Dunsmuir Hardware

The traditional hardware store of Dunsmuir - California's historic railroad town. Founded by Dunsmuir's first mayor - Alexander Levy - in 1894 and continuing today as a full service TRUE VALUE hardware store. This blog is simply intended to be a running commentary on operating a century old small town hardware store. Also please check our our website at www.dunsmuirhardware.com

My Photo
Name:
Location: Dunsmuir, California

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Ammo


Times have sure changed! When I was sixteen I went into Winters Hardware in my little Nebraska hometown and made a down payment on a shotgun. I wanted it for hunting in the fall so Mr. Winters held it for me all summer and I made payments on it from the money I made working my tail off in the hay fields. A couple of years later I bought a .22 caliber handgun without any background check or waiting period or even any forms to fill out. When I was in high school my hunting parners and I would meet early in the morning with thermos bottles filled with hot coffee. We stopped at the bakery on the way out of town and picked up a bag of sweet rolls, fresh and hot right out of the oven. We would either go to our duckblind on the North Platte River or to any of a number of corn fields or tree rows to hunt pheasants. When it came time to go to school we made a mad dash - usually getting there just moments before the bell - and stashed our guns and boots and gear in the trunk of our cars in the school parking lot. Then when the last bell rang in the afternoon we dashed to our cars and headed back out to get in some more hunting.
Times have sure changed!
Imagine a sixteen year old buying a shotgun or an eighteen year old buying a handgun or high school students with guns in the trunks of their cars in the school parking lot.
When we bought Dunsmuir Hardware back in 1975 the Federal Firearms License kind of came with the store. Licenses were easy to get and there were several of them in town, held by people who dealt in guns as a sideline business or hobby. One by one those licenses have been given up as the regulations and requirements and expenses involved have increased. Now we have the only Federal Firearms License in Dunsmuir and one of a very few in the whole county. There have been many times when frustration with those regulations and requirements and expenses made us give serious thought to giving up our license but we've held onto it. We know that if we ever gave it up we could never get it back.
We don't carry an inventory of guns - that does terrible things to insurance rates and the Department of Justice has strict requirements for storing guns that would be hard for us to meet. We do special orders for guns for customers - rifles, shotguns and handguns. We have an assortment of gun accessories such as cleaning supplies, holsters, and targets, and we stock ammunition as you can see in the photo. We are licensed by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms. We are certified by the State of California Department of Justice. We process the transfer of firearms between private parties, between other dealers and private parties, and of course the sale of firearms by us. It's a tangle of red tape with forms and requirements and waiting periods and background checks and we do our best to make the process fairly painless.
It's an interesting facet of our business that we enjoy.

2 Comments:

Blogger Dave said...

I experienced part of that change first-hand. I used to go to Bolenbaugh's Hardware store in my little Ohio hometown to buy BBs for my Daisy Red Rider. Then, when I was about 14 years old, they suddenly told me I'd have to have my parents buy the BBs - the law had changed! God bless those thoughtful politicians for keeping the world safe from marauding 13 year-olds armed with BB guns!

10:02 AM  
Blogger Ron said...

Dave - Oh how I remember my Daisy Red Rider! Do you know that you can still get them? I wonder what ever happened to mine...

Ron

12:50 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home