FFL who abused your held gun. What to do?

I bought a gun recently through an FFL and while I was filling out the background check the kid behind the desk fondled it and then dry fired it a few times. I go to this place to shoot a lot so I didn't want to be seem like a jerk and tell him not to hold the gun, but I didn't expect him to dry fire the gun and it happened so fast that I was too taken aback to say anything at the time.

I mean I did tell him it was ok for him to check out the gun, but is it normal for people to assume that means it's ok for them to dry fire it? Next time someone asks to check out one of my guns at an FFL or gun show I guess I have to make a point of saying that it's not ok to dry fire it.
 
Ninja, the effective word in your reply is "Kid". Never assume a kid is going to do/not do anything you think they should/shouldn't do. :eek:
 
Its a hard life, , Believe me it wasn't always like this, you are from New england also so I am sure you know how hard it is to start with nothing and turn it into something
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Yeah it's not easy turning nothing into something coming out of college and owing close to 80k in school loans, really cuts into my gun budget :D My only hope of retiring by 35 is winning the lottery.

And 10 points to you for knowing where Liguria is
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I can thank high school Italian classes for that, we had to memorize the map of Italy and redraw it from memory. I also have family in Sicily and have been a few times, as well as with my father for business years back. Actually got a private tour of the Beretta factory, got to see alot of cool old guns.
 
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I think a lot of people are so used to modern firearms being immune to dry fire damage they don't realize many people strongly disapprove of the practice.
Pure lack of consideration.
 
@RodTheWrench Well I'm also a kid (26, he couldn't have been that much younger than me) and I know well enough not to dry fire other people's guns without permission, so I guess that's why I gave him the benefit of the doubt. But sadly, it seems like you might be right about not trusting kids. I see now why older people at gun shows are sometimes leery of me when I express interest in their firearms.
 
ninja that does suck, as a rule if I handle a gun I don't own or I am not buying I will hold it feel how tight it is as well as I can with out racking the slide or pulling the trigger, its not my gun why would I do that?


Dragline, you are right, where in mass are you located? I got lucky, I worked hard, built a good business and a bigger company came in and paid me more than I ever thought it would be worth when I started it, plus I accumulated a lot of rental property, that now just pays me to own it every month.

You can actually be a millionaire in 15 years if you do it correctly, you buy a 2 family house and a 3 family house, fixer uppers, say $60K down with good credit, 15 year mortgages, now collect the 4 rents and live in the other apartment, depending on your purchase price and rental value it shouldn't take more than 5 years to pay them 2 houses off, now with the new loan "guidelines" its hard to incorporate your rental income into a line of credit, but with properties that are paid off it is much easier, so NOW, your 2 houses are OWNED, and you can get some serious money out of the banks, buy more multi families as many as you can and rent them, again 5 years, living like a hermit working your regular job doing maintenance and collecting rents in any spare time you have, and dumping profits back onto them 15 yr mortgages, you could own 7-10 houses in say 12 years, now figure even if you only have 15 rental incomes at 800 each, thats $12,000 per month!!! figure 40 percent of that for taxes, insurance, upkeep ect and you can be making $6000-7200 a month without leaving your house!!! OR cash out when the market is good {not the smartest move since you keep the houses for x amount of time you can still own them and have all that money}...

Anyway, I can talk about that stuff all day, I have a very healthy amount of high end rental property {I sold all my $1200- neighborhood stuff and kept the cream}, so every month my real estate company makes an obscene deposit into my bank account...

ANYONE CAN DO THAT, by the way, good credit with a bit of know how and some down payment money, you can be a millionaire in 10 years or so!!! I used to take care of everything myself, collecting rents, doing the books, advertising, upkeep and repairs, interviewing tenants, ect, now I don't touch much at all, it runs itself.. The key for me was running my other business the entire time, so if the realestate was rocky {I had 9 apartments with 4 empty for 3 months because of the 100 year floods, I learned the hard way about flood zones and insurance!!!} but it wasnt deadly for me because I had my original income through them times, if that flood never happened I wouldnt have any horror stories because besides that {only cost me about 175K at the time} the rest of the time, the business was great... Anyone ever interested in doing it and needs advice, pm me, I love to get people on that track, any advice I can give is for free :D
 
Sorry, but I've got too much volume to do that. The guns get opened, checked, and logged in as soon as possible after they arrive.

Then again, I'm very careful with them. They're not my property.
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That's understandable, given your volume, but I would never use a receiving dealer where that was the case. My receiving dealer gets my business because, among other things, my packages are untouched when I arrive to pick up my new guns.

Even if you're very careful, it's possible that you could employ someone who would behave in a knuckleheaded fashion with someone else's property (assuming you're not a one-man operation).
 
And wouldn't shops like to avoid this scenario anyway? Pretty hard to have your guys accused of manhandling a gun if it's still in the box. I'd make sure it was closed and taped up again for the waiting period if it were MY store - take the monkey factor completely out of the equation.
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That's precisely my dealer's position.
 
Seriously, why must you open the box before the customer gets there? It's not like you're not going to catch the wrong serial-numbered guns by waiting, is it? That way, you BOTH get to see it at the same time.
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Sure, but that guy's going to wait until midday Saturday, when I'm knee-deep in customers. He's going demand that I drop everything to check his gun in right now goshdarnit, and he's going to insist I stand there for twenty minutes while he goes over it with white gloves and a magnifying glass.

That is, if he even shows up. Maybe he'll be here next Monday. Or Thursday.

Yeah, I have seen a [insert holy grail gun] before. No, I'm not going to write an affidavit on company letterhead claiming it's 90% instead of the 95% condition the Gunbroker auction said it was. No, I'm not going to intervene with the seller to...can I please get back to people who want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars?

For twenty or thirty bucks, it's unfair to expect that. Unfortunately, every customer I've ever had who insists on waiting until he gets here has been that guy.
 
Interesting posts here. I am especially shocked by the guy who dry fired the gun as you filled the paperwork. The first thing my dad taught me as a kid when I first entered a gunshop was to never touch anything without permission, and to always ask for another permission to dry fire a gun. I would expect the same curtsey from someone who works in the shop.

I'm still so upset I actually woke up just after midnight after barely sleeping for 3 hours. I wish there was an independent database where people in a certain city can find a list of all FFL transfer dealers in the area WITH reviews and ratings by customers.

I also feel that as a law abiding citizen who has never committed a crime there should be a way to receive a gun directly from the selling shop. Even if only CCW holders could do that. After all we were thoroughly vetted to obtain that permit and we should have the ability to skip this time and money wasting transfer thing with the heartache that comes with it. Not even going to talk about the fact that in the age of computer networks it's not right for anyone to keep getting the same conditional non-approval time after time after time then two or three days later gets told that they now know he's not the bad guy. I put down my SSN even though I don't like that for a positive identification but it still doesn't work.
 
I have two FFLs that I will go through when I buy online and they both open the box when it comes in. Heck, neither of them call to tell me it has arrived until they have it logged in, and I have no problem with this. The primary FFL that I use is actually a friend of mine and I wouldn't have a problem if he tried the guns out. I don't buy guns unless I intend for them to be fired anyway. The second FFL I just recently started using because my primary FFL is currently in the Middle East, but I trust him to handle my guns. I'd probably tell him he can try them out if he asked.
 
Addressing the OP's question. The OP picked the receiving FFL, so the OP is stuck with the damage. OP might consider filing a small claims lawsuit against the receiving FFL for damaging his gun. Tough case, tough to prove fault, and tough to quantify your damages.

The bottom line - whenever you order stuff online, guns or otherwise, damage to the product is one of the risks we purchasers assume since we as individuals are brokering the transaction and employing others to assist us in completing it. You try to reduce the risk as much as possible by choosing responsible FFL's. Of course, responsible FFL's who don't have idiot employees, don't let idiot employees touch other peoples stuff and don't themselves fondle your merchandise usually come at a higher price.
 
Trust is the biggest factor here, if my ffl had to log each gun in before I got there, then I would be fine with it, I don't like the idea that now I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if there was something missing or damaged, but it is what it is. The fact remains the same, NONE of the FFL's here open your boxes, very rarely will they open a package...

If you use a shop that does and you are fine with it, then it is what it is..

I spoke with my FFL this morning, he called me at 8am to let me know one of my consignment guns was sold last night, and while I had him on the phone I asked him if it was a law that FFL's had to log the guns in, and he said {hes owned this shop since the early 80's} that if he doesn't open the package he doesn't have to log it in, if he opens the package he has to log it in, he keeps all the boxes in the vault as a courtesy and to ensure nothing gets tampered with after it arrives, but that is not even required of him!!! After receiving them he can stack them up behind the counter if he wanted to...

I brought up the OP's issue with having to wait for the release and he said that the best way to deal with something like that is to put the gun in a solid case with a zip tie or pad lock on the handle, then store it until its eligible for transfer... Which makes sense to me...

The biggest issue is to trust your ffl, its their house and their rules, but you are the customer, if before doing the transfer you ask them to give you a call and not open the box until you arrive and they say no, move on... I know transfers are only $20-$35 BUT for example the FFL I just talked to, did over $35K in transfers this year and there is a month left!!!!

He has it down to a science so it goes really smooth, he has them ship it with your name on the package, att:buyer under his business name, he write your phone number in big numbers on your ppw, when they arrive he gets your ppw, attaches it to the box and gives you a quick call, he texts me, but calls most guys unless they are regulars. Then he puts the boxes in the vault, you arrive he goes and gets your box, puts it on a table already setup for inspection, has a couple mats, chairs, and padded vises, as well as rags and pens, he x's where you have to sign, he has you read him the serial number and thats it, hands you your ppw and you can take your gun away, he has never touched, sometimes he will read the number himself, I have seen him do that but its rare...

He also loves cooper, blazer, sako, ect small caliber bolt guns, and I buy a lot of them so he will handle some off my guns when I buy something out of the shop, but on a personal level not professional, he wants to feel the gun and I have no issue with that, I know them well enough if they had to open my boxes I wouldn't care, and as I said before that has happened...

If you are going to a shop where they have some young kids working behind the counter and you buy something like a full auto mp5 that a young kid will not be able to resist playing with, than you may want to track your package and be there when it arrives, or pay for saturday delivery, if you don't trust your gun is safe...
 
Lots of discussion and I certainly can't add anything other than this . . .

As someone who was in business for many years . . . . I always felt my customers, regardless of who much they purchased . . were my bread and butter and what kept me going. My job, or that of my employees were to give the best service as possible to those customers as you wanted them to keep "coming back". If an employee didn't conform to those practices and goals . . they were out the door and gone.

I hope the shop owner steps up and makes this "right" for you. If it was me, the employee would get their one and only warning and the "making it right" would be out of their paycheck. If not, they'd be gone for good. As the shop owner, if they play with something that doesn't belong to me (the shop owner) then I'd have to consider that they would "play" with my merchandise that I had for sale as well when I was out of the shop.

But then again, I'm old and from a time when a business owner had the final say . . regardless, the shop owner needs to step up to the plate and make it right.
 
Billy, is right, without customers you don't have a business you have a gun collection...

I hope the company makes good for it, as far as charging the employees around here they don't allow you to do that, I had an employee tip one of my $60K Mercedez service vans on its side, using it after hours {they take the vans home for night calls} he went to a barn fire party and when leaving put the left tires in a drainage ditch tipping the van on its side, then didn't shut the engine, diesel engine was blown up, body was destroyed, stock inside the van was damaged and some stolen because he didn't tell me about it until the next morning... My insurance company only paid what the van was worth and since as soon as you take a commercial vehicle off the new car lot, its worth about half of what you paid, I lost about $25K total, nothing I could do about it, he was on the clock when it happened {kind of, he was on call}. Needless to say it was his last day... Then he tried to collect workmens compensation because he said in injured his back in the accident, that didn't happen...
 
if he doesn't open the package he doesn't have to log it in, if he opens the package he has to log it in, he keeps all the boxes in the vault as a courtesy and to ensure nothing gets tampered with after it arrives, but that is not even required of him!
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That is untrue. Dealers are required to log the gun in by the close of business the day following receipt. Whether or not they've opened the box is irrelevant.
 
"Seriously, why must you open the box before the customer gets there? It's not like you're not going to catch the wrong serial-numbered guns by waiting, is it?"

From BATFE:

"Generally, licensees have to enter the acquisition or purchase of a firearm by the close of the next business day after the acquisition or purchase and shall record sales or other dispositions within 7 days.

However, if commercial records containing the required information are available for inspection and are separate from other commercial documents, dealers have 7 days from the time of receipt to record the receipt in the “bound book.”

If a disposition is made before the acquisition has been entered in the “bound book,&rdquo the acquisition entry must be made at the same time as the disposition entry.

[27 CFR 478.125]"


Every gunshop I've ever dealt with, including those in which I've worked, have logged ALL firearms on the day in which they are received.

Given BATFE's prediliction to find and magnify honest errors into major felonies, it's a dealer's best way to protect himself.

Yes, BATFE says that you can use the paperwork that accompanies the gun to do the logging, but as others have noted, errors happen, and when you have a BATFE agent standing in front of you trying to turn that kind of honest error into a major felony, it makes you rethink your logging procedures.

I worked in a large gunshop in Northern Virginia for a couple of years. One of our largest wholesale suppliers had a bad habit of sending the correct model gun, but often the serial numbers on the invoices didn't come even remotely close to what was on the gun.

None of us at the shop were interested in getting caught up in a BATFE hootenanny because the wholesaler's inventory control practices sucked.

We'd cross check the invoices with the guns that we had ordered, write the correct serial number on the invoice, and fax it back to the wholesaler so that they would hopefully get their systems straight.

Simply put, if you don't trust your dealer enough to open your gun and do his due dilligence in logging it, why are you even shipping your gun to him in the first place?
 
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