imported post
Hello There Guys:
Matt at Sovereign Arms LLC in St. Louis, MO. I am the owner of our store and we are very pro open carry in the store. What I will not allow is for anyone to unholster or uncase a firearm inside the store without staff assistance.
We have had several incidents in the store where people have unholstered loaded firearms without asking or giving any fore warning; we had one Friday of last week. A gentleman comes in whom I have seen in our store several times. He is open carrying... again not a problem. We have huge signs on both doors as you enter the store. These are the only signs on the doors and they state" DO NOT uncase or unholster any firearms without staff assistance." Pretty clear and concise.
The man pulls out his loaded firearm ( his finger was outside the trigger guard) and begins to "show" it to one of our instructors behind the counter. The instructor immediately tells the man to holster the firearm and repeats herself three or four times very loudly. Instead of holstering the firearm the man begins to start taking out the magazine at which time he takes out the magazine and hands it to my employee who is still telling him to holster the firearm. He finally holstered the firearm when I came over and told him to holster it. He then took it back out and swept my employee when she handed his magazine back to him. I was not sure if there was a round in the chamber or not, however I told him to never draw his firearm out of the holster in the store again like that.
We have no idea who might pull out a firearm to rob us, or just using poor muzzle direction and or having a negligent discharge, might shoot one of us or another patron in the store. Whipping out a loaded firearm is absolutely about the worst action any gun owner could do inside a gun store. ( I did not see you do this at all in your video) However, there is absolutely NO reason for a client to draw the firearm out of the holster inside a gun store other than in selfdefense.
If a client comes into our store OC/ccw and wants to see if a firearm fits in a holster, our protocol is to ask the client if they can remove the holster and firearm together without drawing out the firearm. If so.. no problem. Our staff will take the holstered firearm behind the counter; and unholster it using proper muzzle direction; then safely unload the firearm, double verify it is unloaded with another staff member. We then leave the ammunition and holster secured behind the counter and then assist the client in finding the most effective holster for their firearm.
After we have satisfied the needs of our client and they have checked out, I will normally holster their firearm for them( unloaded) and hand their holster, magazine, and any cartridge left over, and politely ask them to reload when they return to their vehicle.
I could not tell from the video if the firearm was loaded ( chambered or not) What I saw in the video when you first walked into Cabella's would not have been a problem in our store. However, had you unholstered the firearm without checking with us first, that could quickly turn into a disaster.
I hope that gives a good perspective from the side of the store owner. Again we are VERY pro open carry, I open carry everywhere I legally can and we are also very concerned with safety in our store.
SOVEREIGN ARMS LLC is a licensed federal firearms dealer/Sig Sauer Direct/Glock/Springfield Armory stocking dealer/Cold Steel knive/sword distributor/Night Force Scopes distributor/TASER INTERNATIONAL/ distributor/ St. Louis' largest LWRC Distributor/ MO/FL CCW instructors NRA PPITH/PPOTH instructors. We have an indoor pistol range on sight. E commerce store and retail store shipping nationwide firearms/ accessories/ammunition.
WWW.SOVEREIGNARMS.COM