Do your big-box stores treat you like a baby?

A

AlongCameJones

Moderator
If you buy a new gun at Academy in Oklahoma, a store employee has to carry the boxed gun in their hands out the door from the gun bar. If you bring the gun back for any reason, they have to escort you from the door to the gun bar. Walmart used to do the same thing back in the 1990's when I bought two new guns there then. I bought a new Ruger American ranch 5.56 NATO rifle not long ago and I had to bring it to Academy for factory warranty repair shipping and handling last two months and just got it back home tonight. The bolt operation was very sticky. Rounds difficult to chamber and extract. I got the baby escort treatment at Academy.

Big retail corporations have screwy notions about guns and gun owners.

No mom-and-pop gun store I know of escorts people in and out with guns like kids. I generally like dealing with a LGS for firearms transactions anyway. Mom-and-pops are generally more friendly.
 
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None of my guns came from big box stores.

Having bought all of mine via Armslist (about a dozen), and the others shipped to gun shop FFLs, that treatment would be a bit insulting.

Corporate attorneys and the lowest-common denominator must be the reason.

Remember the video of the LEO who was handed a gun after Zero safety check by the clerk or the LEO :rolleyes:, followed by the officer putting his finger tip over the muzzle and shooting the gun?
Other customers easily could have been hit by the ricochet.
Maybe this event was a factor.
 
WalMart is the only place I've been escorted out with a gun. I haven't bought a gun from Academy in years, but the last one I can recall they didn't do a walk out with it. Just handed it to me.

I can't remember if the WalMart manager told me this when he was walking me out with last gun I bought there (many years ago) or if I heard it somewhere else, but the reason was supposedly to prevent someone from buying a gun, loading it up and using it to commit some sort of crime right there on the spot.

Apparently they didn't care if you took it to your car, loaded it up there and brought it back in... :rolleyes:
 
My first gun bought ever was a Remington Nylon 66 .22 in 1988 at a Big Five in California. $100 new with a cheesy Tasco scope I could never get zeroed. There was no NICS checks then, just an old-fashioned DROS paper. The clerk handed me the boxed gun and I walked out of the store. The child-like escort service in my experience first started in 1996 at a CA Walmart when I purchased two new long guns there. A young woman store worker with a crabby-looking face wheeled my guns from the gun counter all the way out to the tailgate of my Ford truck in a shopping wagon. This little cookie had "anti-gunner" written all over her snotty little face.

It was about the Clinton administration that a lot of corporate America started to get goofy ideas about guns.
 
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Walmart where I live still escorts you out the door with a purchased weapon--though allows concealed/open carry for customers. Haven't figured that one out but I suspect it has something to do with a scam prevention of some sort.
 
Many years ago I purchased a BB gun (rifle -- Daisy clone of a Winchester lever action saddle gun) at a Walmart, and even for a BB gun the clerk from sporting goods had to escort me to the exit door.
 
I haven't bought a gun from a big box store since 2013. That was Walmart and they escorted me out with it. I haven't bought one from them since.
 
I know my wife recently bought an inexpensive 410 at Walmart & told me she was escorted so that policy is still enforced.
I've bought a couple of guns at Scheels and they seem to make it a real ordeal, I felt like I was buying a new truck at the dealership it took so long & has made me look elsewhere for places that have a more enjoyable purchasing experience (I still like Scheels)
 
Bought a Savage on clearance last year at Wally World and they walked me out. Day before a guy bought a dozen rifles and they walked him as well - just corporate policy.
 
I purchased a firearm from Scheels last summer and they brought it out for me. My local pawn shop doesn’t do this because they’re a tiny hole in the wall and it’s unnecessary. At Scheels the gun department is on the 2nd fl and where I paid for my firearm. I think it’s good policy to escort customers out with paid merchandise (gun), if it’s a big box store. It has nothing to do with treating customers like babies and everything to do with deterring theft of dangerous firearms. My local pawn shop might only deal with a few customers at a time and know I purchased my gun, whereas, Scheels has hundreds of customers walking around
 
Firearms aren't dangerous...some people are. I guess it's a security issue in big stores.

Big stores and big businesses have government bureaucracy mindedness. I hate it at Walmarts when they ask to see my receipt at the door too. They don't do that in ordinary regional chain supermarkets. Some big-box electronic store chains really act like its airport security when the customer leaves the store with something. It makes the shopping experience seem less friendly when store employees act like TSO agents. This probably makes online shopping seem like an attractive alternative these days.
 
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It's not so much government bureaucracy as protection from lawsuits. If something goes wrong in your local mom and pop store, or if a gun gets into the hands of someone who shouldn't have it, no one is going to sue because there is no money to get even if you win. At least not enough for a lawyer to take the case.

Big box stores have deep pockets and lawyers know it. If Walmart sells a gun and something goes wrong it will cost Walmart $$$$MILLIONS just to win the case. They usually settle out of court.

All of those nanny steps may do nothing to prevent something from going wrong. But when it goes to court they can document all of the steps they took to prevent problems. It will greatly reduce their financial liability.

It is a PITA, but I don't blame them, nor will I let that prevent me from buying a gun from a store just because they do such things.
 
When I still purchased new firearms and pistols, academy consistently had the lowest prices.

I don’t care about being walked to the front of the store, I most likely won’t need the gun while in the store.
 
Rickyrick, the LGS's do cost more for guns but they treat you nicer as a customer. The LGS is more firearms-knowledgeable and may be able to, but not always, get special guns you want from their own distributors that the big box might not be able to do. They will also have a bigger selection of new guns and a selection of used and preowned guns as well. I was looking at a 'new' Ruger rifle at the Academy gun bar one time and it was all scratched up off the rack. If you buy a new gun from an LGS, they may also assist you with shipping and handling for warranty repairs in a helpful fashion. There is one LGS in Lawton, however, that doesn't play the middleman or service center for warranty claims. The man there told me that his customers of new gun sales would deal directly with the gun maker and normally ship the guns themselves via the Fed Ex store in town. I have used this LGS for a number of FFL transfers on mail-order guns from third parties. Normally if you buy a new Ford truck from a Ford dealer, you bring it back there for warranty work. The gun trade doesn't operate exactly like the car trade. It would be nice if they did.


YGWYPF is what I've concluded.
 
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I got escorted out of a Walmart (one of the few that sell guns) a few years ago with a new shotgun. Little did they know, I had a legally carried .38 Spcl revolver in my pocket. How does that make sense?
 
They treat people like babies because so many of them are. It's just not worth it to have someone do something stupid. That really doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when there is a lock on the gun and they won't even take it off for me to try the action. That's a deal breaker.
 
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