Good ol Walmart

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I was thinking much the same thing.

He could sell the AR today for double what he paid for it and gone back and bought four shotguns for free.

That said the AR is an excellent weapon for home defense. Better than any handgun or shotgun really. A lot more pricey than a shotgun and very pricey these days. There is no magic required in learning how to use them either.
 
I would have pointed him to a 20ga something. Doesn't that have more than enough power with a lot less recoil?

Break into my house and I'll prove it!:D Ok, maybe 18 (#2) .27" pellets at 1100fps?:rolleyes:
 
gun shops & sporting goods....

I've learned to ignore or avoid the gun shop sales clerks or sporting goods dept employees if possible. They want to close a sale & not deal with any "gun shop rangers" or "mall ninjas". Unless I see a major unsafe act or hear of a illegal act, I get stay out of it.

CF
 
This leaves me with the question: Do you need any training or gun knowledge whatsoever to work the gun counter at walmart?
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My ex-wife works at Wally World. All she had to to do to get the job is fog a mirror when they placed it under her nose.
 
I usually mind my own business at the gun counter, but, if I heard that someone was going to seriously consider a .22lr over a .233/5.56 for defensive purposes, I would have probably interceded as the op did.

The shotgun was probably the wise choice for now because of limited .223 ammo at this time.

Just the other day I heard a guy telling his friend about how much more knockdown power the .380 has over 9mm, lol. I said nothing but my wife heard too and it spawned a raised eyebrow from her.
 
The shotgun was probably the wise choice for now because of limited .223 ammo at this time.
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OP posted this back on Dec. 8th.
AR's were on sale for $900 at that time and ammo supplies were still good enough that .223 was a sale item in a lot of places, both places like Dick's as well as on-line.

Consider that now, the same AR the OP talked the guy out of buying at the time is going for a minimum of 1.5 times to 2 times what the price was on Dec 8th,,,,
I'd be pretty miffed if I were the original buyer that had been talked out of an AR.

I don't fault the OP for trying to help out. He was just doing what he felt was the right thing to do.
 
What else do you expect to fit in the assault clips, bananas? :)

Let's assume that the customer and his family were new to firearms and were not going to take a class. It seems the most likely scenario anyway. Now let's forward to 4 years later. The gun is laying there in the closet, untouched since that last trip to the range a month after it was purchased. Bad guys enter the property with larceny in their hearts and crack in their veins (Yeah, that's right - I can do cheesy Guy Noir narration). Pop is off somewhere and Ma is looking to keep the bad guys away from Junior. What type of gun is in the closet? Press A for AR or B for 870 (No, I've never been a dungeon master).

A: Sorry, the little oil left in your AR since that last range session dried up a couple of years ago, assuming that Pop ever learned how to clean the gun in the first place. Chances are slim that it can fire once (it has to be loaded after all), and way less that it will feed after that. Ma has never actually heard the term "charging handle" before, and has long ago forgotten how to find it, let alone operate it. Moot point, since she's managed to drop the magazine while poking at the controls. May as well climb into that closet and hope the bad guys want the TV and not you. Maybe they just want directions to the nearest church.

B: While the oil in the 870 has probably dried up as well, it will run with little or none for a few hundred rounds. Not that this is any good for the gun, but seeing as it's only had a couple of boxes through it ever, it's still fully functional. Since Ma is operating under the delusion that it will spray instant death down the hallway without even aiming, her confidence level is high. This is a good thing today. Assuming that she can locate the slide release, somebody is about to trade their next crack fix for a colostomy bag or maybe a toe tag. Recoil? Not on Ma's mind right now. Nobody puts Baby in the corner. Now does this have the shoulder thing that goes up? I hear that makes it deadlier.

C: Nobody told me there was a "C". What is this? I'll tell you what it is - it's a revolver. It's still in perfect running order, loaded and ready to go, locked in that quick open safe that Ma can still open with ease. Manual of arms: 1) Point at bad guy. 2) Pull trigger. 3) Repeat as necessary. Too bad there was no option C. Darn.

Now before you start yelling, an AR or 870 is a perfectly legitimate choice for most of us on this forum, since by the time we forget how to use one we'll be unfit to operate a can opener. But for the typical person who would ask a Wallmart employee for firearm advice, neither is that great as a first gun.

So what have we learned? Training. Next time tell the guy not to buy a gun yet. Take a class. Take your family to a class. Try a lot of different guns and see what suits you. It's great that you want to defend yourself - we need more people like you - but learn first. It will save you a lot of money and frustration. If you have to buy something right now get a revolver. Then take a class. Then take your family to a class. You see where I'm going here.
 
First, I'd like to point out that neither option "A" (AR style rifle) nor option "B" (870 in 12 or 20) is a one handed proposition. Dialing 911 would be the next step after mom gets the gun ready...... hard to do holding a long arm.

then I asked to be sure if he's ever had a gun. He said no but he needed one for home defense.
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So did you offer to take him shooting? Steer him to a class? Point him to TFL and your State Gun Owners/2A website?

Though I have always been around guns/been a shooter, I remember when I first wanted to get into reloading ...... I found that people that reloaded, (including those who were in the business of selling reloading stuff!) were often less than helpful to a noob getting started (they would rather argue about the differences between .223 and 5.56 at the counter with their buddies, or sell Elmer his semi-annual order of 7 1/2 shot and primers than answer noob questions about what I would need to start loading my own ammo ..... those were pre-internet days, and I am so glad for TFL and other forums.


......

So, How many noobs have YOU taken to the range lately?

Fight Ignorance: Teach somebody something.
 
C: Nobody told me there was a "C". What is this? I'll tell you what it is - it's a revolver. It's still in perfect running order, loaded and ready to go, locked in that quick open safe that Ma can still open with ease. Manual of arms: 1) Point at bad guy. 2) Pull trigger. 3) Repeat as necessary. Too bad there was no option C. Darn.
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Great idea, but the guy was in Wal-mart. You can't pick up a revolver while the wife is grocery shopping.

Of course, he could have gotten one at a gun shop, but he could have gotten better advice there, too. Maybe.
 
wayneinFL said:
Great idea, but the guy was in Wal-mart. You can't pick up a revolver while the wife is grocery shopping.

Of course, he could have gotten one at a gun shop, but he could have gotten better advice there, too. Maybe.
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I agree completely. Did I mention that there was no option C? ;) I also said something like "Next time tell the guy not to buy a gun yet." So I like, literally agree with you completely.
 
Ditto on not blaming the walmart employee. But I don't blame you for jumping in. An AR is a particularly poor choice for home defense because of overpenetration. Too many innocent bystanders in my home, and you don't know what situation you are going to get into in a home defense scenario. Any gun is better than none, and there is a reasonable argument for the 22, but IMO, any pistol loaded with HP ammo would be better than a 12 gauge, if we are talking about a family's first firearm. I keep particular firearms "in service" specifically because I know my fiancee wont hesitate to use them if need be. But I can tell you she is specifically not comfortable with a 12 gauge shotgun.
 
All you need to be able to do at Wallymart to sell anything is be able to convert Oxygen into CO2. If you can do more than that they make you a manager :D
 
To quote the Op...
This leaves me with the question: Do you need any training or gun knowledge whatsoever to work the gun counter at walmart?
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As far as I can tell... This is THEE topic to discuss in this thread...

Not which type of weapon platform or cartridge type is best for which discipline...

So I think we can agree, after 55 replies that "cybrnathan" has pretty much, in a nutshell, summed it up quite eloquently...
All you need to be able to do at Wallymart to sell anything is be able to convert Oxygen into CO2. If you can do more than that they make you a manager
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And not just at Walmart but at most of the "bigbox" mass retailers selling any subject matter of products...

So we can wrap it up without hurting any feelings???

Brent
 
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