Here’s a TTAG Eyewitness News report from our local correspondent, Dirk Diggler, who sent these phone pics. After last night’s looting in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, the St. Louis Cabela’s store (which is located about five miles west of Ferguson in nearby Hazelwood) has taken precautions to protect its firearms inventory. The store is located in a large shopping center called the St. Louis Outlet Mall. Dirk reports that every entrance to the mall has at least one squad car on prominent display and there are policemen posted both at Cabela’s front door and inside the store . . .
There are only long guns on display, safely behind the counter. All handguns have been removed from the glass display cases to protect against flash mob-style smash-and-grab attempts. Specific firearms customers want to see are brought out one at a time from storage off the sales floor.
The usually accessible racks of long guns leading toward the gun library have been emptied.
And access to the more valuable firearms in the gun library is now blocked by a wall of gun safes that have been moved into position to block the doors.
Dirk reported that Cabela’s staff didn’t know when things would return to normal. He was told that the gun counter is “under orders” to operate this way until further notice. Whether those orders came from Cabela’s headquarters or the local police wasn’t clear.