OK, so as far as LGS gun store craziness, dig this…
1) So, just before Hillary Clinton was supposed to be elected in 2016, I started buying AR-15‘s and matched upper and lower receiver sets, for “putaways”, anticipating they would be banned for new civilian sale within the next 3 to 6 years, but still transferable. (We are still in that window, LOL...) I have a closet full of NIB rifles and lowers with matched (by finish) uppers of various flavors.
I bought the rifles and received the transfers from the receiver manufacturers at what was then my LGS, Clyde’s Sporting Goods in Lansdowne, MD. The older guy who ran the place wanted $60 per transfer of the receivers. I had no problem with that; why?
Because it was MARYLAND!
All kinds of hoops had to be jumped through beyond the normal 4473 form, and then I had to wait, even for the lower receivers, because hypothetically they could be built into pistols. Interestingly enough, because they were not in fact pistols, I did not have to do the handgun qualification license that Maryland requires prior to the purchase of a pistol. The whole thing was very odd. But it seems like an extreme burden to me and I did not mind paying him for his time and computer BS interface effort.
His is a top-notch shop, in the family since even prior to the 1968 GCA, and I wanted to make sure he stayed in business. No problem. I even paid the premium he wanted for the Windham HBAR carbines.
No regrets.
2) My wife and I moved out of Maryland in April 2020, but a month or so before we left, I went down to my local range called “On Target” near Jessup, Maryland.
It was maybe three or four weeks after the first COVID-19 cases were in the news. At that time, Asian Americans were kind of looked at in a certain way, if you know what I mean…
I had just gone down there to shoot my 1911A1, and let me tell you something, that place was hopping, like crazy. Almost all the people clamoring around the glass cases were Chinese guys, some of them foreign nationals, I expect, and they were buying all the Glocks you could ever fantasize about. The shotguns were completely stripped from the wall. Asking prices were not even challenged. It was total mayham; I think they brought in off-duty staff just to handle the paperwork and the checks.
I got a lane on the range, fired my rounds, and got out of there before the fire marshal might come and close the place down for exceeding occupancy limits, ha ha...
And that was in March of last year, as I recall.
Now I live in Pennsylvania, were no such silliness exists for firearms purchases, at least that I have seen so far.