Sexist gun dealers

[pax]

I've encountered stuff like that, too.

Generally, I ignore it and just do my business, calling them on it only if it is very blatant. As far as I can tell, it is more often one employee's problem than it is a problem with the entire store. When it appears to be widespread policy, I go elsewhere.

(The worst most blatant case of sexism I encountered wasn't at a gun store. It was in the hospital after my first son was born. He was in the NICU because his blood sugar kept dropping down into the single digits and no one had yet explained to us what that meant or why it mattered. Finally the on-call pediatrician came into my room to talk. He introduced himself to my husband, but not to me, and started talking. After awhile, I asked a question. The doc explained the answer to my husband, never looking my direction and never acknowledging that I had asked the question. Funniest part was when the doc asked Bob, "Did your wife have any symptoms of diabetes during pregnancy...?" Bob and I laughed about it later. What a jerk!)

pax

Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade, since it consists principally of dealing with men. -- Joseph Conrad

 

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

When are you moving to Texas, Mas?

Folks are just friendlier to everyone here.

Regards,
Rabbit.

 

[jdkelly]

...anything that smacks of sexism ...

...and made sure that half his training staff/salespeople are women. By stated policy, anything that smacks of sexism is not tolerated. Period.---MBane666

Isn't using a person's sex as an employment filter a form of sexism? You know-like no men, or no women, or 1/3 men, 1/3 women, 1/3 other.

Respectfully,

jdkelly

 

[Mikul]

I know people who belong to gun clubs and got into the gun business because they were tired of dealing with women. These are mostly older men who've had more than their share of women problems and would be perfectly content to never see a double-X chromosome again. I've seen some of the women they've dealt with and sometimes I really don't blame them for the way they feel, but I do blame them for the way they act. They may be eternally celebate, but they're still men, and men still treat people with the proper level of respect.

My gun club has a lot of older members that are still upset that we allow female members. They joined the club to get AWAY from their wives, not to be around even more of them.

 

[molonlabe]

Sorry you were treated that way. I came from a state where most women were not encouraged to join my shooting club. It led me to belong to another pro gun group that used the facilities and we were very active in WOT and I still am in Maryland.

I got one of my wife’s friend involved in trap and she bought a reloader, shotgungun the whole nine yards. Well it seems someone used the confidential members list to knock on her door one night and ask her to go out for some beers. She left the club shortly after that. That’s when I joined the other group. (She was divorced from a man who was abusive and drank excessively, so she doesn’t)

Bottom line if we don’t start encouraging the other 50% of the population to enjoy the sport we love we “will lose our gun rights†Times are changing, be patient, the old ways will die, stand your ground, be assertive and complain to management.

 

[TechBrute]

Someone told me one time, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."

Lately it's really sunk in. I'm driving down the road and someone nearly runs me off. So of course I get irritated, floor the V8 and run up beside them contemplating all sorts of horrible endings for this person's day. When I get up beside them, it's some little girl on a cell phone oblivious to the world. She didn't mean to cut me off and probably didn't even know she did. She's just stupid.

You may choose to interpret that as, "Never attribute to sexism that which can be explained by a minimum wage employee who does not discriminate in his poor customer service.



Edited to add: being a complete male WASP, I am not often affected by sexism against women. Take this post with a grain of salt.

 

[Glamdring]

I have seen this type of behavior at a local Gander Mt. More than once when I wander over to the gun department I will notice a woman with a list or note in her hands standing in the center of the counter waiting to be helped.

She wil lbe ignored and they will ask me if I need help. I always tell them they should help the person waiting.

What really puzzles me is that as a customer I can recognize these women, they have come in to buy a specific item(s). The have the list or whatever for somebody in their hand. Sometimes they are getting a specific present for SO, other times they are picking things up for a big hunt or whatever.

It is clear they are ready to buy something and they know what they are looking for.

 

[JPL]

That happened a few years ago to my wife when she went to buy a new car.

Even after the sales guy was told that it was she who was buying, not I, he kept addressing all his questions and suggestions to me.

I kept ignoring him, while he ignored my wife as she tried to deal with him.

I know better than to try to speak for my wife in a situation like that.

She finally became frustrated enough that when he said "What will it take to get you folks into this car today" or something else equally stupid she muttered something about him killing himself and walked out.

He really even didn't notice that he had lost the sale until I turned to follow.

Then it was pretty funny.

He had no clue and was truly shocked that he was going to lose a sale.

The letter my wife wrote to the owner of the dealership made that clear in no uncertain terms.

 

[JPL]

"Dick's in Manassas"

That describes not just the store, but the entire town.

 

[roo_ster]

Mastrogiacomo:

There is no excuse for poor manners, especially when dealing with customers who might be so kind as to give them money for their wares.

There are anumber of gunshops near my residence that know how to treat a lady. I won't frequent a gunshop...or any business...that treats my wife poorly. That is just about the easiest way to get me all sorts of cranky.

My favorite gun shop was just bought out by the fellow who gave my wife her Texas CCW training. I had had some small conversation with him, but wasn't sure if it was to remain my go-to-first gunshop. I asked my wife about him and she said he was a really good fellow and was gracious to all in the class. So, that is still my gunshop of first resort.

The following have always treated my wife (and any woman I saw in the shop) well:
Lone Star Guns
Bullet Trap
Jackson Armory

**************

OT:
Hanlon's Razor
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stupidity
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. --"Hanlon's Razor"; variations variously attributed to Goethe, Napoleon Bonaparte, William James, Robert Heinlein, and the possibly apocryphal Robert J. Hanlon.

http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/h/HanlonsRazor.html
Hanlon's Razor /prov./ A corollary of Finagle's Law, similar to Occam's Razor, that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." The derivation of the Hanlon eponym is not definitely known, but a very similar remark ("You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.") appears in "Logic of Empire", a 1941 story by Robert A. Heinlein, who calls it the `devil theory' of sociology. Heinlein's popularity in the hacker culture makes plausible the supposition that `Hanlon' is derived from `Heinlein' by phonetic corruption. A similar epigram has been attributed to William James, but Heinlein more probably got the idea from Alfred Korzybski and other practitioners of General Semantics. Quoted here because it seems to be a particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in sig blocks, fortune cookie files and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial networks. This probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of environments created by well-intentioned but short-sighted people. Compare Sturgeon's Law.

 

[sumpnz]

Pax, I had the opposite experience (all this time I thought you were a man - that whole annonymity of the internet thing can get confusing). When we found out my wife was pregnant (just over a year ago now) we went to check out a couple Obs. My wife really didn't like the one she had been going to for her normal checkups. Anyway, we had the initial consultation with a female Ob and the whole time she acted like I wasn't even in the room. Granted, my wife being the pregnant one deserved more of the attention, but even when I tried to take part in the "interview" she acted like my wife had asked the question, or if she did direct the answer at me it was obviously in irritation. As we walked out, both my wife and I gave her the "thumbs down." We went to the Birth Center (staffed entirely by mid-wives, not M.Ds) and the treatment I got was 180 degrees from that Ob. Rather than acting like I was a prop, or distraction, I was an (almost) equal partner as far as they were concerned. We've even decided to make sure we have our next kid before we move out of Tucson just so we can go back to the Birth Center.

I've never gone with my wife to a gun shop, so I can't really comment on how the local ones would treat her, but I did meet my FFL (it's a side business for him that he does out of his home) at the shooting range with my wife. He brought a bunch of pistols for her to try out, and we wound up buying a .38 snubbie for her after she decided it was what she really wanted. I looked after the baby in an air-conditioned room away from the noise while she was shooting.

 

[Lagadelphia]

"Dick's in Manassas"

If you look at that and accent the sylabols diffrently, it is quite vulgar!

I've only experianced this once when my ole lady and I went out browsing and shopping and it was with one guy at one store.

A positive story was with a shop in Middleburg Heights, OH called B&T Shooting Supplies. The guy who waited on us was really good. He was very helpful, showed my ole lady several guns that she wanted to see explaining each of them in a non condescending way. He ended up making a sale as well as generated good will.

 

[Jayman]

The Other Side Of The Coin...

Every time I'm at a gunshow with my girlfriend, if she picks something up, some yazhoo butts in between us and starts giving her advice. Usually preceeded by, "I'm an instructor." Congratulations, buddy, we all are. She shoots better than you.

The only other thing I get is people coming up to her and asking her to see how a gun fits her hand because "she's the same size as my wife/girlfriend/etc." That's a bit more tolerable, I suppose.

 

[sm]

There is no excuse for poor manners, especially when dealing with customers who might be so kind as to give them money for their wares.

Bingo !
I remember being taught this as a wee kid. I recall a fellow with overalls, reddish mud on his boots, and a "wad" in his front pocket. My Boss looked at me, being Orthodox Jew he was always teasing me " always having to teach you Gentiles"...never judge a person - not your job. That "fellow" was a OK oil man and rancher. He had flown in on his private plane and his on staff pilot was running other errands. I watched this fellow remove the wad - not chewing tobacco...$50K in cash for a anniversary gift for his wife. This was around 1965.

This kind of behaviour - really irks me. Respect and common courtesy - where'd it go?

 

[Tom Servo]

Can't remember if I posted this here or on Sigforum, but Galyan's is going out of the firearms business for the most part. Dick's is buying them out, and they don't plan on carrying anything more than a few low-end "hunting" rifles, ala Wal Mart. What's more, they won't be selling handgun ammunition either.

There's a guy named Pat at the Kennesaw location who's knowledgable and civil, but as soon as word came down, he put in his notice. The rest of them were at best ignorant and at worst downright worrisome. Pat's got a job lined up, but the rest of them will hopefully find careers in a retail sector unrelated to guns.

OTOH, my little local shop has a thriving female clientele, and as far as the owners are concerned, we're all a bunch of gun-nuts and family. Just the other day, a middle-aged woman came in and floored us all at the range with a Witness 10mm.

Personally, I avoid the big Sport-o-rama shops except for bulk ammo. The (marginal) difference in price doesn't make up for the shabby customer service, or the fact that once you walk out the door, you're utterly forgotten. Independent shops (as in any specialty) are the way to go, and the ones who deserve our money. If they pull an attitude, then market forces will drive them out sooner or later.

 

[outofbattery]

I've had nothing but good experiences from Four Seasons . I'll be there this Saturday contemplating if I really want a Beretta 9000 or if I need one of the 4953 Smiths they just got in or another Glock < OT but am I the only one that keeps a gun jar ? >

I've run into the Curmudgeon Factor more than a few times , sometimes as a matter of age but especially when wearing motorcycle kit . For whatever reason , lots of people don't differentiate between Aerostich/Arai wearing BMW rider and *biker trash* and I've been to a couple gun shops here in MA and elsewhere that gave me a bit of the cold shoulder . Usually , if I'm greeted with a total air of obnoxiouness they have lost me as a customer but since I'm aware that guns are a serious business and and some prejudices do exist , I'll test the waters and see if they can earn my hard earned . It doesn't surprise me that I'm not taken for a serious shooter but I guess that means I'm doing the covert carry just about right ; that might be something to work in your favor too .

 

[Ryder]

Sexist gun dealers

First of all take note that this happens with other items such as cars. Second of all, I'm not gun dealer but I can tell you that the amount of cordiallity you will receive from interaction with me is going to be directly related to who or what is accompanying you. Seems to me that you've never experienced being falsely accused and attacked out of the blue by an insanely jealous husband or boyfriend? That gets so serious so fast it isn't even close to being funny! It is something a person only ignores at their own peril. I'd be especially cautious selling a gun to strangers under such circumstances.

But then, maybe I'm just not a 90's kind of guy... Or would that be a 21st century kind of guy now?

 

[Muzzleflash]

Dick's in Manassas

I
CANT
STOP
LAUGHING

AUGH

 

[Third_Rail]

My girlfriend has yet to go to Four Seasons with me, but I hope this doesn't happen there.

I really like the guys there, they're very helpful.

Yet another reason to pay just a few $ more for better service.

 

[Mastrogiacomo]

They're nice folks at the Four Seasons so I doubt they'd mistreat your girlfriend. I've always had top notch service. I just wanted to handle the guns at Galayans since I was there but never imagined I'd be treated like that. Up until yesterday, I thought I was over reacting. But my father really noticed their behavior as well and couldn't figure why I was being treated that way. Along the North Shore area, I'd say the majority of the shops are decent with how they treat their customers.

 

[Gunsnrovers]

Similar nasty service thread about Galayans over at the 1911 Forum.

Sorry you had to deal with that BS. Sure does make what could have been a fun purchase a lousy experience.

 

[RevDisk]

I went to a local gunstore with an ex of mine. I asked to see a Deagle, while she was eyeing up some 1911's. I got handed a lovely matt black Desert Eagle, she got handed a cherry lollipop. I was intelligent enough to hand the Deagle over before I started laughing.

Yes, I got a beating for it later.

(Yes, they did actually have good service, and were very helpful. The owner just has a sense of humor. He also knew that she was my ex.)

 

[mtnbkr]

That describes not just the store, but the entire town.

Gee, thanks.

Chris

 

[priv8ter]

Inconcievable!

Not to hijack the thread, but after looking at this list of 'Not for sale in Mass.' guns, WHAT CAN YOU BUY??????

And, how much do prices get jacked up on the two or three brands of stuff you can buy?

Anyway, to address the topic at hand, I have noticed that if my wife and I approach the sales counter at Sportsman's Warehouse, they usually seem pretty fair about who they talk too. But, then again, the gleam in my eye usually gives me away as the one that wants to buy the gun. And, if I am there to fondle, they usually ask her if she would like to see anything, also.

greg

 

[Standing Wolf]

I went to Galayans last night with my father.

Next time, go to a real gun shop.