You might think that a gun store would be the last place you’d ever see a gunfight. If so, you’d be wrong. “A man in his 30s came into the store and rented a gun,” indystar.com reports. “A few moments passed and without any apparent reason, the customer fired two shots striking the clerk. The clerk fired one shot, killing the man.” Don Davis, owner of (and non-apologist for) Don’s Guns and Galleries, was non-plussed. “If you shoot us, we’ll shoot right back,” Double D demurred. Apparently so.

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65 COMMENTS

    • It was Don’s clerk who took one for the team. Listed in critical condition but expected to make a recovery (they say).

    • Around here they say no loaded firearms but I think they mean: “don’t bring a loaded gun in here to show to us.” Not prohibiting concealed carry.

      I’ve been in my LGS when someone came in with a heater that’s got one in the chamber and they wanted the dealer to take a look.

      “Is it unloaded?”
      “Yeah, it’s unloaded.”

      Then he racked the slide and sure enough, out comes a round.

      • The two big LGSes in my area, one has a sign to the effect of “CCW is ok, buy of you’re going to the range those guns must be unloaded”. The second store has big letter signs that explicitly say “no badge = no loaded weapons. Period.” To that store’s defense they’ve had a large number of NDs from customers, including one on the range that went through the observation safety glass an struck an employee.

      • I actually did that with a Smith 3913 at a gun show. It was my CCW piece, and I carried it to the gun show. I unloaded the magazine in the car, but neglected to eject the chambered round.

        When I checked it with the girl up front, she found the chambered round, freaked out, and kept it. My bad, but the gun did have a magazine disconnect, so she wasn’t in any danger. Still, I felt pretty stupid—and how many ppl have done that with Glocks?

  4. I have been telling people for a long time that gun stores and shooting ranges have zero violent crime rate.

    Well I’ll have to modify that slightly because of this one example. But there is a silver lining to every cloud. The criminal sure as hell didn’t accomplish very much, did he? Thus the polar opposite of a “Gun-Free-Zone” produced exactly the result pro-gun people have been saying for years.

    • There’s an image that’s been floating around of a gun show, “If guns cause crime, how does anyone make it out of a gun show alive?”

    • A lot of you guys say that these things take place ONLY in gun free zones and the proof is they NEVER happen at police stations or gun shops.

      The article says different. Not only is this one incident, which being anecdotal doesn’t mean all that much, but there was another one mentioned in the same gun store. Also the way the other Indianapolis shop owners responded, it sounded like they don’t think it’s all that unlikely.

      What this shows is when somebody decides to shoot up the place, they don’t care if it’s a gun free zone or a gun rich zone. And guess what, these guys are often lawful gun owners not criminals.

      • “What this shows is when somebody decides to shoot up the place, they don’t care if it’s a gun free zone or a gun rich zone.”
        ——
        And therefore restricting the rights of those of us who do obey the law will not prevent such incidents. Q.E.D.

        “And guess what, these guys are often lawful gun owners not criminals.”
        ——
        And, no. See, when someone breaks the law, they are not a “lawful gun owner”. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

  5. And here is yet another mass shooting that will never make the mainstream media. In their defense the mass shooting never happened of course because an armed citizen stopped the shooter before he could amass any significant number of casualties.

    • Predictable anti argument:

      “This never would’ve happened had he not had easy access to guns in the first place. Renting a gun? Are they suicidal?”

  6. Another one that doesn’t pass the smell test. They have to start doing toxicology tests on these guys. Unless they are gun grabbin jihadests something is too weird about this. It stinks as bad and is too similar to the movie shooter.

    @uncommon_sens

    WTF are you talking about? This will be used by the MSM to the hilt! It will be politicized and that’s before the Brady bunch gets into it. You’re making no_sens.

      • I disagree, I think its a useful way to discriminate between the ‘established’ news organizations (newspapers, TV & their online versions) from the upstart online only media.

        Using Lamestream Media or other derogatory descriptions immediately points out the point of view of the commenter.

    • Sammy,

      I am pointing out the logical flaw when anti gun rights people say armed citizens do not stop mass shootings. Armed citizens stop mass shootings every time an armed citizen, who is the first of dozens of intended victims, stops the mass shooting before it ever starts. Do these armed citizens really stop mass shootings that absolutely would have happened if the armed citizens were not present? Certainly! But we cannot illustrate events that never materialize to an anti gun rights person. Hence armed citizens never stop a mass shooting in their mind.

      In this case, for all we know, the criminal was fully committed to killing and would have killed dozens of people starting with everyone in the store. Fortunately for the public, the first victim he chose was able to fight back and stop the criminal.

      I am also making fun of the main stream media’s overwhelming history of bias against armed citizens.

  7. Actually I went by Don’s last time I was in Indy to check it out. Guess what, no guns sign on the door.
    I took my business elsewhere.

  8. Well that shows that armed defense is the best offense. If it weren’t for armed citizens (in this case staff), many more people could have died.

  9. So suicidal gets off two shots and the staffer one ending the conflict. One dead BG and hopefully the staffer will recover quickly.
    Luckily no one else was hurt.

  10. non·plussed
    Adjective: Surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react.

    But yeah, good to for him.

      • Yeah, you’re both correct. The original definition is the one WB quoted, but the M1 definition seems to be the one much more used/intended in recent years. It can be pretty confusing, since the two definitions are nearly in opposition, so it’s impossible to tell which one was intended without context.

  11. Officials in New York City are scratching their heads wondering how this armed madman was stopped with just one bullet and no innocent bystanders.

  12. This is actually pretty much the best possible example pro-gun people can use to illustrate the benefits of armed self defense. The fact that it’s a gun store is irrelevant; anti-Constitutional cities all over the country have violence like this every day.

    What’s the difference? The bad guy didn’t accomplish jack. An armed citizen put him down before he could do any deadly damage. Had this happened in any other store, this guy could have killed everyone in the vicinity, and he could have done it with a knife, machete, gasoline and a match, anything he wanted.

    Oh, and the lowly civilian did it with one shot and less than 9 innocent bystanders wounded.

  13. I went in once to use the range. Bad idea to try to rob the place. Everyone there, just as the other gun stores I’ve been to, is carrying. They also have guns stashed, everywhere. A gun store is the last place to try to knock off.

    I know a delivery guy who used to deliver to Don’s there on 38th. He asked Don if he ever had anyone try to rob his place. Without looking and quicker than he could see, Don pulled a gun out of nowhere with a laser on it. He wasn’t looking at his target, but the laser was pointed at the chest of he mannequin standing by the door. Don said, “He’d better be a really good shot!”

    I, for one, believe him.

  14. At the rental range I go to they don”t allow lone individuals to rent guns unless they already have a gun with them. They’ve had a number of loners come in, rent a gun and then commit suicide with them. Inconviences everybody when they have to shut the range down for the investigation and clean up.

    • Same here at Maxons in Des Plaines IL. They however wont let you rent a 22 even if you come in with firearm chambered in a full size cartridge. You have to bring a friend with you.

    • “They’ve had a number of loners come in, rent a gun and then commit suicide with them.”

      Yikes. Is it really that common in your area? It reminds me of the statistic that men have a higher suicide success rate than women, because men in general, aren’t scared of using a firearm to kill themselves.

      Most of the ranges here in WA state are pretty reasonable with their rental policies and I haven’t seen anything terrible happen, even though Seattle regularly tops the surveys for suicide rates / depression.

      I’ve taken a couple of different groups of guys for bachelor parties / Bible study outings (ha!) to the range, and even though most of the guys had no experience with guns, we were allowed to rent and use the range because myself and several others demonstrated to the guys behind the counter that we understood the basic safety rules and would instruct the others.

        • It has happened in sporting goods as well, Galyans had a guy walk in, pilfer a 12 ga shell out of a box, ask if he could see a shotgun, Racking sound, snap, bang, took his own head off.

      • I live in Seattle, and its a pretty standard rule for most indoor ranges in the area. They’ll rent to you if you have your own firearm or if you have a friend with you.

    • The “no gun rentals to individuals who didn’t bring their own” is a pretty common rule around me, too. One specific store (part of a chain) saw three deaths within a 3 week span in 2009, a murder-suicide and then a suicide. At that point they tried to start doing background checks on gun renters, like they do for purchasers, but the FDLE told them they weren’t allowed. As a result, they stopped renting guns entirely for a while, and now the entire chain has a policy that nobody, whether you brought your own or not, can rent any gun unless you are a member of the range.

  16. It’s not implausible to have a shooting in a gun store, but for a perp to survive it the odds are pretty long

  17. Don’t you love it how Don’s neighboring store owners (Roberta, Clarisse and Raed…) came to his “defense”?

    I bet Don would “rush” to your defense if you were in trouble. Or not. You might not like it that Don has a legitimate business involving the lawful sales of firearms, but you should keep it to yourself.

  18. As a native of the area, i can tell you that Don is a crook and his store has the worst prices in town. But apparently his employees kick some serious butt, so bonus points for that, I guess.

  19. This place is about miles from my house, in a really rough area. Some of the creepiest people I have ever seen patron this store. My wife and I never went back.

  20. And of course this is just another confirmation that if you get into a dgu it’ll be settled one way or the other before you have to reload. Probably happens that way in civilian dgu’s 99% of the time. Can you guess that I’m a wheelgun fan by that statement?

    • What about a gang style invasion of your home? You confident enough to bet your life that you can stop say 3-4 guys with a bullet, maybe 2 apiece?

      • You haven’t seen my other posts that I keep a shotgun available for the big events. Besides, I’m reasonably confident that I’m not going to have to fight off a team of hollywood bad guys. As we’ve seen here at this site and other news sources the bad guys almost always retreat at the first sign of resistance.
        Hell, a 62 yo woman ran 5 armed bg’s out of her jewelry store in socal.

        • Lol dude some revolvers have 8 shots.
          I wouldn’t object to an S&W R8 and a few moonclips in a situation like that.

    • Which is why all of this tacticool, mall ninja type stuff that most gun rags and blogs (this one included) rave about irrate me to no end. It seems like everyother day, some new gun guru is offering courses for “operators”.

      But, this is the great U.S.A. Your money, time and your right. I personally carry a M&P 9C and go to the range regularly so I might be SOL if I get attacted by a horde of zombie/demon bikers.

      • Did anyone mention courses for “operators”? Im confused on where this came from…also, if you get “attracted” to a horde of zombie demon bikers, you have bigger troubles than your training.

  22. Wow…Darwinism at it’s finest. What a fool. Glad he’s not using up oxygen that can be reserved for a more worthy animal.

  23. Get the facts! Why and how was the customer approached when he still had loads to shoot. if he did still have loads why was emploee handing him a bill and why on earth do that allow range customers to bring loaded guns in the store? , and shouldn’t the bills be given prior to handing out rounds to shoot? This doesn’t make sense get the video and get the facts.

    • The customer was not “approached,” if you read the real article (not this extremely short synopsis), the customer walked up to the counter after spending time on the range.

      I’ve never seen a range that actually checks that your gun is unloaded before you leave the range, but they all have rules which require it. Nothing unusual there.

      At every range I’ve been to, you run a tab and pay when you’re done, so “giving the bills” at the end of his visit is completely normal.

      • At the range I go to They hold your ID while you’re shooting. When you’re done you settle your bill and get your ID back.

        • Same here and you gun must be in a case (hard or soft), or demonstrated empty. They also require you to put your weapon on the counter before you’re allowed to enter.

          Don’t know if they check an “uncased” gun when you exit the range. I always have my guns secured in a case.

  25. We did read it and 5 other news sources all pretty sketchy on the facts to say the least. I’n fact the only facts I read that or try are:
    1: straight from the emploee wife FB post. the employee involved in the shooting is in the middle of divorcing http://postimage.org/image/3q2o4jadp/
    2: Don’s gun in a sketchy gun shop with overly aggressive employees, read yourself straight from Google rating https://plus.google.com/101194442136946065267/about?hl=en and watch the video’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXLT1wnK6i4

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