If someone is truly so scared that people around them may be handling guns ... as I said before, I don't see how they can support the 2nd Amendment in a realistic sense.
Loaded firearms in holsters are safe. Loaded firearms in HANDS are decidedly UN-safe. And they're so widely understood to be a safety risk, when handled, that we have nearly universally understood rules for how we proceed when drawing and manipulating one.
Telling a gun shop owner or match director, safety officer, or anyone else who deals with armed people that they must set aside the safety rules that let them go home without extra holes each day, or they don't really support the 2nd Amendment is going to be good for a laugh.
The right to
keep and
bear arms does not -- and shouldn't -- include the "right" to handle a loaded firearm in a public place. As they say, your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. Your right to do with your weapon whatever you please ends at the point that it causes me risk of grievous harm. And when it's in your hands, loaded, absent a safe backstop and strict muzzle discipline, the risk to other people is simply too high.
Now, in your example, you seem to be checking with the shop staff, or at least giving them an opportunity to comment, before you whip out your sidearm. As I said before, getting confirmation from the owner's representative of how they want you to proceed -- what way they feel comfortable that you're mitigating the extremely real, extremely serious risks that your handling of that firearm introduces -- is perfectly reasonable.
But gun shop owners have seen down the barrels of WAAAAY too many guns -- and many, if not most, of them can point to craters in floors or holes in walls, ceilings, display cases, etc from the guys who proved my point. The smart ones establish standard safety practices to mitigate the risks inherent in their course of business, because -- while you're a safe and responsible guy, lots of others have proven not to be as much so, and the dealer and his staff would like to go home to their families each night.
Rights come with responsibilities, and the RKBA comes with the responsibility that you do not risk great harm to your fellow man. Ask before you draw, be polite, safety conscious, and responsible, and you've not crossed the line of unacceptable risk. But give those around you reason to believe that you are, or will, risk their lives stupidly and you'll probably be dis-invited from their establishment. And that doesn't violate your RKBA one little tiny bit.
