Have been in a few when I travel farther south, don't have any conveniently close. It's easy to see the fallacy of places like these in stock and employees, especially for those of us that have fond memories (past or current) of a local (or familiar) mom and pop dedicated gun shop. Cabela's, Bass pro, Academy and others are handicapped by size, location, need for staff, and unfortunately, local politics. As far as chasing down thieves . . . I don't know what the solution is but I know what we're doing at present is failing miserably. It doesn't rise to the implications of a thug snatching a pistol and heading for the door but recently some inbred mope (for whatever reason) went into a Bass Pro in Florida, took a net and absconded with a fifty pound tarpon from the fish tank display. Apparently no one thought much about a guy carrying a huge wriggling fish from the back of the store out the front door. (
Fort Myers fish thief).
I refuse to let DICK'S "Sporting Goods" have a penny of my money since they purged the 'evil stain' of firearms and ammunition from their "sporting goods" stores. More like a Kohl's for yuppie golfers, kayakers, and contact sport posers.
During the crunch I happened to be in the Charlotte, NC area and found a few boxes of ammo that were in short supply in my local pond that a shooting pard wanted me to look for in an Academy - nice store, not so great prices (not that I buy much anymore) but typical of the offerings in such high population bergs.
General employees chasing down a gun thief is probably not a good idea for all the reasons that have been mentioned. My beef is that stores with these kinds of policies always seem to have surveillance systems with the camera quality of first generation back-up camera on a car - couldn't get face detail on a customer 20 feet away, much less a license plate number of his getaway car pulling out of the parking lot. A lot of crime takes place because the bad guys have learned that even if your whole caper is caught on camera from multiple angles that because of cheap, crummy equipment there's a better than 50-50 chance you'll never be identified. Until the merchants decide to spring for better resolution cameras and the manufacturers start selling quality high resolution security cameras for a price that makes them practical these things will continue. Those of us whose human nature recoils at just standing idly by while a thief can steal a firearm (with all the implications of that manifested) will continue to chafe and wrestle with just watching it transpire without trying to stop such behavior.
