Gun Store Stereotyping

Status
Not open for further replies.
thanks for the props Brian Dale.

BTW, "Crash" is an absolutely great movie. I am not sure it is really any pro-gun rah-rah film though. I am a bigtime movie buff and this is one of my top ... 20?, yeah 20 maybe even top 10 movies of all time. It's in the hunt!
 
Another professional musician here and I have to comment on some the "societal norms" that keep getting referenced itt. You folks realize that pierced/tatted/dyed/etc is the societal norm for a large swath of financially secure responsible adults?

You want our money? Or does prejudice pay the bills these days...
 
Dear Ms. 3 killer Bees

I must say that I have enjoyed reading your posts since you have joined us here on the High Road.

I hope that you are able to find a handgun that you find comfortable for carry, to shoot and that you can believe in.

I also enjoyed your poem.

But I must take you to task for some statements made in this thread namely,
If people don't take you seriously try taking yourself more seriously by dressing more seriously. Put on a shirt with a collar and iron creases into your pants.
and
Quote:
Baggy pants and an oversized sports jersey do not equate to gang representation.
Maybe not to authentic gang representation but its certainly wannabe-ism and there isn't all that sharp a line between stupidity and malice.

And this after you state,
When I went to a gun show recently I deliberately wore my Nascar driver gear because I figured that would create a more gun-competent impression than a blouse with pink lace on it would. It worked and I only got the condescending "little lady" treatment at one booth (and that was an institutional thing for them because as I walked up I heard a salesman spout that awful line "I always recommend revolvers for women because semi-autos are too complicated").

I am glad that the good people at the gunshow were unable to see through your costume and treated you like a normal human being, for the most part.

However, in the future it might be better if you bind your breasts, lose the makeup and perfume, dress in mens clothing and try to use a huskier voice.
Then you can fit in to a mold that is more conducive to conducting business at a gunshow.

If you find the suggestion repugnant then I strongly recommend that you consider rethinking your above quoted posts.

Please don't consider this an attack on you or women shooters, I was raised by one and am raising another.

It's just that you propose the status quo in regards to others appearance, but in my opinion didn't consider what our great country would be like had people accepted the status quo when it came to little things like womens suffrage and civil rights.

Sincerely

Wheeler44
 
Here is my 2 cents. Almost everywhere you go people just stereo type others. If you go to a bar late at night, dressed in a suit with a tie, your a cop. If you go to an auto repair shop with your car and your dressed in a suit, they won't let you near the work place even if you built the car yourself. You go to a coin store dressed in rags and are shown the door. Try an expensive restaurant dressed in raggety clothing. Go to the security line at an airport dressed in a suit but your tie has a gun photo on it.
Everywhere you go you represent yourself as to what you are, who you are, what you do, etc. It may well not be even slightly true, but that is the way we all see you.
 
@Soybomb,
Very well said.

I used to wear blue spiked hair on weekend nights when I was in college. But I wasn't stupid enough to try to wear that style while applying for a job, applying for a loan, or doing anything else where an image of responsibility and maturity were desirable anymore than today, as a 40+yo housewife, I would expect to be taken seriously wearing pink lace to a gun show.

People outside gang culture don't care about the fine details that distinguish one gang from another anymore than the townies cared that on my campus blue spikes were popular with the nerdy sorts who played D&D on weekend nights while purple and green were more popular with the party crawlers.

They saw kids with weird hair and thought "immature and irresponsible" -- which was their right because that is a pretty good translation of the "young and fun-loving" image we were trying to present.

The sooner kids who don't grasp that the world outside their peer group doesn't even see the distinctions they consider so important and that if they want to move up in the world they need to learn when and how to present themselves in a way that will make a good impression the more success they are likely to find in life. :)

But a person can't go around being unconventional on purpose and expected to be treated as if he were ordinary.
 
@Wheeler44,

There is a large and significant difference in both kind and degree between cross-dressing and simply dressing for the occasion.

I'm big on personal responsibility. Barring physical deformity, the impression a person makes on others is the direct result of his personal choices in how he presents himself. Choices have consequences.

Present yourself as a gang wannabe, as a rebel against society, or, for my fellow ladies, as a clueless ditz and you will make a negative impression.

Present yourself as a professional, present yourself in a way that suggests competence and responsibility, present yourself as a person who cares and you will make a positive impression. Learning how to do this has always been an important part of growing up and attaining maturity.

The choice is available and its the person who makes the choice who bears responsibility for the impression he or she creates. :)
 
Back to the OP - I think the reason you got the cold shoulder was from slamming the cylider shut, not the way you looked.

3KilerBs - you seem to be overly hung up on how the customer is presenting himself. What about the salesman? Part of being a salesman is not letting any weird prejudices you may have get in the way of doing business. It's never happened to me personally, but if someone gave me attitude because of how I look, I'd tell them they were a moron and walk out of their shop and never come back. While it's true that most people make a conscious decision about how they look (or present themselves), it's also true that anyone can make a conscious decision to not patronise a gun shop because it's run by a bunch of close-minded guys who are still living in a Leave It To Beaver episode.
 
For a gun store owner it can be more than a little dangerous to engage in trade with the... shall we say, fringes of society, were one of the purchasers to go out and misuse a firearm.

That doesn't mean that the OP would have, by any means.

However, any police officer will tell you- ahem, any honest police officer will tell you- that stereotyping, within reason, works. If people seem to fit into a culture known for violence, then there is probably a better than average (perhaps not a large chance, but a larger one) chance that the person may be part of that subculture.

Wear what you want, but society has its standards... and if you violate them, then expect some funny looks.
 
CBS220 said:
Wear what you want, but society has its standards... and if you violate them, then expect some funny looks.

I wonder if the guys wearing the 5.11 pants think they're "blending in." :)
 
If a gun store owner is too afraid to deal with the "fringes of society" (seemingly anybody who's not white and wearing pressed Dockers, a collared shirt and a crew cut:confused:), then he should probably consider another line of business. I run a small business and if I refused to deal with anyone who's looks I didn't like I'd be pulling in about $5000 a year.

I can see being nervous when eight guys with gang tatts and #13 Raiders jerseys walk into your store and look exclusively at 9mm semi-autos (holding them horizontally, of course), but people with long hair or mohawks or Metallica T-shirts or (gasp) tatoos? Here in the 21st century all those things are pretty much accepted by most people not living in some kind of religious commune. A few years ago I stopped getting inked because pretty much every middle-aged businessman was walking around with ten tattoos.

As I've stated ad nauseum, I've never had any bad experiences in any gun shops (NJ,PA,TN,KY,WI,MI,SD,MT,WY,UT) so all this dressing up nice to look at guns is news to me.
 
I hate stereotyping. I stopped in a gun store over in the Valley on the way back home to Richmond and the owner showed me the scrapbook with his customers' pics and such from his recent South African safari. It looked good, too. Just because I've bought a few nice guns from them, and my father has bought a few nice guns, he assumed that I'd be interested in their new safari-booking business.

Well, he was right.

Heaven help me if I'd dressed up a little. What would he have tried to sell me if I'd looked somewhat prosperous instead of like my normal disheveled self? All I did was ask about ordering SAA's and USFA guns.

Dang, life ain't fair.

John...who remembers long hair, tiedyes and when the Grateful Dead were youngsters.

P.S. - "You folks realize that pierced/tatted/dyed/etc is the societal norm for a large swath of financially secure responsible adults?"

Sure, we know. You know, most of us will take the money while we're chuckling at the getups. Tats, the new middle class affectation. If you dress for attention you can't complain about getting it. My only tattoo was done with a straight pin and india ink in 1969. It's funny, my neighborhood has more tattoo parlors than beauty parlors. Commercialization of the outlaw image I suppose. All of middle aged women at the office are getting tats these days. What's the world coming to?
 
@Karl Hungus,
The gun shop people need to make the right impression on customers as well. Customers will leave and speak badly up them if they don't and that will be the consequences of their choice. I strongly dislike shopping in a place where the salespeople don't look and act in a professional.

But given the nature of the merchandise and the lawsuit happy nature of our society they have reason to use their judgment more than someone who is selling hamburgers or furniture. Its not unjust, its smart -- lest they end up like waitresses and bartenders who serve alcohol -- legally liable if sales have dire results.

Where's the hardship involved if a person who wants to be treated as a responsible member of society makes the effort to be clean, neatly groomed, and dressed in a way that's not giving off iffy signals?

But at this point I don't think anyone whose opinion is set is going to convince anyone else. :)
 
One of my favorite shops here in the valley has a small Please Do Not Bogart The Revolvers sign.
Many places do consider giving a revolver a flip to close the cylinder a major foul.
Respecting the property of others is key even when shopping for firearms. Once you bought it, you can do as you like.
 
3BEEs

There is a large and significant difference in both kind and degree between cross-dressing and simply dressing for the occasion.
and
When I went to a gun show recently I deliberately wore my Nascar driver gear because I figured that would create a more gun-competent impression
and
I used to wear blue spiked hair on weekend nights when I was in college. But I wasn't stupid enough to try to wear that style while applying for a job, applying for a loan, or doing anything else where an image of responsibility and maturity were desirable anymore than today, as a 40+yo housewife, I would expect to be taken seriously wearing pink lace to a gun show.
and
Where's the hardship involved if a person who wants to be treated as a responsible member of society makes the effort to be clean, neatly groomed, and dressed in a way that's not giving off iffy signals?

Response a:
So I guess what you are saying is dress and act the way that you think that your audience wants you to dress and act.

Response b:
Would the attire in response a be considered a uniform or a costume ?

Response c: (stolen from The Who)
Who are you? who? who? who? who? (a nerdy D&Der or a Nascar driver or a Mom tryin' to find a gun that fits her)

And just a a "fer instance" I went to a gun shop with a lady in silk & lace once.
She was wearin' pearl grey, she needed some work done on her revolver. When the 'smith asked me what she wanted she replied " Young man, I don't think my nephew has ever fired my revolver and he certainly doesn't know what I want done to it. Now will you pay attention to me or will I talk to the manager about how your rude behavior may cost him a customer"
 
It's just people. Everybody does it to some extent, usually unintentionally. Look and act pro on both sides of the counter, and you'll tend to get more respect. I'm 36, white, corporate looking, and still get better service when I dress sharp rather than my grubbies.
 
... when I go into a gun store it's clear that there is some kind of protocol that I never knew about, and once I break one of those rules, the hammer is coming down. It's like the guy across the counter is testing me by observing my actions.

Exactly. A lot of people who are shooters can tell pretty quickly who knows how to handle a weapon properly and who doesn't when they see someone holding a gun. An inexperienced person with a gun can be pretty dangerous without meaning to. In a store they can unwittingly damage guns by mishandling them too. That's why the OP caught hell over that revolver.

Plus, gun sellers tend to be far less shy about being judgmental about strangers than average. A clean cut, well mannered individual will invariably get better treatment from them than someone who has lots of visible tattoos and piercings, a weird hairstyle, or wears clothes that are too much like what outlaws wear. Some people have complained about this, but it's a fact of life. Gun dealers will paste a mental label on you the moment they first see you, and you control what that label is by how you dress, what is stuck/inked in your flesh (and where), and how you comport yourself. Everyone else does it too, but it's less obvious since you're not asking them to sell you a deadly weapon.

The dude opened the cabinet, took out the gun, removed the magazine and locked the slide open, then handed it to me with the trigger lock still on it. I thought this was a very odd way to be evaluating a gun! Could I ask to remove the trigger lock? Was that some kind of protocol I didn't know about? Why did he lock the slide open? Can I close it? What am I supposed to be looking for here? Frankly I was unconcerned as to the internals of the gun. I needed to know how it felt in my hand (which would help if the trigger lock were off, the magazine was in it, and the slide was closed), how it compared to others like it, etc. Suffice to say this visit was a little off-putting.

Some of the people behind the counter selling guns know little about guns and shooting so they will do things like that. This is common in chain retail stores since these types of retailers basically stick employees behind the counter with the bare minimum of expensive training time. In a gun shop that usually means the guy is a jerk.


Kind of like, "no, of course we don't carry that gun you moron. It's a piece of crap. You can't buy a decent gun for under $xxx, don't you know that?" only with a lot more 4-letter words.

The gun subculture is full of people who can't tell the difference between opinion and fact. Unfortunately, some of them take their "facts" so seriously that to disagree with what is really their opinion is not much different from insulting their religion.

I ended up going back to the same shop and this time there was a different counter attendant and when I asked to see the gun he did what I would have expected the first guy to do. Removed the mag, checked the chamber, closed it back up, removed the trigger lock, and set it down. I bought it.

I bet that guy knew more about guns than the first, had done more shooting, and was a better salesman of firearms.

After my first week or two of owning a gun, and after going out and shooting this gun and a number of others, getting real comfortable around them, I went into another gun shop and asked to look at a gun behind the counter. This time I knew much more about what I was doing and I am sure I projected a lot more confidence. The guy behind the counter handed it to me and then began to discuss the relative merits with some other guns, took out a couple more competitors to this one just in case I wanted to see them, I asked if I could dry-fire it to check the trigger and he grabbed some snap caps ... whole different experience. I think a lot of it has to do with the way I felt going in, and how I must have appeared in attitude.

Looks to me like you had crossed the line from noob who deserves no respect to someone with a measure of expertise. Yes, it's true: In this business the customer must earn the respect of the merchant and not the other way around. But it could have been that the guy in that shop was a much nicer person to deal with. Lots of gun dealers are incorrigible jerks.


Anyway the point is, there is kind of a gun "clique" that I can discern, and I am pretty sure I don't want to be in it, but it is not exactly inviting to newcomers.

Yes, there is sort of a gun clique. It isn't always inviting to newcomers because all too many people want to be in it because they crave the respect that an extensive knowledge of guns can get them from their peers but don't want to actually spend the time, effort, and money learning about firearms. People who run around pretending to be firearms experts generally piss off the real experts. You may find yourself part of the gun clique in the future simply because you know about firearms and some idiot in your presence is opening his/her mouth (or worse, handling a gun improperly) and proving his/her ignorance/stupidity/craziness.
 
While it's true that most people make a conscious decision about how they look (or present themselves), it's also true that anyone can make a conscious decision to not patronise a gun shop because it's run by a bunch of close-minded guys who are still living in a Leave It To Beaver episode.

Ignoring reality doesn't make it any less real.

Deal with life the way it is - not the way you think it should be.
 
Here in the 21st century all those things are pretty much accepted by most people not living in some kind of religious commune.
By liberals in Wi - maybe - though I suspect the acceptance referred to is more tolerance than acceptance. Go to the south, AL, OK, MS, GA, TX, AR, etc., anywhere outside a major urban area, and the guy with the purple and pink mohawk will not find a warm welcome. Sucks to be him.

My point - dress codes are different in different parts of the country and just because folks in WI or CA find it cool for guys to wear tu-tus and have pink mohawks doesn't make it so elsewhere. Wanna fit in - find out the mores of where you're at and follow 'em. Go against the grain at your own risk. That's true whether you're going to a gunshop, a church or just hangin' at the local mall.

Most kids won't agree with what I just said but by the time they're 30 they'll start to see the light. By 40 they're fittin' in even if they don't like it and by 50 they know the truth of what I've said.

That said:
Y'all could'a, should'a, would'a types can rail against stereotyping all you want but that's not going to make it go away - now - or ever.

Stereotyping is a natural instinct. It is a defense mechanism. Humans gather much of their information regarding their immediate environment from visual clues. It is better to (1) assume that baggy pants guy with the panty hose on his head is a gang banger and act accordingly and be wrong than (2) assume he's just a guy who likes baggy pants and be wrong because he really is a gang banger.

Case (1) won't result in you possibly becoming involved in a situation you'd rather not become involved in. Might hurt the wannabee's feeling but big deal.

Case (2) could end up with you being dead.

Don't like stereotyping then don't do it. More than likely you'll have a long life - but then again - MAYBE NOT.
 
Here's the reality:

I have a wallet full of cash that goes to the establishment that treats me with respect, period.

Brick and mortar gun stores already have a tough time competing with internet sales and alienating potential customers with their bad attitudes. There have been hundreds of threads on THR about this very problem. The market will weed out those establishments who are unable to meet the needs of the customer. Any store owner who takes pride in the fact that they provide crappy service to customers who don't meet some arbitrary standard of appearance will have to try to pay their rent with that pride.

That is life as it is.
 
Yes, there is sort of a gun clique. It isn't always inviting to newcomers because all too many people want to be in it because they crave the respect that an extensive knowledge of guns can get them from their peers but don't want to actually spend the time, effort, and money learning about firearms. People who run around pretending to be firearms experts generally piss off the real experts. .

You seem to advocate this attitude. As such, I can only infer that you've perpetuated this attitude. Subsequently, I have to wonder how many potential pro 2a voters you've driven into apathy or even towards Brady.

What part of inalienable do people fail to understand? The BoR makes no mention of "proper attire" or "extensive knowledge." And "shall not infringe" did not carry a caveat excluding baggy pants or purple hair. If these attitudes are not changed, the steady erosion of gun rights will continue.

I think this is EXACTLY what is WRONG with a lot of gun culture. It damages our cause. I've seen the "good ole boys club" turn off more potential shooters and (more importantly) advocates than ANYTHING Brady, Fienstein, or any other anti has ever said. Most of them women.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top