Originally published at: Man receives a gun over the counter at a sporting goods store, loads it, and pulls the trigger | Boing Boing
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____ Guy with a Gun
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I’d go with, he was the bad guy with the gun, that they gave him, and likely supplied the bullets. Bet they never fall for that one again, today.
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Why wouldn’t it fire? Safety? Or are guns in store disabled in some way?
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I know this is deadly serious so I’m not going to embed a video clip, but there was a scene in the original Terminator movie where the cyborg does basically the exact same thing at the gun store. You would think that every gun store would avoid giving both items to a customer at the same time, at least until after they paid for something.
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Isn’t this almost exactly what Schwarzenegger did in the first Terminator movie?
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A visit from the reckless negligence fairy; how magical!
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Costco has these big cardboard placeholders for expensive gear, Omaha steaks, whatever. You pick up the cardboard placeholder, bring it to the cashier, and pay at the register. You get your big expensive item handed to you by a Costco staffer who has fetched it out of its safe secure place.
Now, I get it that a potential firearm purchaser needs to hold the weapon to assess good fit, how heavy it is, whether it fits in one’s hands, etc. But it would be so easy and simple to have for-demonstration-only weapons with the firing pins removed, for people to hold and handle. Then give the purchaser a big cardboard placeholder to take the register.
Any ammunition could be sold via the cardboard placeholder routine as well. Handling ammunition inside a store, even a gun store, is just too fraught–how fast does a background check and sanity test take? and is it accurate? how does the seller know? It’s the presence of ammo that has the potential for bad actors to make it all go bad, unless that bad actor has walked into the store with the correct caliber etc. for the firearm being purchased.
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My guess would be that someone who is this stupid probably doesn’t know how to match up the right ammunition to that particular gun
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“Do you think it is a little dangerous handing out guns at a bank?” Bowling for Columbine (2002) - Open a Bank Account, Get a Free Gun Scene (1/11) | Movieclips - YouTube
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This. The other option is, considering it looks like a revolver, he possibly only loaded one or two rounds, and was cycling through empty chambers.
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I don’t live in the US, as some sentences remind me…
He then loaded the gun and pulled the trigger several times, aiming in the direction of employees.
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Anyone who recognizes the man, or has any information related to this incident, is asked to contact non-emergency dispatch at 509-628-0333.
My emphasis.
Wow. Everywhere I’ve lived, a guy like that wandering unassisted is an emergency.
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No, this is the US “background check” system working perfectly. Acquire a gun, commit a crime with it, and MAYBE someone will check on you afterwards.
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Hard to tell from the pics, but there a couple of possibilities with a revolver:
Wrong ammunition loaded- A revolver cylinder with smaller caliber ammunition isn’t going to work properly, it would get swallowed up in the cylinder. I could imagine a case where a .44 mag revolver has something like the super common (but smaller) 9mm jammed into it just being swallowed up into the cylinder and not seating properly. I have never tried this because I’m not crazy, but can’t think of a reason the mechanics of a revolver would prevent this. Usually revolvers will prevent misloading of similar, easily mistakable ammunition thanks to differences in case length etc. (You can put a .38 in a .357 but not vice versa because the .357 is too long)
Many revolvers now have an internal lock that you have to insert a hex key to make the firearm able to function. It might seem like this is the most likely explanation, however most shops don’t have the lock enabled because it totally freezes up the hammer and trigger, the result being that you can’t do all the clicky/pully stuff one would do with a firearm to convince yourself it is in working order before buying it. Unloaded of course.
As mentioned above, it might have had empty chambers and everyone got lucky, or the firearm might have been broken (consignment/used).
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Did he at least make him toss a coin and call it, Friendo?
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Hasn’t anyone seen The Getaway or The Terminator? I feel if you sell firearms those should be required viewing.
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And Steve McQueen in The Getaway about a decade or so earlier.
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I’m also remembering Eli Wallach as Tuco, from a few years before that.
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Oh yeah! In that one he made a custom gun from different parts and even test fired it.
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