My Dad believed every boy should know how to use a gun. He had good reason to. His dad kept a 12-guage in the umbrella stand, right next to the front door. Maybe for defense, but mostly to pick off a random pheasant in the morning. That shotgun got as much use as any tool he owned. My Dad watched his brothers go to war … all of them. His oldest brother saw deep action as a scout on Mindanou, WWII. The second oldest in Korea. My Dad and his twin both enlisted as the Korean War was wrapping up. There are few reassurances when you go to war, but according to my Dad, one for him was having hands that already felt comfortable holding a rifle.
My History with Guns
So given my Dad’s philosophy, it was no surprise when he came home on my 16th birthday with a long, wrapped box. I knew it was coming. And knowing something’s coming makes it even harder to wait, to the point that I probably failed every test at school that day. But however rough it was getting to that moment, by the end of the evening, there was a pile of wrapping paper on the floor and a new Ruger 10-22 in my hands. Dad had bought a matching one for himself. The rest of my teenage years saw many, many evenings with my Dad, out in the foothills, enjoying our rifles.
Fast forward a few decades. Now I enjoy the same thing with my boys. We love finding outdoor ranges when we travel. We’ve put a lot of rounds through those same two rifles plus a number of other firearms I’ve acquired over the years.
But I’ve also found a practical side to guns. With as much time as I spend alone in the mountains, the right gun makes for a peaceable companion. I always carry, at a minimum, a tiny .22 magnum as a trail gun. If I get up into moose territory, I carry something with more punch, thanks to one particularly dark night in a high alpine meadow and the moose that decided to park itself on the trail. And stomp. And snort.
I’ve Bought Guns Online
I’ve always been drawn to the sort of gun the local gun stores don’t stock. I like revolvers. And lever guns. A couple of times I’ve had my local gun shop special order a gun for me. They’ll usually bend over backwards to find what you’re looking for.
But I’ve also bought online, a number of times. And it always went smoothly, to the point that it never occurred to me to write this post. I purchased through GunBroker.com twice with no hiccups. Got that .22 magnum revolver I was talking about – a North American Arms Black Widow that’s very hard to come by – from Guns.com. That transaction was smooth as butter. And I picked up a revolver for my wife through BudsGunShop.com. Again, seamless.
Sometimes It’s Not Seamless
It was all seamless … until it wasn’t. My first negative experience came from Gunbroker.com. Gunbroker is the eBay of guns, so you never know what kind of seller you’re dealing with. In my case, a seller listed a short-barrelled Rossi R92 I’d been drooling over for years. I pulled the trigger. Then waited … and waited … and waited. Tense exchanges followed. I came to question whether the seller actually had the gun at all. Finally a tracking number showed up and a week later I had the gun. Whew.
A New Fiasco
Every time I ordered a gun online, I got the gun I ordered. Why wouldn’t I? The idea of getting the wrong gun never crossed my mind. Until …
I mentioned the revolver I picked up for my wife: a Smith & Wesson 632 with a stainless steel cylinder. It’s a sweeeeeeet little revolver. I’ll pause to say that you know you’re human when you give someone a gift and immediately feel jealous. Test firing her gun, I knew I wanted one too. I have other concealed carry guns, but the S&W would fill a gap – the quick-grab, easily-concealable, soft-shooting gap. Only I wanted the titanium model. For the wife, recoil management. For me, minimalism.
These guns aren’t easy to find. Luckily I found the titanium model on Guns.com, and at a very fair price. Given the great experience I had buying the Black Widow through them, I didn’t bat an eye at using them again.
They shipped quickly, gave me a tracking number, and set me feeling like my 16-year-old self all over again, waiting on pins and needles. The gun arrived. I went to pick it up. Gave it a thorough inspection. Checked the cylinder carefully. The color looked right for titanium – it sat a little dark against the aluminum frame, like titanium would. So I accepted the gun and took it home.
The Wrong Gun
It wasn’t until I compared it against my wife’s revolver that I noticed there wasn’t any weight difference. I threw them both on the scale. Identical. Then I grabbed a magnet …
Of course, the sinking feeling in my gut told me the magnet was going to stick before I even tried; magnets don’t stick to titanium. They sent me the wrong gun. That’s when I grabbed the box and checked the SKU. Sure enough, Guns.com had sent the wrong model.
What Happens when a Seller Screws Up?
If Amazon screws up my order, Amazon fixes my order. If my order gets lost in transit, Amazon replaces my order. If my order gets stolen off my porch, Amazon replaces my order. No questions asked. Even if it wasn’t their fault. And not just Amazon. ALL of the big online retailers take a customer-first approach. They understand that any little loss they take on the front end leads to a better reputation and more orders on the back end.
But what about gun sellers? We’re about to find out. Guns.com is one of the biggest online gun retailers in the world, if not the biggest. The Amazon of gun retailers, if you will.
Being new to this kind of trouble, I’ve been researching. The trend among online gun shops is to hide behind the FFL transfer. Here’s what that means:
Every gun has a unique serial number. When you buy from a federally-licensed gun seller (“FFL dealer”), that serial number gets assigned to you. If they take the gun back, they take it back as a used gun because the serial number has already been assigned.
An awful lot of sellers cower behind the transfer. “You took possession of the gun. It’s your problem now.” Like the FFL transfer exonerates them. Like it wipes their mistake clean off the map.
Which Domino Fell First?
It’s easy to see why gun sellers don’t want to own their mistakes. It means they’ll take a loss. Guns.com, for example, will now have to sell this as a used gun if they take it back. But isn’t that the price of their mistake?
Putting it another way, an unfortunate chain of dominoes has fallen, with my innocently accepting the FFL transfer being one of them. But which domino fell first? Their shipping clerk grabbing a box without verifying the SKU. Every sad consequence originates there. Society expects better retailers to recognize that fact, own up to it, and take the hit. Small, disreputable gun shops don’t seem to fall into the “better retailers” category. They want to believe … falsely … that an FFL transfer shields them from consumer protection laws. It doesn’t.
My hope is that Guns.con does fall into the “better retailers” category. But so far it’s not looking good …
Dealing with Guns.com …
The minute I discovered the Guns.com mistake, I contacted them through their online form. I like to keep a record of these exchanges. Still having a good feeling about them, I figured they’d get right back to me with a solution.
Six days and a hundred Inbox checks later, this is what I’ve heard from them:
I’ll be reaching out to them again today. So far, they get the benefit of the doubt. Things fall through the cracks, especially over a holiday weekend. I still hold out hope that Guns.com is a rare, customer-forward retailer and not a sleazy blame-dodger like all of the other Guns4Cheap dot coms. The next few days will determine if they ever get another order from me. Or from you, for that matter. Stay tuned.
To be continued …