imported post
Trigger Dr wrote:
You must be a member to bring a firearm into the show and it must be tied and unloaded. All magazines must be empty and out of the gun. Kinda sucks I know but with the variety of "clientele" that I see at every show I think it wise to do so for my safety. You would be surprised at the way people handle guns as they look at the tables and displayed items.
Y'know, I'd've trimmed that, but it's too much of an integral package to be snipped decently.
I've thought the same sort of thing when exploring the aisles of the gun shop back in one town I lived in - They had racks of rifles as an aisle divider. I kept thinking "What kind of carnage could happen if some nutbar wandered in yesterday with a pocketful of assorted ammo and started randomly stuffing guns with it?" and wondering if I should be ducking every time somebody further down the aisle reached for one to look at.:shock: :uhoh:
Personally, when I handle a gun shop/show weapon (or any weapon, including my own when they've been out of my sight), my VERY first move after wrapping my paw around it is to (if it hasn't already been done in my seeing) open the action/check the mag so I can eyeball-verify loaded/empty status. But all too many times in stores/at shows, I've witnessed somebody else pick one up, poke it in a semi-random direction, and pull the trigger while either saying or mouthing the equivalent of "pow" or "bang". Nowizzit clear why I worried about nutbars with ammo?
Just before I left that town, I was in to buy a couple boxes of ammo at the shop, and heard about a guy who, the day before, had walked in, grabbed a double-handful of shootin'-iron off the rack, and boogied out the front door before anybody actually realized he was heading out the door - He just kept walking past the main cashier, who was with another customer, and by the time the guy behind the handgun counter (who was also with another customer) noticed he wasn't stopping, he was effectively gone. Dunno if they ever caught up with him or not. They were drilling holes in the racks to string cable through the trigger-guards the day I bought the ammo, oddly enough...
By comparison, I was at a store the other day where I felt plenty safe - Weapons came off the wall or out of the cabinet, employee opened the action, displayed clear, then handed it over to customer. When it was handed back, employee displayed clear again before returning it to whatever place he'd taken it from. I appreciated that little touch.
Also purchased a nice secondhand S&W Model 15-1, with a cheap-but-functional holster for $315 out the door. It ain't fancy, or collector grade (Somewhere in its past, somebody put pachmayr grips on it and had the trigger/hammer done in that "sparkle-swirl" pattern, and there's a bit of finish wear at the muzzle, with a couple small scratches here and there) but the action and lockup are both good, the barrel looks nearly new, and it puts lead downrange PLENTY accurately enough for my purposes - 86 of 100 rounds hit the target paper (8.5x11) at 25 yards - and I bet the 14 flyers were *ALL* my fault. I figure if it was good enough as an issue-weapon for cops across the nation, and USAF security personel for 30-some years, it's good enough for close-in self-defense of lil' ol' civilian me, or effectively and humanely - but I repeat myself - dispatching any breed of ailing horse should the need arise. (Y'see, I work, and live in the attached apartment, in a barn that owns or boards literally everything from a mini-horse that I don't think is even 3 feet high at the shoulder, to a clydesdale that towers over me like Shaq towers over any of the Seven Dwarves - or so it seems when you're standing next to him!
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