You know that gun you’re hauling around on your hip? Leave it there, OK? ‘Cuz there’s nothing good that can happen by handling it when you don’t really have a good reason to. Just ask Chris Garcia. He was whiling away his time, strolling the aisles of an East Albany, Georgia Walmart yesterday when another customer asked to see his purty XD. Wait, what? Pop quiz: you’re in Wally World to pick up a few sundries when a stranger sidles up and says something like, “Gee, nice piece! Can I check ‘er out?” What do you do, sport, what do you do? . . .
Well, if you’re like Chris, you reach for the XD9 that’s been peacefully snoozing in its holster and prepare to hand it over. To the inquisitive stranger. In a busy store.
A police report says 37-year-old Chris Garcia was carrying a loaded Springfield Armory XD 9 mm when another customer asked to see the gun.
He pulled it out of his holster in the sporting goods section and when he tried to clear the gun it went off.
We’re feeling magnanimous today, so we’ll assume Chris had a CCW permit and was open carrying – since that’s the only way to open carry legally in the Peach State. And how else would a total stranger know he was packing, right?
If you’re feeling magnanimous and someone you don’t know asks to check out your mohaska, you’d tell them you appreciate their interest, but you don’t unholster your gun in public places. Or hand it over to any Joe Blow who’s asks about it.
If you’re not feeling particularly magnanimous, you’d tell them to pound sand, pound the pavement or pound whatever else is handy because you’re not about to hand your gun over to someone you’ve never seen before. Certainly not in the sporting goods aisle with a couple of hundred bystanders in the vicinity. Either way, the result’s the same. Or should be. The gun stays on your hip with you fully in control of it.
But not Chris. No, instead he let a round fly in a big box store, endangering God knows how many other people and giving still more fodder to the folks at peopleofwalmart.com. Not that they’re about to run short of that any time soon. Just like we’re not about to run out of IGOTD hardware, one of which Chris will be receiving real soon now.