Last night I dipped into a sporting goods store next to the target my wife frequents. Theres a fairly large guns and gear section in the back right of the store. Myself and another fella were cruising the gear when I guy walked up clearly kinda amped up. He appeared in a hurry and was really loud when he said, “Where y’all keep those f****** automatic AK’s!” Awareness level immediately shot to orange.
The only guy working the counter appeared to be in his early 20s and to his credit the guy was pretty cool. He calmly stated it was illegal to carry automatic weapons in the store. The guy then asked for a rifle with a hundred round “clip” and that he needed it tonight! When the worker responded they didn’t have anything like that the guy cussed a little, but not directly at the salesman. He then asked to see a Ruger precision rifle and was very disappointed to learn it only held five rounds and there were no “big a** clips for it,” his words… Alarming as it was he wanted a fully automatic AK and needed it tonight, he was excited to learn the Precision rifle could double as a sniper rifle, again his words, but he needed more “bullets.” Thankfully I guess, the price was more than he wanted to spend.
Me and the other guy hovered around and it wasn’t very long before a manager and another salesman showed up to “work the counter.” The manager happened up the aisle I was on looking at holsters and quietly asked me if everything was ok. I told him yeah, his man was handling the situation pretty darn well. He then asked me if there was anything I needed to see, motioning to the gun counter next to the rifles were the guy was. I caught on and said yeah, I need to take a look at the FN 509 Tactical if you don’t care.
We hung around discussing the FN, which I’m in love with anyway, for a few minutes until the guy left to try to find a hundred round “clip” and an AK elsewhere. The manager thanked me and the other guy for hanging around and I left after that.
Of course I have no idea what this guys intentions were or why he needed a fully automatic AK with a hundred round “clip” right then and there. I guess the moral of the story is it’s kinda easy to lose our situational awareness and as I was driving home telling my wife about it I discussed how easy it is to let your guard down in a gun shop, thinking your around like minded people and everything is cool, but we know you have to stay aware at all times, regardless of where we are and who we’re around. I’ve considered a lot of scenarios that could have played out in this incident, thankfully it was pretty harmless in the end, but I could only imagine the other outcomes.