Drizzt
Member
Taking a shot at buying a gun
By John Grogan
Inquirer Columnist
"I want to buy a shotgun," I said.
The young man at the Wal-Mart sporting-goods counter didn't miss a beat. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, unlocking the gun case.
His name was Bob and he sported bleached hair and baggy, low-slung pants. I asked to see the cheapest shotgun he had. Bob pulled out a single-shot, 20-gauge New England brand with a price tag of $85.
Such a deal. I had come prepared to spend a few hundred.
Bob placed it in my hands. I didn't try to hide my ignorance. "How do you load this thing?" I asked.
He showed me how to break open the barrel, slide in a shell, click it shut. "Then you're set to go," Bob said.
I had come to this Wal-Mart near Quakertown, in Upper Bucks County, as a customer to see just how easy - and fast - it was to buy a weapon.
What brought me here was the suicide of Richard Lee of Willow Grove.
On Feb. 2, police say, Lee, 25, walked into a Wal-Mart in Horsham and, after passing an instant background check, bought a 20-gauge shotgun. He then drove to a Wal-Mart in Warminster, where he bought shells.
From there, he drove directly to Cavalier Telephone in Warminster, which had laid him off, and began firing. The final round, police say, was for himself.
Blessedly, no one was present for the Sunday night rampage, and Lee was the only casualty. But it doesn't take much imagination to picture what could have been had he arrived during work hours.
No hard questions
And so on Friday I went to Wal-Mart to experience firsthand the safeguards that failed to save Richard Lee from himself. I sighted briefly down the barrel, then said, "OK, I'll take it." I had been at the counter for four minutes.
I was waiting for Bob to grill me about my inexperience and motives for wanting a cheap gun. Had I completed a gun-safety course? Did I have any practice handling firearms?
Instead he asked me for two pieces of identification and gave me a federal form that asked a series of yes/no questions intended to root out the unstable and criminally inclined.
Had I ever been convicted of a felony? Ever been the subject of a restraining order? Any history of domestic abuse? Mental illness? Drunken driving? Drug addiction?
If I had evil intent, did they really expect me to answer truthfully?
I handed Bob $2 for the background check and he phoned in my information to the state police's Pennsylvania Instant Check database.
Ten minutes later, he returned with a box and packed my shotgun into it.
"Does this mean I passed?" I asked.
"Yep. No problem," Bob said.
I asked if I could buy shells for the shotgun, too. Bob apologized and said store policy did not allow that.
We wouldn't want people to start shooting until they were safely out of the store now, would we? If the ammunition restriction was meant as a deterrent, it wasn't much of one. There was a Kmart across the street that sold ammunition.
On second thought
Bob rang up my sale, and I reached for my credit card. Once I paid, I was free to walk out with my new weapon.
But I didn't really want this weapon, and at Wal-Mart, as with other gun shops I checked, all gun sales are final. No returns; no exchanges.
And so at the last second, with apologies to Bob for wasting his time, I pulled the plug on my little experiment and walked out of the store empty-handed. The entire process had taken 27 minutes.
Just for kicks, I drove across Route 309, walked into Kmart and bought a box of 25 Winchester Super-X game-load shells for $3.79. No ID required; no questions asked.
On the way home, I wasn't feeling particularly homicidal or suicidal or deranged. But had I been - and had I not aborted my shotgun sale at the last moment - I would have been, in Bob's words, "set to go."
I later checked with the state police in Harrisburg, who confirmed that Bob had properly done everything the law asks of him. Pennsylvania requires no gun-safety training. No proof of competence. No cooling-off period. Not even an overnight delay. Just 27 minutes and two forms of ID.
That wasn't enough to stop Richard Lee. And it won't be enough to stop the next Richard Lee, either.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Grogan writes Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Contact him at 610-313-8132 or [email protected].
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2003/02/11/news/local/5151616.htm
By John Grogan
Inquirer Columnist
"I want to buy a shotgun," I said.
The young man at the Wal-Mart sporting-goods counter didn't miss a beat. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, unlocking the gun case.
His name was Bob and he sported bleached hair and baggy, low-slung pants. I asked to see the cheapest shotgun he had. Bob pulled out a single-shot, 20-gauge New England brand with a price tag of $85.
Such a deal. I had come prepared to spend a few hundred.
Bob placed it in my hands. I didn't try to hide my ignorance. "How do you load this thing?" I asked.
He showed me how to break open the barrel, slide in a shell, click it shut. "Then you're set to go," Bob said.
I had come to this Wal-Mart near Quakertown, in Upper Bucks County, as a customer to see just how easy - and fast - it was to buy a weapon.
What brought me here was the suicide of Richard Lee of Willow Grove.
On Feb. 2, police say, Lee, 25, walked into a Wal-Mart in Horsham and, after passing an instant background check, bought a 20-gauge shotgun. He then drove to a Wal-Mart in Warminster, where he bought shells.
From there, he drove directly to Cavalier Telephone in Warminster, which had laid him off, and began firing. The final round, police say, was for himself.
Blessedly, no one was present for the Sunday night rampage, and Lee was the only casualty. But it doesn't take much imagination to picture what could have been had he arrived during work hours.
No hard questions
And so on Friday I went to Wal-Mart to experience firsthand the safeguards that failed to save Richard Lee from himself. I sighted briefly down the barrel, then said, "OK, I'll take it." I had been at the counter for four minutes.
I was waiting for Bob to grill me about my inexperience and motives for wanting a cheap gun. Had I completed a gun-safety course? Did I have any practice handling firearms?
Instead he asked me for two pieces of identification and gave me a federal form that asked a series of yes/no questions intended to root out the unstable and criminally inclined.
Had I ever been convicted of a felony? Ever been the subject of a restraining order? Any history of domestic abuse? Mental illness? Drunken driving? Drug addiction?
If I had evil intent, did they really expect me to answer truthfully?
I handed Bob $2 for the background check and he phoned in my information to the state police's Pennsylvania Instant Check database.
Ten minutes later, he returned with a box and packed my shotgun into it.
"Does this mean I passed?" I asked.
"Yep. No problem," Bob said.
I asked if I could buy shells for the shotgun, too. Bob apologized and said store policy did not allow that.
We wouldn't want people to start shooting until they were safely out of the store now, would we? If the ammunition restriction was meant as a deterrent, it wasn't much of one. There was a Kmart across the street that sold ammunition.
On second thought
Bob rang up my sale, and I reached for my credit card. Once I paid, I was free to walk out with my new weapon.
But I didn't really want this weapon, and at Wal-Mart, as with other gun shops I checked, all gun sales are final. No returns; no exchanges.
And so at the last second, with apologies to Bob for wasting his time, I pulled the plug on my little experiment and walked out of the store empty-handed. The entire process had taken 27 minutes.
Just for kicks, I drove across Route 309, walked into Kmart and bought a box of 25 Winchester Super-X game-load shells for $3.79. No ID required; no questions asked.
On the way home, I wasn't feeling particularly homicidal or suicidal or deranged. But had I been - and had I not aborted my shotgun sale at the last moment - I would have been, in Bob's words, "set to go."
I later checked with the state police in Harrisburg, who confirmed that Bob had properly done everything the law asks of him. Pennsylvania requires no gun-safety training. No proof of competence. No cooling-off period. Not even an overnight delay. Just 27 minutes and two forms of ID.
That wasn't enough to stop Richard Lee. And it won't be enough to stop the next Richard Lee, either.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Grogan writes Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Contact him at 610-313-8132 or [email protected].
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2003/02/11/news/local/5151616.htm
