Report from the Front Lines

[Because this involves certain disclosures, the Author chooses to remain anonymous.--DC]

I just returned from the gun store and boy was it depressing. This is my observation from the front lines;

I have been a gun BUYER / collector for +/- 33 years. I purchased my first (legal) gun at 10:05 am on the morning of my 18th birthday. I was lined up at the door before the store opened. Since that day, I buy guns like people try to max out their IRA's.

Since January 2000 when the kalifornia "one a month" law took effect I took that as a minimum requirement and I have purchased in excess of a gun a month, every month for the last 100 months.

What do I see after 30 + years? Eight out of the ten gun stores I have regularly shopped at are closed, gone, out of business. The two that are left are playing to a captive audience and they treat their customers as if they have come to the DMV.

There are no kids in the store(s). It is no wonder the gun business is dying.

I was in a gun store this afternoon to pick up a couple of guns and there must have been in excess of a dozen people in the store. One of the "clerks" called out "who's picking up a gun?" and I was the only person to raise my hand out of the throng - Everyone there was a tire kicker or time waster. No one (apparently) was there to spend money.

I have lamented before that most people that frequent gun stores are time wasters. Sitting at the counter shooting the breeze, handling stuff, friends of the owner hanging out, wanna be "men" who don't buy guns because their wives won't allow one in the house but they want to hold one. This is what a gun store has become.

I used to spend a lot of time in gun stores when I was younger. I don't hang out much in the gun stores anymore - although I do spend money. I come in before they open, do the insidious stack of paperwork and leave before they open or I come in, get business done and leave but if there is one thing I have never seen in any gun store FOREVER it is the majority of the crowd spending money.

When I was a kid, the gun store was the mens club. Now, the decline is painful to watch. With the coming micro stamping it is possible that the only companies selling guns in kalifornia will be S & W and Ruger and the gun business will be unsustainable. Add to that the proposed ammo licensing and what ever other crap becomes fashionable. In my view we are watching the last 10 years of the firearms business in kalifornia. (Unless the result of Heller is to tell the state to F*** OFF - but I don't think that is likely)

I would like to see S & W and Ruger and others take the principled stand that Ronnie Barrett took and refuse to sell guns, ammunition and replacement parts to any kalifornia agency or officer because barring that, the gun business in kalifornia will be LEO centered if not exclusive and there will be no private gun business. But I'm not holding my breath.

Combine this move toward restrictive legislation and dealers embracing (bending over for) the state with a lack of product diversity or availability and people not spending money in the stores and there is no gun business in kalifornia.