Disgusted with local Pawn Shop

[brookstexas]

Went to a Pawn shop today, just off I35 in Pflugerville (Austin TX area). I had bought from them before. Today they had a big sign on the counter announcing they would no longer sell handguns to the "General Public" only to FFL dealers and CHL holders!!! WFT????
I asked for the manager and he said it was a negotiation with their insurance as they had suddenly kjscked their rates so high it was either this or stop selling guns!!!! WHat crap! Would an insurance company tell Barnes & Noble to stop selling certain inflammatory books?
No, he wouldn't tell me who their insurance company was and no I didn't buy anything....
BT

 

[Andrew Rothman]

As gun owners, we often don't want to face the fact that people do bad things with guns. But they do.

Should this cause us to lose out rights?

No.

Does it lead to lawsuits?

You bet your assets!

What is the poor businessman to do? Pay quadruple liability insurance? I think his willingness to sell to CHL holders is a pretty good compromise.

Don't flame me. This business owner lives in the real world, not the world of ideas and ideals.

If you don't like this, work for tort reform.

Here's what happens. Some yahoo buys a gun at the pawn shop and then does something stupid with it.

The yahoo's victim looks at who to sue.

The yahoo? Naw, who want a secondhand trailer home anyway?

I know! How about Smith and Wesson?

Great idea! They have money! (until S. 659/S. 1806 passes...)

And how about the pawn shop? They sold the gun to the yahoo! They shoulda known!!!

The pawn shop is between a rock and a hard place, as long as idiot juries are allowed to hold innocent merchants responsible for what stupid people do with inanimate objects.

 

[brookstexas]

Can't disagree

I understand the Pawn Shops position, I blame the insurance company. I think it's anti-gun BS on their part. They work off stats in the industry and I don't see them getting away with denying over 65 year olds car insurance etc.
BT

 

[Bill Hook]

They work off stats in the industry and I don't see them getting away with denying over 65 year olds car insurance etc.

They DO (generally) deny coverage/increase premiums by race, age, etc., but they are very sneaky and base this on your address. They can usually pinpoint areas with policyholders of certain ages, ethnicities that they consider to be high loss and inform these people that their AREA is high risk. You can bet inner cities are high risk areas (and rightfully so) for insurance purposes; I'm not sure that all profiling is so clear-cut.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

My guess is that this has NOTHING to do with the insurance company's view on guns, and everything to do with money.

If the insurance company is really anti-gun, then why would they let him sell any guns at all?

 

[seeker_two]

Find out who his insurance agency is....

Post it here....

We'll take it from there...

 

[DRC]

I've talked to several insurance agents...

I'm in business for myself and can honestly say that this does have to do with the insurance companies but not because they are anti-gun. It has to do with profitability for the insurance company and nothing more. My business insurance trippled this past year. Why? Because the isurance companies don't want to insure my business anymore because it's not profitable for them to do so (for whatever reason, I've never filed a claim but they've received plenty of my premiums) and in turn if I want them to insure me I have to pay three times the premium.

What did I do to get my premium down? I went to several different companies to price shop and got the same thing so I had to make a deal with my original insurance company in order to get my premium down to a managable sum by dropping some of my coverages. Fortunately many of the things that were once mandatory in my policy but didn't apply to my business were what was taken out BUT the premium was still a little higher than before for less coverage. Go figure.

In the case of the pawn shop I'm sure it was a liability "concern" on the insurance companies part. I'm not sure if any of you are aware of this but insurance companies are not in the business to pay claims. They are in the business to collect premiums and pay people to come up with new and innovative ways to disallow your claim

Take care folks,

DRC

 

[HankB]

Pawn shops get MUCH more scrutiny than regular dealers by the Feds. I know of some FFLs that will accept guns for transfer, UNLESS they come through a pawn shop. When a pawn shop is being scrutinized by the Feds, then everyone they do business with is probably going to be scrutinized very closely, too.

And . . . it might be B.S. regarding his insurance. In Texas, CHL holders - having already passed extensive background checks by both TXDPS and the FBI, don't have to go through a NICS check, so the pawn shop doesn't have to go to the enormous trouble of phoning NICS for each transfer.

 

[Redlg155]

Sound very strange.

There would be no real reason to me why an FFL holder would want to purchase from a pawn shop when they could easily get all their guns directly from the distributor. He also has access to used guns directly through his own shop. That leaves CHL holders only.

Not very good business sense.

I think he's just trying to get out of the gun business.

Good Shooting
Red

 

[agricola]

Insurance companies are swines alright - I have just got a motorbike and was quoted £762 and £800 per year for third party, fire and theft cover. Another insurers quoted me £330 for fully comprehensive cover, which is the one that ended up getting my money.

They prey on the lazy and stupid - tell your pawn shop guy to spend a day searching around.

 

[Tamara]

Redlg155,

There would be no real reason to me why an FFL holder would want to purchase from a pawn shop when they could easily get all their guns directly from the distributor.

Stop and think about that.

When I worked at Forsyth County Pawn (back when it was still a sizeable gun shop), we used to regularly buy bulk lots of old S&W and Colt revolvers, as well as 1911's or other collector guns from a pawn shop down in Atlanta. After all, we could resell them for closer to what they were worth, while in his shop, they'd just sit on the shelves gathering dust.

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

There's really a Pflugerville? I thought the Austin Lounge Lizards made that up...