Scary gun store moment...

[Legionnaire]

All guns are always loaded.

I just returned from vacation, where I visited a cousin and his family. His dad and mom just moved in to the cottage next door. Four adults and about ten kids chatting in the living room. Conversation turns to shooting, guns, 2nd Amendment, etc. Very positive on all sides.

My uncle says, "Just a sec. I have something to show you." Disappears for a few minutes and returns with a zipped gym bag. He opens it up and retrieves a brown paper bag. From the latter he extracts a Colt Trooper Mk III with four inch barrel. He takes it by the barrel and hands it to me grip first. I'm thinking, "What's wrong with this picture?"

I took the gun, finger off trigger, pointed it down, opened the cylinder, pointed the barrel up and ejected the six live .357 mag rounds onto the carpet. Dead silence (other than my aunt's gasp).

So. Loaded gun in a paper bag in a zipped case (don't know where it had been stored). Brought into a room full of people, my kids among them. Gun not checked before being handed to me. When it was handed to me, the muzzle was pointing at my uncle's belly. Etc., etc. I was shaken, and proceeded to chew my uncle out in front of several of his grandkids and great-nephews and nieces. I picked up the ammo and made sure it was an unloaded gun that went back in the bag.

The Colt was a very nice specimen, by the way. Hope I get invited back (some year) to shoot it.

 

[GeorgeAtl]

Turns out that that rifle had been handled that morning by two or three teenagers from the local assisted-housing estate.

What a great term!! Never heard that one, but knew immediately what you meant!!

Glad that no one was hurt in that case....pretty scary!!

 

[willyjixx]

hey Runt:

Was there any reaction from the Pawn shop salesman or was the kid prone on the floor with a knee in his back?

 

[RustyHammer]

:banghead: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

[buzz_knox]

Same thing happened at a gunshow here in Knoxville last year. Customer remembered to work the action on a rifle before trying the trigger pull and a round popped out. This set off a panic, and as actions were checked, another live round was discovered.

 

[280PLUS]

see,,,

now the next time i walk up to the counter in the local gunstore and theres a shotgun laying on it pointing it at me, i wont be so reluctant to make a fuss about it

thats fer sure,,,

 

[rock jock]

Two comments:

1. Preacherman, I would like to hear from a lawyer on this site, but I believe that you are wrong when you state that the customer would be held liable for firing a round. I am pretty sure the gun store owner would bear sole legal responsibility. And I would add, rightfully so. He has to assume that everyone entering his store knows squat about firearm safety.
2. I don't see how folks are able to "slip" a round into a gun. At EVERY gun show table and EVERY gun store I have ever frequented, I am watched continuously as I handle a gun. Furthermore, when I had a gun back, the employee ALWAYS checks the guns to show clear.

 

[buzz_knox]

Whether a customer knows anything about firearms or not, the average person is charged with knowledge that firearms tend to go "boom" when the trigger is pulled. Both the customer and the owner would share responsibility for any harm resulting from the customer's negligence, as well as the negligence of the gun shop owner in not checking the weapon before handing it over.

 

[rock jock]

Buzz,

Are you a lawyer? Do you have any precedent to support that? It just doesn't sound right. The average person may know that guns go "boom", but if they are not familiar with firearm safety, they could make a reasonable assumption that the store owner has made the gun safe to handle; otherwise he wouldn't have handed it to the customer.

 

[AZLibertarian]

About a year ago, I stopped into my favorite gun shop...just lookin', ya know. I did my usual route through the store, cruising the reloading displays, past the handguns, through the holster aisle, and past the ammo table. As I was at the ammo table, there were a couple of hispanic guys on the other side of the table. One of them pulls a small handgun (appeared to be a "cheaper" small-caliber model--maybe a Jennings .25--dunno exactly) out of his back pocket and they were looking at it, apparantly trying to determine the caliber so they could get the right ammo for it. The 'handler' of the gun turned it so that I could see that it still had it's magazine in, but of course, who knows if it was loaded or not, as if that matters.

At just about every gun shop I've ever been in, the clerks here are all always openly carrying something...usually a full-sized large caliber gun. And there's a big sign on the door as you walk in that says "NO LOADED GUNS". But with the layout of this store, my walking back to the armed clerks at the gun displays would have put me in-between these clerks and the guys looking for ammo for their new gun, or whatever else they had in mind. So I go the other direction to the clerk-girl at the checkout counter and tell her what these guys were carrying, and I left the store post-haste.

Now, I didn't hear about some shootout in "my" gun shop, so apparantly it all ended well. I don't know if these guys knew the "4 Rules" or not, but to look at them you wouldn't think so. I'd have to assume (and we all know the alternate definition for "assume") that these guys obtained a new gun, and not reading English, they had no idea what the sign on the door read. Not speaking much or any English, they weren't likely to seek help from one of the clerks. So they were trying to do it on their own...waving around what appeared to be a loaded gun right in the middle of a gun shop.

Nothin' personal fellas, but I don't trust anyone with weapons. I watch everyone like a hawk.

 

[Hot brass]

Inside the local gunshow checking out the goods, and "bang" gun goes off. TOTAL silence in the building. An old man had a .22 rifle and pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.

Local gun store, moron comes inside lays a 41mag on the counter is tell the employee of the store the gun is unloaded. Points the gun towards the front door and pulls the trigger. 41 mag hole in the wall.:

 

[Moparmike]

41 mag hole in the wall

Wonder where the bullet stopped.

 

[c_yeager]

All the shops in my area clear a weapon before they hand it over to me. That doesnt stop me from doing it again as soon as i get my hands on it. Ive never recieved any comment at all on this (save for a compliment on safe gun handling). I always figured it was the normal way of doing things.

 

[ACP]

JohnKSa, Again, I ask, where is the hard evidence? I see a lot of stories on this thread about GUN OWNERS or those SEEKING TO PURCHASE OR SELL A FIREARM having negligent discharges in a gun shop. I have been in and out of many gun shops -- four or five mostly -- and have never seen or even heard of an "anti" placing a round in a weapon and leaving. The only hole I've ever seen is in the floor of one shop where a GUN OWNER had a ND. I would bet a lot of these rounds "ending up" in weapons are from GUN OWNERS who want to check the action before they buy a used weapon.

If anyone on this board has FACTUAL EVIDENCE, either through a Web search, NRA site, or their own personal experience, about anti's slipping rounds into weapons, please enlighten me. Otherwise, ...

 

[buzz_knox]

Yes, I am a lawyer. And as for precedent, if you'd like me to research the particular issue, please send a check, contract, and get a waiver issued by my agency so that I can take perform legal services for you. But I don't have to. It's black letter law that a person is liable for damages which reasonably flow from the breach of a duty of care owed to another person. It doesn't matter if the person didn't know about firearms safety or not, just as a person who gets behind the wheel of a car can't use "I don't know how to drive" as a defense to a charge of vehicular homicide, reckless driving, etc. If you want to play with the toys, the law says "sure, but you're held to a reasonable person standard." A reasonable person would not handle a firearm or pull a trigger without knowing that the foreseeable consequence is that it might go "boom." That's what it's designed to do, as demonstrated by the television shows and movies.

As for making a "reasonable assumption" that the gun shop owner cleared the weapon, that's a defense you argue to a jury to show that the owner's negligence was greater than your own. If your state still has contributory negligence and/or comparative negligence and his negligence is found to be greater than yours, you might get off . . . if the shop is suing you. But if an innocent third party is injured by you and your negligence, your reasonable assumption is absolutely irrelevant to the discussion. You pulled the trigger; you injured that person; you breached the standard of care; and in those circumstances, "I didn't think it was loaded" is not a justification for your acts and a completely unsatisfactory excuse.

By the way, can we all agree that we're not forming an attorney/client relationship here? If you want to know what the law is in your home state, find a lawyer there. Never trust what someone (especially a lawyer) tells you over the 'net without proper verification.

 

[blades67]

This had to happen for them to start clearing the firearms?!

 

[cool45auto]

That's some scary stuff. One of the gun shops I frequent checks before handing you anything you want to look at. It's pretty comforting to see that awareness.