Granolahead
by Justin Swift
eda_koppo@yahoo.com
September 26, 2001
I worked with some friends selling videotapes at the most recent Cow Palace
gun show, and while on a break walked around to see the other tables. During my
walk, I did something I rarely do: I completely ignored a table. Why? Signs at
the table read FREE GUN LOCKS. On seeing these I immediately dismissed this as
an attempt by either a manufacturer or a dealer "to appease the tiger in
hopes of being eaten last," and paid the table and those manning it the
attention I felt they deserved.
On the second day of the show, a woman came up to me and said she’d heard
we had a BB gun for sale. As it happened, we did have a lone AirSoft pistol for
sale on a table holding closeout merchandise, and brought it to her. I then saw
the gun lock in her hand and realized who she was.
"I’m trying to get something so I can show how this lock goes in a
gun. I have pictures, but most people understand it better when they see it for
themselves." As she said this, she was attempting to open the lock, a
Master padlock with a cable for a shackle rather than a bar. Despite the keys
being in it, she failed to open the lock until another customer reached over and
managed the Herculean effort of twisting the key 45 degrees. She then handed me
the lock.
Looking at it, I knew the cable wouldn’t fit, but tried inserting it into
the bore for her benefit: "The bore’s too small for this. Besides,"
I said, racking the slide, "there’s no open chamber or ejection port for
the cable to come out. This won’t do it for you."
"Well aren’t there plastic training guns that the police use that have
chambers?"
I replied, "No. Those are solid plastic, used for disarming and
retention practice. Besides, no one here has those for sale."
"Well, how much do real guns cost? Maybe I could get one of
those--I don’t know much about them." No kidding, I thought, but
couldn’t bring myself to say.
"I wouldn’t try putting this down anything smaller than a .38," I
said, "and the cheapest one of those would probably be somewhere around
$200. Besides, per California law, all real guns at gun shows have to have their
actions tied shut, so you wouldn’t be able to put the lock on it anyway if you
had one."
She appeared baffled by this, and said "But aren’t there plastic guns
like the police have that would work?" Didn’t we just cover this?
I thought, holding my tongue and trying not to hold my head.
"No--they might have old guns that have been deactivated and painted
red. They’d have the firing pins ground off and so forth, but those obviously
wouldn’t be for sale. You’d have to buy a real gun and have the same work
done to it." Throughout this exchange, her eyes seemed to glaze over every
time I explained the reality of the situation to her. I omitted the maze of
hoops she’d have to jump through in order to actually buy a real gun; I
didn’t think she could handle that. She paused, shrugged her shoulders, and
said, "Oh, well," and walked off. I recounted some of what had
happened to my friends, who had witnessed part of this conversation, thinking what
a granolahead! It occurred to me that any organization that attracted people
like this deserved to be defunded, and I determined to do my part. A half hour
or so later, I went to their table to claim my free gun lock.
When I arrived at the table, Granolahead was waiting for me, and opened a
photo album depicting guns with their lock installed. She said, "See, I
have pictures, but a model would really be better," as if I rather than she
had been asleep during our last conversation. I then picked up a gun lock, and
her glazed eyes opened wider. "Oh, good! You’ll need to sign a waiver,
though," and she handed me a sheet of paper.
It was a liability release (see below for the text), holding harmless a
"Safe Kids" coalition run through Stanford Hospital, in the event the
lock was defective or injury resulted from its use.
Flabbergasted, I quickly signed a random name to the waiver (I doubted the
name on my nametag--or much of anything else--registered on her conscious mind),
and picked up another release because this it was so ludicrous, no one would
believe me without seeing it. She looked uncomfortable when I took the second
release, but said nothing.
I read the release in greater detail during a down moment at our tables. The
back of the thing that I hadn’t read earlier requested information such as
name and address, but promised this information would only be used to notify
participants if the lock was recalled. Great--gun registration for the truly
dimwitted, I thought. I had to wonder at the liability release, though: if
this coalition’s lawyer knew that using a gun lock might result in injury to
the user either by failure or delay of action, why did it not occur to the rank
and file before they came up with this idea?
All in all, it wasn’t a total loss. I came away with a good laugh, a
textbook example of what talk show host Geoff Metcalf calls a person "who
doesn’t let facts interfere with their preconceived opinions," and most
of all, a free, street-legal pocket flail. Thanks, Granolahead!
The two-page Liability Release Form:
Page 1 Page 2
California "Safe Kids Coalition" Website:
http://www.california-safekids.com/index.html
Some misinformation on this site can be found here:
http://www.california-safekids.com/preventing/firearm.html
Articles on Triggerlocks:
