Gun shop etiquette for newbies
For people new to firearms in general, and people new to carrying in particular, the first trip to a gun shop is often a cultural shock.  I mean, you walk into a store, and there's all these guns and often scary signs there, and pretty much all of the time, pretty much everybody who works there is not only armed, but visibily armed.  The signs can be pretty intimidating:


Like that. 

Gun shop owners don't tend to be nervous types, but they do tend to be concerned.  Gun shops are very rarely the targets of robbery, for obvious reasons.  But "rarely" and "never" are different words for a reason, and there was a string of gun shop robberies -- and a few murders -- years ago, and the folks who run gun shops remember. 

At Bill's Gun Shop in Robbinsdale, the employees are usually carrying some honking big handgun on the hip -- Bill's is kind of famous for the size and girth of the firearms that the employees visibly carry.  There's both Freudian and other explanations for that.

And for somebody like me, who is kind of a bear about safe handling, some things that happen all of the time set my teeth on edge. 

The guns are kept in glass cases, and, yes, they're kept unloaded.  Almost always -- it's the "almost" that bugs me -- when a customer asks to see a gun, the clerk takes it out, points it in a safe direction, checks to see that it's still unloaded, then hands it, unloaded and action open, to the customer, or just lays it, action open and unloaded, on the counter.  The customer then picks up the gun.Which is where my teeth get set on edge. 

Too much of the time -- I'd guess it's really about one-fifth, but it feels like more, a lot more -- the customer then points the (granted, unloaded) gun at the clerk, while examining it. 

Don't do that.  If you're going to examine a gun, figure out what a safe direction to point it is before you pick it up.  Usually, that'll be to the right or the left of the clerk.  Remember, even though you've just seen that the gun is unloaded, always treat all firearms as though they are loaded, all of the time.

I was helping out at Mark Koscielski's shop yesterday, for a couple of hours.  Mark had to go meet some reporters for a story that they're working on.  It was mid-day slow, but a couple of guys came in.  One of them's just gotten hired by an armed security company, and is shopping for his service weapon, and he brought a friend along.  The friend, when they walked in, had one hand in his pockets. 

I was polite about it, but I asked the guy to please take his hand out of his pocket, and he did, with an apology.  No problem, really; I didn't think they were going to shoot up and rob the place, but I'm not a mindreader.  He seemed a bit shocked at first, but calmed down some; I don't think he'd been in a gun shop before.

The friend obviously had; I could tell.  He asked about a few guns, and prices.  I don't think he's decided on which service pistol to get, but it is his choice, as the security company he's working for doesn't specify a service weapon, but does get to okay a choice -- he'll pick one out, his boss will approve it, and they'll cut a check, and deduct the cost from his pay.  To make life easier for him, he brought along his digital camera to take pictures of the guns he was interested, along with the price tags, but he politely asked permission to take his camera out.  Which is fine. 

I think he's going to go for a Smith and Wesson semiauto.  He'd prefer a revolver -- sensibly, I think -- but the company wants him to carry a pistol, not a revolver.  It'll be fine.

A few tips:

• Obey the signs, until you've been told otherwise.  At the gun shops I frequent, I ignore the signs -- but I've been told that that's okay.  Even if you've got a carry permit, assume, until and unless that you've been told otherwise, that the "no loaded guns" sign applies to you. 
  
• When you first enter the store, make it a point to introduce yourself, briefly, to one of the clerks.  "Just looking," is perfectly okay.  (For me, it's always, "Just looking, if that's okay."  It always is.)  So is, "What kind of price do you have on a S&W 642?" or "I'm new to this -- where do I start?"
• Even if the signs don't tell you to, keep your hands out of your pockets.  That doesn't mean that you can't take out your wallet or checkbook, when you're buying something.
  
• If you're going to handle a handgun, always figure out a safe place to point it, and only point it there.  When you hand it back to the clerk, or put it down on the counter, leave the action open -- lock the slide back, if it's a semiauto, or leave the cylinder swung out, if it's a revolver.  (Yes, I know that there's semiautos whose slides don't lock back, and you can't swing out the cylinder of single-action revolvers.  Don't worry about those.)
• Relax.  Most of your nervousness is coming from that culture shock.  It'll be fine.