About a year ago, outdoor retailer Gander Mountain launched several stores with a new concept. Instead of their typical wide variety of outdoor equipment and clothing, the half dozen new stores would be 30,000 square feet of nothing but guns, gun accessories and gun-related gear. However, with the falloff in gun sales over the past few months, they are backing off that idea, and remodeling at least some of the firearms supercenters to a new “flex” retail concept, bringing back in camping, fishing, boating and seasonal gear, most recently in the grand-reopening of the store in Grandville, Michigan. This follows a similar relaunch of their store in Toledo, Ohio . . .
and will presumably continue throughout the remainder of the new concept stores. The former guns-only stores will still have a heavier focus on guns than a standard Gander Mountain, but clearly there does not yet seem to be a need for the gun store supercenter concept.
Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Rancho Cucamonga, California (one of my most favorite towns-I’ve-never-been-to). Day Creek Intermediate School was locked down for about 90 minutes today starting at about 3:30 p.m., following a report of “at least one armed man on campus.” In an interesting move I haven’t seen before, students were actually released in an “orderly” fashion about 45 minutes after the lockdown started, with sheriff’s deputies completing their room-to-room search by about 5 p.m. No armed man or men, or evidence of their presence was found. Deputies and a sheriff’s helicopter remained in the area for a time after the search was completed, and no additional details were available.
The gun store in Killeen, Texas that sold both Fort Hood shooters their guns is taking a lot of heat, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting their business. Guns Galore is getting hate mail and phone calls, some asking if they’re happy that more people are dead, but the aisles are still full of shoppers, both in uniform and out. It’s no great surprise that both guns came from this store, as according to the article over at cbs12.com, it’s located only about 2 miles outside Fort Hood, and is the only place in the area other than pawn shops where guns are available for sale. According to an employee at the store, Guns Galore has a strong record of complying with federal regulations, and counts several local law enforcement agencies among its customers. He said they will turn away potential buyers if something doesn’t feel right, but said, “I can only control what goes on inside this facility. Once a person leaves a door, it’s beyond me.”
The Yankee Marshal takes a shot at the FN Five-seveN, calling it the most worthless expensive handgun on the market, and “all hype” and “all marketing.” I’ve shot one quite a bit, and they’re pretty amusing. They make a lot of noise (and I mean a lot), but have very little recoil. They’re interesting, to be sure, but maybe he’s onto something here. I mean, as much fun as I’ve had with it, I’ve never quite gotten around to getting one of my own, because there has always been something a little more interesting that was higher on the list. What say you? Is the Five-seveN basically worthless for any actual purpose other than because it’s neat, or does it just come down to De gustibus non est disputandum (that’s Latin for “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum).
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