Will I do any damage to my pistol by cycling the slide

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by stagpanther

He may be a small outfit that doesn't get the wholesale pricing edge from his distributer that a big outfit might. He might not be able to stock enough of them to write off a display model. He might not sell enough in volume to justify potentially eating the loss. He might not even be allowed by his insurance policy to take the added risk of hands on manipulation by strangers of unknown intentions/experience/intelligence levels.

While I appreciate your concern for the shop’s bottom line, you also stated above that you wouldn’t pay more than a used price for a display model. While I get you want your new firearm to in fact be new, that attitude seems a bit at odds with the sentiments above in terms of being understanding of the owner.

To explain further, around me a number of shops have gone to a broad, but shallow inventory. By this I mean that except for a few models that the shop owners know will sell well historically, they often only have the display model for sale for certain makes and models. This helps them avoid having money tied up in inventory that might not sell. This allows them to operate a bit more lean to compete with online sales. In that case the display is all they have. While I again agree that there is the potential for excessive manipulation, I still want to inspect the firearm and function check it before purchase, and the owners near me generally understand that.

I admittedly don’t know the details of a gun store liability policy. However, people mishandling a gun in the store isn’t the only liability claim a store might face. Being sold a defective product could potentially see a lawsuit and that lawsuit, even if thrown out, can cost time and money to settle. Allowing a customer to inspect the firearm as the sale is finalizing allows the shop to say the new owner had the opportunity to inspect the firearm and accepted it in that condition. One shop where I used to live even had a form they had the purchaser sign stating that the purchaser accepted the firearm in that state (for both used and new). An insurance policy that didn’t allow any manipulation by the customer could potentially open the store to other problems along those lines.

[JohnKSa]

Being sold a defective product could potentially see a lawsuit and that lawsuit, even if thrown out, can cost time and money to settle.

Usually such a lawsuit would focus on the manufacturer, not on the store. I suppose there are some circumstances where a case could be made that a store broke or damaged a product, but that would probably be hard to do unless one actually witnessed the damage take place, in which case they would be unlikely to buy it.

An insurance policy that didn’t allow any manipulation by the customer could potentially open the store to other problems along those lines.

I think that's very unlikely, but I also don't think it's likely that an insurance company would actually tell a gun store not to let customers handle their merchandise.

As I said in an earlier comment, people seem to be excluding the possibility of a middle ground. Just as in your example, the only two options for a test drive are not:
1. Having a dealer say you can look at the car and sit in it, but not drive it.
2. Driving for 700 miles.

I am not nor have I advocated for the second.

I'm not saying anyone is advocating that, just explaining one reason why a gun store might want to limit handling of their merchandise even when that handling isn't likely to cause damage.

Are there people that in my mind enter the realm of excessive in a gun store?

Sure there are, but more to the point, the gun store gets to decide what is "excessive" since it's their store and their merchandise. I wouldn't agree with a gun store that says any handling of the gun at all is excessive and therefore forbids it, and wouldn't be happy about buying from a place like that, but I can understand why some stores might take that relatively extreme (in my opinion) position.

On the other hand, a prohibition against dropping the slide makes more sense to me because it's noisy, generally serves no purpose, and isn't really (in my opinion) normal use for a gun. I'm not saying that because I think that new production guns are going to be damaged by the practice or because I think the practice is abhorrent, just making an observation.

This is why inspection of a firearm is to me important, and that includes a function check. I can understand some thinking that as a whole we can get around this by not allowing anyone to manipulate the firearm in the first place, but as I mentioned above I have seen firearms have problems from the manufacturer.

I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to function check (in fact I explicitly said: "I agree that the store should allow people to do function checks--especially since a lot of stores these days will make you deal with the manufacturer if there's a problem.") , I just pointed out that "function checking" the display model (in the sense of trying to make sure it doesn't have problems) doesn't make sense if one then buys the model from the back. I intended that as an observation about a very specific comment that was made, not as an indictment of every comment on the thread that advocates the handling of firearms in gun stores.

Before we lose the forest for the trees, I want to bring back the context of the comments to which I was replying, because that context matters.

Yes, yes it does. I was thinking something very similar nearly all the way through creating this post. I've tried to carefully qualify my comments in this post, to make it less likely that they will be taken out of context or applied generally instead of specifically to the quotes they are responding to.

[stagpanther]

While I appreciate your concern for the shop’s bottom line, you also stated above that you wouldn’t pay more than a used price for a display model

I also didn't say that I would only pay the price equivalent to a gun that was taken in by the store to sell that was formerly owned and fired by someone else--but since I did use the term "used" I'll give the benefit of the doubt that someone might interpret it that way. "Used", in the sense that I used the word--means operated in any manner after it was delivered by the factory/distributor to the dealer.

...but I'll buy it as used.

I didn't actually say "used price", or "price of a used firearm"

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by JohnKSa

Usually such a lawsuit would focus on the manufacturer, not on the store. I suppose there are some circumstances where a case could be made that a store broke or damaged a product, but that would probably be hard to do unless one actually witnessed the damage take place, in which case they would be unlikely to buy it.I think that's very unlikely, but I also don't think it's likely that an insurance company would actually tell a gun store not to let customers handle their merchandise.I'm not saying anyone is advocating that, just explaining one reason why a gun store might want to limit handling of their merchandise even when that handling isn't likely to cause damage.Sure there are, but more to the point, the gun store gets to decide what is "excessive" since it's their store and their merchandise. I wouldn't agree with a gun store that says any handling of the gun at all is excessive and therefore forbids it, and wouldn't be happy about buying from a place like that, but I can understand why some stores might take that relatively extreme (in my opinion) position.

On the other hand, a prohibition against dropping the slide makes more sense to me because it's noisy, generally serves no purpose, and isn't really (in my opinion) normal use for a gun. I'm not saying that because I think that new production guns are going to be damaged by the practice or because I think the practice is abhorrent, just making an observation. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to function check (in fact I explicitly said: "I agree that the store should allow people to do function checks--especially since a lot of stores these days will make you deal with the manufacturer if there's a problem.") , I just pointed out that "function checking" the display model (in the sense of trying to make sure it doesn't have problems) doesn't make sense if one then buys the model from the back. I intended that as an observation about a very specific comment that was made, not as an indictment of every comment on the thread that advocates the handling of firearms in gun stores.Yes, yes it does. I was thinking something very similar nearly all the way through creating this post. I've tried to carefully qualify my comments in this post, to make it less likely that they will be taken out of context or applied generally instead of specifically to the quotes they are responding to.

I have tried to qualify my comments as well, and I have expanded on previous comments to clear up what seemed to be confusion.

I do not want to go sentence for sentence with you debating what was meant in each one, nor has that been my intent. I get the impression we are both talking past the other to an extent.

I agree that the store sets the policy, which is why I suggested in my previous post that people patronize the stores engaging in the behavior they want.

When I quote a person, not every single comment I make in that post with that quote is directed at that person. Often it is a springboard for other points that have been brought up (similarly to how you weren’t saying I was advocating for 700 mile test drives, which I already understood). At no point did I say “John said people shouldn’t be allowed to perform a function check.” I did read your earlier response acknowledging the reasons for doing that. But I made comments above in response to Skans who seemed to suggest a prohibition on any handling. That context matters to why I was saying what I was saying earlier, which is how we got here. I was recapping the how in my last post. I was not attempting to attribute that argument to you.

As for the likelihood of a lawsuit, I specifically used “potentially” and “could” and admitted the lawsuit may well be thrown out. Lawsuits don’t necessarily have to have merit if they can cause one side to capitulate from lack of desire to contest the case. Do I think such a lawsuit likely? I do not, but similarly to you I’m also skeptical that an insurance policy for a gun store would say the patrons couldn’t handle the merchandise. But as I said, I have never owned a gun store and maybe the policies are that specific. I also related the story of a moderately sized store that specifically added a step to the purchasing process where the buyer acknowledges the condition of the firearm, so some stores do apparently feel the need to be very specific.

[TunnelRat]

Originally Posted by stagpanther

I also didn't say that I would only pay the price equivalent to a gun that was taken in by the store to sell that was formerly owned and fired by someone else--but since I did use the term "used" I'll give the benefit of the doubt that someone might interpret it that way. "Used", in the sense that I used the word--means operated in any manner after it was delivered by the factory/distributor to the dealer.

I didn't actually say "used price", or "price of a used firearm"

Fair point. I inferred you meant the equivalent used price and when you didn’t counter the percentage I gave above I assumed that was in fact what you meant.