But when I've had the wherewithal, I've been shopping for gifts which is something of a challenge here in Greater Redneckia. The selection is spotty, particularly if you are looking for clothes other than outdoor gear or the offerings over at Little Wasilla. We really don't have a downtown like a major city, and no, Virginia, even Anchorage really isn't a major city. But I digress.
We do have a lot places to purchase guns. Two of the grocery chains (WallyWorld and Fred Meyers) stock them along with plantains and womens' underthings. (Safeway, however, does not. Funny that.) The outdoors gear shops stock them. And then there are the local gunsmiths. Face it, one area in which a consumer has robust options in Squarebanks is in the selection and purchase of firearms.
Which worked out great, because I'd settled on a .22 for the S.O. this year. Unfortunately, the big chains use the model I chose as a loss leaders, so it is not stocked by the local businesses (gunsmiths) which frustrated my plan to shop local. But Frontier Outfitters had a few in stock and that settled it.
I was not prepared, however, for the humor that is the form one fills out to purchase a gun. (I've been given guns, but never purchased one.) Is the form meant to prevent the sale of a gun to a criminal, or is it just to aid in tracking them down after they've done something wrong? Questions I had to answer:
- Are you a fugitive from justice?
- Have you ever used or possessed illegal drugs such as marijuana, etc?
- Are you an illegal alien?
- Have you ever renounced your U.S. citizenship?
3 comments:
Last year, for Christmas, I bought a Ruger 10/22. A lovely little gun that has since plinked off more ptarmigan than anything else I own. I bought it from a chain store (I'd love to buy local, but no one else had it in stock), and while I was filling out the paperwork, I had a laugh at the form too. I said to the clerk something like, "Yeah, if I was a fugitive, they think I'd answer yes?"
The clerk looked at me with a stern look in her eye, alarmed at what she'd just heard. "Are you a fugitive?" She asked, quite seriously. I stared incredulously. "Uh, nuuuuuuu?"
"Oh, good. If you were a fugitive, it'd be illegal to sell you it."
I could see I was dealing with East Fairbanks' brightest and best, so I decided not to point out that if I was a fugitive, a) I probably had no qualms about breaking the law and b) would say 'no,' too. She did not strike me as the type to appreciate such an insight.
'Cause... yeah... if I'm a fugitive from justice, I'm gonna like tell ya that straight up, mate. Right here on this-here form and all.
One store in our quaint little City-Village that DOES have some cool things: "If Only..." on Cushman St.
Eclectic, imported, humorous, cultured... they have it all (except guns). I bought my last two guns over at Alaska Guns & Ammo- local yokels, and they can order just about anything.
Perhaps they are filter questions, i.e. if you are stupid enough to answer in the affirmative to any of those sort of questions you are too stupid to actually purchase the gun.
TY: The salesperson helping me came back after making the require phone call and said, "Well, I guess you buried the bodies deep."
Will check out "If Only".
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