I grew up shooting .22 rifles and a really neat 9-shot revolver. It’s a great way to get kids interested and skilled at shooting and guess what. It’s also a great way to keep old folks shooting. Being 72 with some aggressive arthritis I admit it’s challenging sometimes. I still keep at least a 9mm on my belt for defense, but when it comes to fun shooting, I’m opting for the good old twenty-two more often that not. And, thanks to being blessed with the ability to write for two amazing magazines, the past year has allowed me to review a few interesting .22s. Here’s a run down of them from the latest to the earliest.

Ruger LCP II .22 LR

This is one of those mouse guns that is normally a little tough to shoot. The fact this one has a great trigger and some enlarged sights makes it a little easier than it’s .380 predecessors the LCP and LCP II.

I can truly say it’s fun to shoot. There’s no recoil and the grip is big enough for me to get two good fingers around. I teacup with my support hand to make a solid grip. The sights are a bit of a struggle but only because I need to use the bottom of my trifocals to see them and that makes me tilt my head at a funny angle. For folks with tiny hands this one will work well for you. Some will even want to carry it for personal protection. It’s better than nothing.

HK416 .22 LR

Now here’s a fun guy. This is a rimfire version of the gun the Navy Seals had with them when they took down Osama Bin Laden. It’s not a machine gun but it’s almost as much fun.

It didn’t come with the red dot sight, suppressor, pistol brace and sling; I added those. When I shot up those drink cans I did it without hearing protection. Using CCI’s Suppressor ammo it was so quiet it sounded like the phssst, phssst of the silenced guns you hear in the movies or on TV — really quiet. This gun is about as much fun as I’ve had with a gun in many a moon. It’s something the young folks enjoy, but us old folks, too.

Glock 44 – They Now Have a .22

It was kind of a surprise when I got an email from the Glock publicity department wanting to know if they could send me their new .22. This gun is the same size as a G19 and looks just like the G5 version of the ever popular Glock 19. You think it’s a G19 until you pick it up and find it only weighs something like 11 oz. It holds ten rounds and shoots any normal or high velocity ammo. As long as you don’t try the subsonic stuff and keep it clean it just keeps right on trucking. It’s a great way to economically practice shooting that will transfer skills to shooting your defensive Glock.

Taurus TX22

I personally like this gun better than the Glock. It’s essentially the same size, but holds 15 rounds. It, too, is very reliable. I find it more comfortable to shoot than the Glock because of the grip frame and texture, but either one of them is great for practicing skills that will cross over to your 9mm of the same size and body style. Oh and it has a threaded barrel so you can add a suppressor. The Taurus a bit easier on the pocketbook than the Glock. It’s going for around $250 in the stores where the Glock looks like it’s going to price out around $350.

Ruger Wrangler

These very reasonably-priced six shooters from Ruger are of the quality we’ve become used to from Ruger, but cost about half what the Single Six does because it’s made from aluminum alloy with modern CNC machinery. Ruger is working to get us more reasonably priced guns and the Wrangler is one of the results. They come in three colors and I managed to get my hands on one of each.

It’s going to be interesting to see what else 2020 brings us.

During my gun store days the 9mm SCCYs were great sellers because of their size, price and capacity. It’s concealable size gun that carries 11 rounds of 9mm for around $250. Their 9mm is available in two models, one with an external safety and one without. This is the CPX-1 and the CPX-2. This past year they released the CPX-3 and CPX-4 versions, which are .380 caliber, one with external safety and one without. One cool thing about them is colors. They come in all sorts of colors. Here are pictures of my CPX-1, that’s the one with external safety, and CPX-2, the one without.

Right before Christmas I was sent a new SCCY for review, this one with a Crimson Trace Red Dot sight installed. The Crimson Trace is now available on all four SCCY Models. And guess what. Toward the end of 1st quarter 2020 SCCY will be releasing a new version of their gun that is striker-fired with a 5.5 lb. trigger pull. All the ones so far have been double-action only with a 9 lb. trigger pull.

So we have two trends I’m following in the gun industry. One is affordable guns that are high quality. You can own a good defensive handgun for under $300. Or you can spend several thousand dollars for one. Your choice.

The other trend is that .22s are coming back in force. If you haven’t shot a .22 in a while, you’d be surprised at how much fun it is. Also inexpensive.

This letter was printed in the January/February 2020 edition of American Handgunner magazine. It is one of the most accurate and sensible descriptions of what is really going on in our country with what the media insists on calling “gun violence”. We have had guns in abundance throughout our country’s history without the kinds of disturbing shootings we have going on now. Please consider Handgunner reader Nevin D. Holmberg’s explanation of why these things are happening:

Over the last 60 years our society has abandoned its customs, morals, traditions and self restraint to limit bad behavior, including criminality. Many of our politicians, clergy and educators avoid condemning the worst among us and the atrocities they commit. It has become commonplace for teachers to be threatened with violence, or actually to suffer it. Much of our “art” is little more than filth that in many circles is celebrated and defended. Much of this is aimed directly at our children. Our language too has become debased. Terrorist acts and other criminal mass murders commonly are referred to as “tragedies” when in fact they are atrocities. Those committing such violence are referred to as “extremists,” “militants, “depressed,” “angry” or other euphemisms. Moreover, when the responsible parties are caught they are rarely ever executed. Does anybody remember Nicholas Cruz? For 20 months since he murdered over a score of students at Douglas High School in Florida he’s been provided with “three hots and a cot” at taxpayer expense. Why has he not been hung? We have become inured to behavior our parents and grandparents would never have tolerated. Our violence problem is not caused by guns — it’s cultural degeneration and deviancy. These are incredibly complex issues, and not amenable to any “quick fixes.” However, until those matters are addressed and dealt with, the past is but a prelude to the future. It will not be affected by limiting the rights of the citizenry, limiting the kinds of firearms we can own or the number of cartridges they can hold. Such proposals come from fools or charlatans, and will do nothing to cure our nation.

Rather than repeat my own thoughts on this subject, I’ll just remind my readers of post I did a while back — Oh, Really? More Laws.

Every year as the Thanksgiving weekend approaches, I start thinking about the tradition we started but never finished. It can’t happen now as I’m the only remaining member of the first of what was going to be the Annual Riverside Camping / Hunting trip. I can’t imagine any 17-year-old boy with a work situation as good as mine. It only paid $2.50 an afternoon, but it got me out of school at noon, and since I worked seven days a week, that netted me $17.50 a week. The only expenses I had was some 19 cents a gallon gas and Saturday night date night. My job? I was a horse and dog trainer. Well, assistant horse and dog trainer.

George’s Jeep

My boss, Bobby Stewart, had a way with animals. He sold insurance by making appointments in the morning and meeting with his prospects at night. That left the afternoons for training show horses a big part of the year and bird dogs in the fall after horse show season was over. Are you getting this? I rode horses and hunted with bird dogs and got paid for it. George Lovelady was a life-long friend of Bobby’s, and he owned a horse we worked so he could show him. Billy Ray Lea helped Bobby sell insurance. We all had something in common. We loved guns, trucks and the outdoors. That’s what kicked off the idea of a five-day adventure when practically everything was in season.

David’s Ford F1

Bobby knew the place and when he told us about it, there was no question how we were going to get there. Every man on his own. Bobby had a new Ford Bronco. I’m talking about the little one, and I think it was the first year they were sold. George had a CJ-5 with a winch on the front bumper. Billy Ray had one of those International Harvester Scouts that were popular back in the 60s. My truck was the only one that wasn’t four-wheel drive, but it was quite capable of keeping up with the others. It was a 1949 Ford F1 with wide mud tires, plenty of ground clearance and lots of torque. My utility box had chains and a come-along just in case I needed to help pull one of those guys out of the mud. It was rare for me to need a tow. As long as I chose my way carefully over the rough stuff, my truck would get me there.

 We left on Wednesday morning. Bobby and his son Mike were in front with the rest of us following. Bobby’s vehicle was the newest, and naturally he would prove to the rest of us it was the best by leading us through places that would get at least one of us stuck. That’s how we played the game and why we were all in separate vehicles. He who has the best truck wins. I was in my favorite place at the rear of our little convoy. There was no question they each had the advantage of four-wheel drive, but my truck had been around a long time and seemed to know its way through the muddiest of passages. I learned a lot about driving from that old truck.

Billy Ray’s Scout

There had been recent rains, and Bobby made sure we all did a lot slipping and sliding as we turned off a gravel road and headed north past Bagley Lake toward the Tallahatchie River. About an hour, maybe two off the county road, we pulled up at a place called Riverside where we found an open area on a high bank overlooking the river. Behind us and spreading out for several miles in all directions was public land, part of the Holly Springs National Forest. It was a week early for deer season, but duck, dove, quail, rabbits and squirrels were all in season, and we planned to take our share of feathers and fur from the immediate surroundings. I had both my guns with me, the 16-gauge, full choke Winchester Model 12 my Dad had given me and the bolt action .22 Remington 514 I’d bought from the Boy Scout Camp for $2. Mike had a 20-gauge Franchi and a Marlin .22. His dad’s Browning autoloader was the envy of all of us because he could use it to bring down quail like you wouldn’t believe. Billy Ray had a Remington version of that same design, and George had a double barrel 12 gauge.

We made camp and relaxed that first afternoon, taking advantage of some food we had packed in. An hour before sunset, we spread out around a nearby field and popped a few doves. Bobby got a teal as it flew up off the river. That shot with his cylinder bore Browning autoloader impressed me. Hitting a teal on the fly is always a challenge, and he did it with a quail gun.

We dressed the duck and the doves and tossed them into an ice chest. Billy Ray and Bobby set up a tripod from which they hung an iron caldron. Mike and I, being the youngest, foraged for firewood. George found some rocks to bed up the fire. Before we bedded down for the night, the caldron had been filled with water, a nice fire built beneath it and the doves and duck put into it to simmer.

For two days we hunted, explored and rested as it suited us. When hunting, we shot anything that was in season. Mike and I spent most of our time hunting with our .22 rifles going after squirrels and rabbits. We didn’t have a dog with us, so dove were the primary feathered target. Bobby did manage to add a few quail to our simmering pot by walking them up from the edge of a field. Billy Ray seemed to be on his game for ducks, and George shot a lot but didn’t bring much game to the pot. We all felt bad for him, but it did give the older guys something to rib him about. Mike and I were kids, so of course we were respectful.

Brunswick Stew – simmering for two days and ready to eat.

Although our pot was simmering with game we’d killed, we ate from the food supplies we’d brought with us. Saturday morning we cleaned our guns and straightened up the campsite. Bobby took charge of cooking for the evening meal, the rest of us helping under his direction. We moved the caldron away from the fire and strained it, removing all the bones. The meat had been cooked so tender it literally fell away from the bones making our job easier. When Bobby was satisfied all the bones were gone, we added the vegetables we’d kept on ice—green beans, corn, carrots, celery, onions and tomatoes. Bobby added some flour and various seasonings. We placed the caldron back over the fire and stoked it up to let the stew boil awhile. When the fire died down later, the stew continued simmering.

After lunch, we were all looking at our watches and getting restless. It was time to get the womenfolk. We made sure the fire was banked well and that none of our guns or other valuables were left lying about, then piled into the vehicles and hit the trail. The ride back to civilization was just as competitive as the one in, but this time we were more about getting somewhere than putting our vehicles to the test. We were on gravel by 3:00 p.m. and pavement a few minutes later. We cut across Woodson Ridge Road and from there to Little John’s Grocery on Highway 30 for the rendezvous.

We made it to Little John’s before the women were scheduled to arrive, so we bought some cold drinks and snacks and sat on my tailgate to enjoy them. The women showed up close to 4:30—Bobby’s wife Joanne, Billy Ray’s wife Terri, George’s young cousin Vicki who was visiting from Philadelphia, and my girlfriend Peggy, all riding together in Joanne’s Galaxie. After greeting them appropriately, we climbed into our vehicles, each with his own woman to impress (or not!) and headed back to Riverside.

The ride back to the campsite was a little rougher than normal because we plowed into the rough spots fast enough for some tire-twisting, gut-wrenching action—boys showing off. Today, girls drive Jeeps. The girls with us were not impressed with our bouncing, spinning and mud-slinging. But they were impressed when we served up dinner.

It was Brunswick Stew, as good as it gets—wild game cooked over an open fire. We sat around the campfire talking and reliving our hunting experiences for the girls. I don’t remember now, but I’m pretty sure there was some embellishment here or there. After a while, I got out my guitar and we sang a few songs. Then we got quiet and listened to the night sounds. Even the girls agreed we would make this an annual affair. All too soon it was time to take the women back to their car.

This time we used just two vehicles, Bobby’s Bronco and Billy Ray’s Scout. Peggy and I rode with Bobby and Joanne, George and Vicki rode with Billy Ray and Terri. After depositing the women at Little Johns, we went back to our campsite and enjoyed another night of “roughing it.”

By the time the next year rolled around, I was in college, Billy Ray had moved away and George was running his family’s convenience store. There just seemed to be too much conflict to pull off a five-day event that year. We never had a second annual Riverside Hunting Trip, and by the time what would have been the third one rolled around, I think I was the only one thinking about it. A year later I was in flight school and after that Vietnam. Funny how we let living get in the way of life. Maybe this year I can go. Get one of my sons to go with me. I’ve been back to Riverside once. The Forest Service made a real road right up to the river there and built an actual campground on that bluff overlooking the river. I can see all of this on Google Earth. But I can never sit around the campfire with Bobby, Mike, George and Billy Ray. Not here, anyway. Maybe there’s a Riverside Campground in heaven. If you think you and your friends should have a special hunting weekend, don’t put it off. Go make some great memories.e made camp and relaxed that first afternoon, taking advantage of some food we had packed in. An hour before sunset, we spread out around a nearby field and popped a few doves. Bobby got a teal as it flew up off the river. That shot with his cylinder bore Browning autoloader impressed me. Hitting a teal on the fly is always a challenge, and he did it with a quail gun.

We dressed the duck and the doves and tossed them into an ice chest. Billy Ray and Bobby set up a tripod from which they hung an iron caldron. Mike and I, being the youngest, foraged for firewood. George found some rocks to bed up the fire. Before we bedded down for the night, the caldron had been filled with water, a nice fire built beneath it and the doves and duck put into it to simmer.

For two days we hunted, explored and rested as it suited us. When hunting, we shot anything that was in season. Mike and I spent most of our time hunting with our .22 rifles going after squirrels and rabbits. We didn’t have a dog with us, so dove were the primary feathered target. Bobby did manage to add a few quail to our simmering pot by walking them up from the edge of a field. Billy Ray seemed to be on his game for ducks, and George shot a lot but didn’t bring much game to the pot. We all felt bad for him, but it did give the older guys something to rib him about. Mike and I were kids, so of course we were respectful.

Although our pot was simmering with game we’d killed, we ate from the food supplies we’d brought with us. Saturday morning we cleaned our guns and straightened up the campsite. Bobby took charge of cooking for the evening meal, the rest of us helping under his direction. We moved the caldron away from the fire and strained it, removing all the bones. The meat had been cooked so tender it literally fell away from the bones making our job easier. When Bobby was satisfied all the bones were gone, we added the vegetables we’d kept on ice—green beans, corn, carrots, celery, onions and tomatoes. Bobby added some flour and various seasonings. We placed the caldron back over the fire and stoked it up to let the stew boil awhile. When the fire died down later, the stew continued simmering.

After lunch, we were all looking at our watches and getting restless. It was time to get the womenfolk. We made sure the fire was banked well and that none of our guns or other valuables were left lying about, then piled into the vehicles and hit the trail. The ride back to civilization was just as competitive as the one in, but this time we were more about getting somewhere than putting our vehicles to the test. We were on gravel by 3:00 p.m. and pavement a few minutes later. We cut across Woodson Ridge Road and from there to Little John’s Grocery on Highway 30 for the rendezvous.

We made it to Little John’s before the women were scheduled to arrive, so we bought some cold drinks and snacks and sat on my tailgate to enjoy them. The women showed up close to 4:30—Bobby’s wife Joanne, Billy Ray’s wife Terri, George’s young cousin Vicki who was visiting from Philadelphia, and my girlfriend Peggy, all riding together in Joanne’s Galaxie. After greeting them appropriately, we climbed into our vehicles, each with his own woman to impress (or not!) and headed back to Riverside.

The ride back to the campsite was a little rougher than normal because we plowed into the rough spots fast enough for some tire-twisting, gut-wrenching action—boys showing off. Today, girls drive Jeeps. The girls with us were not impressed with our bouncing, spinning and mud-slinging. But they were impressed when we served up dinner.

It was Brunswick Stew, as good as it gets—wild game cooked over an open fire. We sat around the campfire talking and reliving our hunting experiences for the girls. I don’t remember now, but I’m pretty sure there was some embellishment here or there. After a while, I got out my guitar and we sang a few songs. Then we got quiet and listened to the night sounds. Even the girls agreed we would make this an annual affair. All too soon it was time to take the women back to their car.

This time we used just two vehicles, Bobby’s Bronco and Billy Ray’s Scout. Peggy and I rode with Bobby and Joanne, George and Vicki rode with Billy Ray and Terri. After depositing the women at Little Johns, we went back to our campsite and enjoyed another night of “roughing it.”

By the time the next year rolled around, I was in college, Billy Ray had moved away and George was running his family’s convenience store. There just seemed to be too much conflict to pull off a five-day event that year. We never had a second annual Riverside Hunting Trip, and by the time what would have been the third one rolled around, I think I was the only one thinking about it. A year later I was in flight school and after that Vietnam. Funny how we let living get in the way of life. Maybe this year I can go. Get one of my sons to go with me. I’ve been back to Riverside once. The Forest Service made a real road right up to the river there and built an actual campground on that bluff overlooking the river. I can see all of this on Google Earth. But I can never sit around the campfire with Bobby, Mike, George and Billy Ray. Not here, anyway. Maybe there’s a Riverside Campground in heaven. If you think you and your friends should have a special hunting weekend, don’t put it off. Go make some great memories.

Something has changed in America that has brought on school and church shootings and it’s not the availability of guns. We’ve had guns for 500 years. Just a generation ago kids had guns in their vehicles at school, even brought them in from time to time for show and tell at the Rod & Gun club weekly meeting.

Kids learned to shoot in Boy Scouts, 4-H Club, Junior ROTC, and OMG from their fathers. Guns were everywhere, but there were no school shootings. So what has changed? We now have a society largely shaped by a liberal “progressive “ agenda.

God and prayer are no longer allowed in schools. Teachers aren’t allowed to discipline. The media, in particular television, constantly barrage those who watch and listen with anti-family, anti-father, gender confusing, politically correct programming. Kids play electronic warfare games with little or no supervision. It’s more common to have a fatherless family than what used to be called a “traditional” family.

What does all of this have to do with school shootings you may ask. Everything. It’s not the guns that do the shooting, it’s kids. Mixed up, insecure, unloved kids. Passing another law won’t change that. What will change it is a massive shift of values.

First up is God. Everything about the liberal agenda is anti-God. Liberals don’t want there to be a God to whom they must answer. To them it’s all about man and his independence to do whatever he or she wants and what anybody else wants is irrelevant.

If you want school shootings to cease, love your children. Be with them. Take them to church. Show them a happy family. Teach them to shoot responsibly. It doesn’t take laws. It’s all done with freedom. Freedom to worship God. Freedom to respect your parents. Freedom from ridicule for not being politically correct. Freedom to discipline your kids in love. Freedom to be a family.

What? We don’t have those freedoms? Those of us who are older may understand we do, but for a youngster growing up in today’s society those concepts are alien, so much so that trying to adhere to those values will subject them to ridicule. No wonder some resort to violent acts to scream “pay attention to me!”

As I write this, it’s too late for the Texas Gun Pros gun store, although our training will continue at locations to be announced. After seven years of what started out to be a great run, we are closing our store. Our loyal customers want to know why, so I’ll explain it. I’m going to give you the bullet points up front. Detail will follow.

1. We didn’t have a gun range.
2. We didn’t have enough capital to sustain a long-term slump.
3. The gun industry as a whole is in a slump that began around the first of November 2016.
4. Gun buying is changing to the point where it is difficult for a local retailer to compete with online retailers who somehow manage to sell guns at or below our wholesale cost.
5. Gun Shows. Around here there seems to be a Gun Show somewhere every weekend. Whether true or not, shoppers seem to feel they can get a better deal at a gun show. But they don’t mind doing their research at the local gun shop first.

The Gun Range Issue

From the first day we opened in April 2010, the majority of the calls or email inquiries we got were about our gun range, the one we didn’t have, but Google seemed to think we did. Funny thing about a gun range. We have wanted one for years. I grew up country and the idea of paying other people so I could shoot is foreign to me. We used to drive by this place on I-35 that was vacant and every time we’d drive by I’d think, “That would be a good place for a gun range.” One day, a couple of years after I started doing this, a sign went up:  Shoot Smart Gun Range.

A couple of blocks down the street from our first location was an empty Expo building. My son Phillip and I put together a business plan to convert it to a Main Event of shooting ranges. Our plan called for 60 lanes of handgun, 12 lanes of rifle, 6 classrooms, a large retail store, a gunsmith, indoor paintball, a shooting gallery for kids, a large media-enhanced meeting room for events and a restaurant. The cost, if we could purchase the building reasonably would be about $7 Million. Not having a clue where to go to find that kind of money, since we had no history of development, we put the plan on the shelf. Then one day out of the blue, a financial guy I had helped with a web project several years earlier called me and said he was bird dogging for some private investors and wanted to know if I knew of anyone who had a project they could look at. I knew him and knew his integrity. He presented my plan and the investors said they’d never seen one so well-written. They verbally committed and followed up with a Letter of Intent. Meanwhile, someone else bought the Expo building.

We turned our attention to an outdoor range. An old friend in the Real Estate Development arena turned me on to a piece of property in the heart of the Metroplex that was for sale cheap. I mean really cheap, because it’s in a flood plain. We loved it and figured how to overcome the flooding issue. We obtained a signed loan agreement from the private investors, put down earnest money, incurred legal fees, had engineers do feasibility studies, had architects design a building, got approvals from US Fish & Wildlife regarding lowland marsh areas, and then we were stood up at closing by our lenders. What had seemed too good to be true turned out not to be true. We battled for years, we spent a ton of money. This place was going to be the shooting adventure park all America would love. Indoor and Outdoor Pistol Ranges; Indoor Rifle Range; Archery, Paintball plus all the other stuff we had envisioned for the Expo Building.

In the end, the money didn’t come through, we had expended all of our savings, 401k, profits from the gun business, credit cards, etc. trying to make a gun range happen. We couldn’t do it.

Capital

5121 Davis Blvd.

I’ve been part of several startup companies that were successful enough to be sold to large corporations. From those experiences I came to believe the way to grow a company was to bootstrap it from its own earnings. Apart from what I now call the Gun Range Fiasco, that’s what we did with Texas Gun Pros. It started with a dream of mine to be a CHL Instructor as a part-time endeavor. Jerry Colliver, a friend from work, decided he wanted to do that as well. So in 2010 we started teaching CHL, NRA Basic Pistol and Texas Hunter Education Courses. In April, 2011 we rented a facility on Davis Blvd. to teach those classes and made arrangements with the Shooting Gallery in east Ft. Worth to do the shooting portion of the classes at their range. It wasn’t long before people in our classes started asking us about guns. We obtained an FFL license and started selling guns from a little side room in what was originally designed to be just a classroom.

During the years 2010 to the end of 2016, we trained over 11,000 students and sold somewhere close to 1800 guns. The guns, displayed in a 300 sq. ft. side room to the classroom, easily equaled about 70% of our revenue. Sales growth was steady. In fact, sales almost doubled between 2012 and 2013, then again between 2013 and 2014.  We needed to expand. We felt we had to separate the classroom from the gun store to avoid class interruption, plus we required more space for inventory. Our existing landlord wasn’t able to accommodate us, plus someone else was doing at least part of our dream almost in our front yard at the Expo building. A move seemed in order. Somewhere during this time, Jerry Colliver became so involved in his work in the insurance industry that he stepped aside. My son Phillip, an entrepreneur at heart, stepped in to run the gun store. He was responsible for bringing on board Jerry Lonon, Ryan Bruntz and Sal Castilleja as store employees. Phil Epps, who just passed away in March and Richard Balestrieri were on board as CHL/LTC Instructors.

We wanted to stay in the North Richland Hills area, but being right at the corner of Keller, NRH, Southlake and Colleyville and in a high traffic area couldn’t be bad, right? Even though the rent was four times what we’d been paying? Wrong. Almost nobody comes in our store these days. When they do, they rarely buy. Our income dropped off a cliff. When I say dropped, since the election, our monthly gross receipts have been approximately 1/3 of what they were in 2015. Less than the rent. Less than the payroll. Less than what we have to pay suppliers for the merchandise. Far less, and the hole was getting deeper every day. We were borrowing at a very high rate just to keep the doors open until things turned around.

The Gun Industry as a Whole

8245 Precinct Line Rd.

From the manufacturers on down, the industry is suffering a major setback since the November 2016 election. The candidate who loves guns and gun owners got elected, so what happened? I’m not sure we have it all figured out, but I’ll summarize our thoughts:

• The pressure is off. As a whole, politicians won’t be trying to take away our rights to buy and own guns for a while.
• Prior to the pressure being off, many people bought more guns than they could afford. They’re still paying off credit cards for them. They evidently now believe they don’t need any more guns.
• Society has its head in the sand regarding what many of us believe are rough days ahead. In those days, it will be more important than ever for individuals and families to be able to defend themselves and their property.
• Manufacturers, I believe, are doing the wholesale and retail industry a disservice by providing many new guns, each with a number of options, each year. Nobody can stock them all, but the gun buyers who are still buying want their particular choices once they know those choices are available.

Gun Buying Today

Some guns are being sold. There are still newcomers to the fold and there are still collectors. Today’s shoppers, as a whole, have no understanding of business. They believe no one should make a profit, not understanding that margin, the difference between what the retailer buys a product for and what he sells the product for is necessary to pay rent, salaries, utilities and hopefully, a little ROI. Nope, can’t have that from me! You’ve got to get that from somewhere else. Therefore they’re always looking for the cheapest price, with no regard for their local store.

A common occurrence–way too common–a person walks in the store and starts asking about guns. They’ll spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour examining and handling our products, asking questions of our salespeople (who are all certified instructors), and instead of buying the gun they want from us, will turn around, walk out the door and order it online or buy it at a gun show. A few days later it shows up at our place for a transfer, or they come back to us for training for this fine new gun they bought at a gun show for pretty much the same price we had on it.

For the online purchases, we, or some other dealer, charge a transfer fee, and the buyer paid freight, so in the end they didn’t really save any money. But they did help a dealer in Kentucky stay in business while a dealer in their own backyard is struggling. If this is you, please think about the consequences. And, if you’re going to buy online, don’t utilize the resources of a local dealer to educate yourself on the product, unless you offer to pay them for their time and expertise. And if you think dealers are making big profit on your purchases, you’re sadly mistaken. Dealers are lucky if they can make a 10% margin on a typical gun sale. So if you buy a $500 gun they paid about $450 for it. That other $50 goes to pay rent, salaries and electricity. If you bought that same gun online, at least $50 is going to go to freight and a transfer fee.

We have closed the store because we were unsuccessful in our efforts to build a gun range in spite of sinking a lot of time and money into the effort, our capital is depleted, and our sales fell off the cliff starting last November. The website will stay open for training and our great instructors will still be available. When September hits, I hope to have an online certification process for the new online License to Carry training.

For those of you who were faithful and steady customers and for all your kind words, thank you! For those of you who came into our store in our closing days with somewhat hurtful comments about our failure, you have the same opportunity we did. Go and do it better. I’ll promise to shop at your store and NOT buy online or at a gun show.

Update January 2018

I promised to keep the website online and indicated we would be attempting to conduct online classes. Much has changed:

1. The gun range we were using in Grapevine has now shut down. Sal Castilleja was teaching classes there and doing business as Guardian7 and I can provide you with his contact details upon request.
2. The state has not yet approved my application as an online instructor. The longer they delay the less inclined I am to undertake the effort to produce the courses.
3. Pressure on the Texas Gun Pros Corporation from creditors caused us to dissolve the Corporation and with that went the website.

Sorry.