are not willing to destroy. (For those who insist that this particular gun is unloaded, see Rule 1.) Keep your finger off the trigger till your sights are on the target. This is the Golden Rule. Its violation is directly responsible for about 60 percent of inadvertent discharges. Identify your target, and what is behind it. Never shoot at anything that you have not positively identified. Back to the narrative. . . Returning to the store yesterday, I transacted some business with said proprietor, then privately informed him of the fact that he had violated Rule 2 on the previous occasion. I was hoping to hear him apologize for the faux pas. He did, to his credit, apologize, but in the process he pulled the little pea shooter out of his pocket, and swept it across me again. Aghast, I quickly informed him that he had done it again, after which, he assured me that he was following Rule 3, finger off the trigger. Then, as he swept me two more times, he assured me that the chamber was empty (one could discuss at great length the futility of having a defensive pistol in condition three, that is, with the full magazine inserted and an empty chamber). Here we have a violation of Rule 1. Needless to say, your humble scribe was born with a specific number of body orifices. I have even had a few extras added, then closed by highly skilled hands under controlled conditions. But I do not wish to be perforated by copper and lead projectiles travelling fast enough to traverse a football field in two hundred fifty milliseconds. I hope to die with the same number of orifices I came into this world with. I understand that anyone can make a mistake, but to compound a potentially deadly mistake by repeating it multiple times?? Time for some dealer training! What do you think? Anyone had a similar experience?
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 23:07:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015