I got my LTC a while back and was excited to purchase my first handgun. I wanted to find a local gun shop to buy a gun, some ammo and some accessories. Northshore firearms is a decent enough little shop (I waited several months and have visited several other shops and purchased several other guns since-I waited so I could give a fair review).
I went on a weekday afternoon and there wasn't too many people in the shop. There were several staff working. It wasn't too difficult to get someone to show me a couple different handguns, I will say he seemed a little put out that I wanted to check out five or so guns before I decided on a Glock with 3 preban hi-cap mags. I spend $700 on the gun and mags and another hundred or so on ammo. I wasn't thrilled about the service seeing as I only wanted about 15 minutes of time to spend almost $800 but I chalked it up to the fact that maybe this is how all gun shops treat uninformed "newbies".
They rang me up, did NOT provide me with a lock for the gun, in fact tied the shopping bag in a knot and made a joke that it's "locked up now."
Upon arriving home I realized that my 3 preban hi-cap mags all said "law enforcement only (LEO) on them. I'll admit I felt a little rushed at the shop and looked at several handguns and some of the magazines stated "LEO only" and others did not. The salesperson (not either of the owners) at one point looked at a magazine with one of the guns, saw it said "LEO" and said, "oooops, you can't have that one." At the time I was uninformed and actually just trusting that they knew what they were talking about and would be doing the right thing (I'll admit NOW, much more my responsibility, I was new to the whole process.
I am not law enforcement. Two days later I brought the magazines to the shop hoping to swap them with some other magazines that were legal for me to possess, assuming this was an honest mistake. The father and son (owners) were the only other people in the shop (that I saw) when I arrived. I explained my concern and instead of trying to explain their position to me they were immediately on the defensive with questions like, "who told you that you couldn't have these?" And even better, "who is ever going to see them and who would ever say something?" Also, "I have the same magazines and use them all the time."
I disagreed that it was ok for me to have these magazines and that I still thought it was illegal for me to own them. They insisted that it WAS ok for me to have these and that "their supplier wouldn't never send them something that wasn't compliant or legal to sell."
Of course I looked at my receipt and it only had the Glock and ammo listed on it. No mention of magazines anywhere. The father also said, "how do we even know you got these here?"
I'm not going to argue the laws here, I feel I wasn't treated fairly, they are not legal, I had to surrender them to the police and purchase magazines that are legal. 3 NON-LEO preban hi- cap mags I estimate would be anywhere between $150-$200 (for 3) based on what I've seen. I don't know if them selling the magazines to me was a mistake or not, but they had the chance to make it right and chose not to in a condescending unfriendly way.
I wouldn't do business here again and would NOT recommend anyone else either. You don't get a second chance to make a good first impression. read more