Gun Store Employees Share Their Worst Customer Stories
Working in retail gets tough at the best of times. Dealing with angry, crazy, or just generally awkward customers all day every day makes for a surefire way to end up frustrated - and for people who work in gun stores, those types of customers come with heightened stakes. Those who work in firearm stores face people who want to get their hands on very specific items, the types of customers who make the worst Walmart customers look like saints.
As you might imagine, employees who spend their time selling guns to people accumulated more than a few interesting stories to tell. With sites like Reddit offering them a place to share their experiences these workers let the world know about the worst gun store customers and the creepy things they deal with when they clock in each day.
Getting Drunk In The Store
From Redditor /u/hairyerectus:
The only denial that sticks out was when we had a guy come in fine and dandy to buy a shotgun. Nothing strange or anything. He finishes filling out the E4473 and excuses himself to the bathroom. After a couple minutes he comes back hammered. We denied the sale and asked him to leave. He thought he was playing it cool and wasn't too happy and made a small scene while on his way out.
Next morning while they were cleaning the bathrooms, maintenance found a handful of empty nip bottles in the trash. Also had a dumb**s put a dummy round in a shotgun. I almost butted him with the thing.
People Wanting To Get Around The Rules
From Redditor /u/JeffNasty:
Had a hero on armslist once try to get me to ship an HK91 directly to him (across state lines) for extra. I guess that counts too.
Threatening To Sue The Store
From Redditor /u/mavrk22:
I’ve seen guys blow up at getting rejected from their background checks. Guy comes in and is informed that he has not passed background check based on that he is a felon. He claims he does not know what we are talking about.
We tell him we cannot release gun and are charging him a 20% restocking fee (pretty common among small shops) as per the store policies which he signed a copy of. Guy blows up, says he will be suing us, and storms out of store cursing.
There’s Some Crazy Folks Out There
From a former Redditor:
Strange-looking dude wants a XDM. He can't articulate why he wants that model or what he wants it for (we usually ask something like "what do you want do do with the gun?" both to provide better customer service and to get a sense of who we're dealing with).
He has no interest in learning how to use it, can't figure out how to put the mag in, and the only paperwork he brought with him is his passport. Now, passports don't have addresses on them so we need him to provide some sort of additional ID. I tell him he will need additional ID and he freaking looses his sh*t, starts ranting about how we're denying him constitutional rights, etc.
This goes on for a bit and he gets more and more agitated. Luckily, I work at a large store so by now there are several managers standing around him. He looks like he is getting ready to get physical and is staring down three large coworkers (all former military/LE types); the police have been called and the customer looks my manager dead in the eyes and calmly says, "the s**t that was going down tonight will just have to wait.”
Manager manages to convince the customer to walk away and he leaves via taxi. Local PD pull over the taxi and arrest the customer.
Turns out the customer had been released from a psych hold that morning and took the taxi to my store to buy a gun, hunting knife, and rope with the intent of [slaying] his ex.
Not What you Want To Hear From A Customer
From Redditor /u/youlovemyKoch:
Had a guy get denied, gave him the whole spiel about how it happens sometimes, how to appeal, etc., and then he starts going on about how maybe it was that domestic charge he got. We agreed that was probably it, then he keeps going on saying that it may be the time he was involuntarily committed. I told him to get the f**k out.
People Can Be That Slow
From Redditor /u/eshemuta:
In the times before the instant background check, we just took their word for it. The guy answered "yes" on the have you been convicted of a felony question. I told him he couldn't buy a gun. He asked for another form so he could answer no.
I told him to leave and never come back. Either it was an ATF sting, or he was too stupid to own a gun.