An Open Letter to Kalifornia Gun Stores

This just in from a friend who has had it:

kalifornia gun stores are succeeding where the state NEVER could - They are making me sick and tired of buying guns. I have been collecting guns for 35 years. From the gunstore(s) I have watched the decline of the industry and freedom in general over that period of time.

I am writing you as a kalifornia boiled frog.

I am sick and tired of doing business with, paying out money to, providing income for sullen, superior, can't give a crap petite federal agents operating gun stores. Let's face it, the owner of your local gun store and his employees are federal agents light. Instead of paying homage to the constitution for the right to operate a gun business in a "free country" They (at least in practice) suck up to the BATFU, State DOJ's and police at every level bending over backwards to satisfy government agents over their paying customers for fear of suffering the consequences. Make no mistake, the counter person at your local gun store is a fed light.

It is so hard to do gun business in kalifornia that as a customer you are a captive and your gun store knows it and treats you that way - like you have no choice, take it or leave it

Two recent experiences at kalifornia gun stores illustrate where the gun business is at in the state. Last week I purchased a Colt Gold Cup from a private party and met him at Marin Firearms in Novato to do the required private party transaction. The store personnel were frowning sullen people that could not care less about having a customer. At the end of the transaction the sales person took the gun out of the case and refused to use my case to hold it in the safe (for the required 10 days) unless I bought a case from him - which I did - the only money I will ever spend in his store ever again - I hope he made out on the sale. They also have a policy of making you wait 11 days to pick up a firearm because as long as you have to bend over anyway, being good little apparatchiks, they want you to bend over a little farther.

Again, yesterday at Irvington Arms in Fremont - picking up another Gold Cup, the sales person would not accept my lock, made me buy one for $10, refused to take it back when I wanted to return it and another sales person who had more than a dozen times accepted my lock, turned his back on me when I asked him to intercede - And I have purchased two dozen guns in this store and at least a dozen from this sales person over the last two years. AND HE TURNS HIS BACK ON ME!!! I Hope they made out on the $10 lock because they will never see a dollar from me again. Ever.

I'm a serious collector, a serious buyer and I am pretty damn easy. I am in my peak earning and spending years and I spend but.....Why should I help provide an income to people who are surly and contemptuous and act like they could care less if I did business in their store(s) or not? I'm sick of kalifornia gun stores. You apparently don't need my money - I don't NEED to buy your products, I got plenty, I'll hold, F*** you! If I treated my customers in the common manner of kalifornia gun stores I would be out of business by Christmas. (and I would not deserve the business I did get)

The fact is that gun stores give all the time and dignity in the world to counter sitters who read gun magazines and own no guns. The biggest group of alleged customers I see in gun store are the crowd whose "wife won't let me have one". They are there to remember what testosterone smells like. You don't see the real, repeat buyers at the gun store any more because they are in and out, have their paperwork together and don't hang out in what has become a hostile environment. The REAL gun buyers, the ones that value and understand the second amendment, the constitution and understand freedom and BUY LOTS OF GUNS come closest to witnessing freedoms loss with every visit to a kalifornia the gun store.

From what I see as a 35 year BUYER in the industry, I can only figure that kalifornia gun stores are counting on new customers and ripping off uninformed people selling their used guns in a state with nowhere else to go. The only reason to have a gun store in kalifornia seems to be to mine the state for collectibles to sell out of state and to sell plastic guns to the (must be) endless stream of new gun consumers. Regular buyers who spend real money repeatedly - they can go to hell. No inventory, polymer guns only, rigid fed representatives (store employees) - WHO NEEDS EM? F' em. I know why the business is dying.

Recently my daughter moved to Arizona and it is night and day. She has 14 gun stores within seven miles of her house - all of them friendly - all of them acting like they want your business - all of them having inventory!!! She can purchase a firearm and be out the door with it in 15 minutes from people who are happy to see her and happy to have her business. They return her calls!!

And while we're on the subject - This could not happen if kalifornia gun owners weren't in the majority such peer pressured pussies. We are where we are because kalifornia gun owners put up with it and allow it to happen.

All you have to do is look on Cal Gun to see gun owners who act like they have never seen a free market "Price is firm - no low ball offers" - "Price reduced". "Price reduced", "Price reduced" - "only 10 rounds down the tube fired by little old lady wearing gloves" - and my personal favorite, "If you don't buy it at this price it's going back in the safe". Are we such pussies that we are insulted by an offer? As adults don't we understand that the value of an item is "what a ready, willing buyer is willing to pay"? Not being on the kalifornia "approved list" doesn't make your gun a valuable or rare collectors item - Come back to earth!!!

I have to say that after years of the slow boiling that is putting up with kalifornia at every level, I am overcooked and dry and I am going to withhold my further participation (i.e. $$$$$) from the industry. I hope all the gun stores in kalifornia close, the owners go bankrupt and their personnel become unemployed.

Yours in total disgust,

I think some gun store owners need to hear that. Amazing how being polite, interested and helpful seem to be some kind of great, impossible-to-master mystery for some, and how many people completely lacking in any kind of social skills are placed in customer service positions.