The Gun Shop has been the home of local hunters and shooters for almost twenty-five years. Originally located on South Market Street, the shop moved into it's own new building on South Buckeye Street in the early 1980s. In the Fall of 1985, this full line sporting goods store was purchased by Nick Renihan who has been keeping local sportsmen supplied with not only the finest equipment, but also some of the best safety advice ever since. During a recent visit with Nick, his love of shooting quickly became apparent as he spoke these words;
I have been involved in firearms ever since I was a small child. Today, I would be very politically incorrect because I got my first guns when I was seven years old. I lived in the country so I grew up in a rural atmosphere. When I was a kid, we'd ride up and down the road on our bicycles looking for bottles we could return for the deposit money. We would go to the local general store and trade our bottles for 22 ammo and then go shoot!
Back then, you could buy ammunition in grocery stores and there were no age restrictions. I'm sure the proprietor of the store, who was also the postmaster and the constable in this small town, checked with my father at some point and that my father's comment was "I don't care," so, I never had any problem. I would come in with the bunch of bottles, get a box of bullets, and off we would go. We were very fortunate to have had an indoor rifle range on our property for the Small Bore Rifle Club, probably the only recreational activity in town. It was a small New Hampshire town and practically all the kids learned to shoot; everything was done by the rules and safety was paramount. As part of growing up there, deer hunting was, and still is, a very big thing. The young people would go out as a group with five or six "uncles" who were watching you to make sure you learned to hunt safely.
Being interested in guns, I started to make friends with people who collected them. Once I was old enough to drive, I apprenticed myself to a local gunsmith. I would work Saturdays in his shop where I had a chance to learn about the maintenance and repair of guns and listen to all of the local hunters' stories. I met some advanced gun collectors who became my mentors and they would take me to gun shows with them where I got a very good education about collecting guns. I learned to look beyond just the make, model, and caliber, and look for and appreciate the rare and unusual details of various guns. We would spend evenings going through collector's books, looking up guns and finding out how they were different and what those differences meant. For example, in many cases, gun manufacturers would change the roll stamp which puts the mark on the metal. You might discover that the reason they changed stamps was just because the old one broke. Discovering these little details and understanding their meaning makes collecting guns more interesting The whole environment provided a positive experience that couldn't have been any better.
The small town where I grew up was very community oriented and everybody was in the fire department, myself included. When I went to college, the library closed at 10:00 p.m. and we needed a place to study that was quieter than the dorms. One of my friends was the son of a fire chief in another town and he suggested we try the fire station since they're open all the time. We got permission to study there, and, before long, we found ourselves running the radio at the station. The next thing we knew, we were riding the trucks and being trained as firemen. When I got out of the army, I went back into the fire service in New Hampshire and expected to be there for the next thirty years. A friend who sold fire equipment for Akron Brass Company of Wooster told me that he was looking for a field salesman and asked if I was interested. I was single, wanted to travel and see some of the country, so I came out and interviewed with Akron Brass and was hired. I was the fifth field salesman for the company and I covered 20% of the country. My first territory was New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware where I worked the big cities and state convention. After 33 years, I found myself in the office as a technical services manager which meant that anybody who called in with a problem with our products would talk to me. Having been a firefighter and a salesman on the road, I could pretty much picture what had happened. I did all my trouble shooting over the phone and it worked well. Being interested in guns, I started coming out to the gun shop here in my off hours, and the rest is history!
The name, The Gun Shop, was the plan. The shop would sell only guns, primarily used guns. People would come in and say, "I wish you could get me a fishing reel," or, some item in other sport fields. The owner at the time would order out of a catalog for the customer until we finally started to stock fishing equipment. When cross bows became legal in Ohio, we began to specialize in cross bows along with everything else. We tried to make sure we had all the accessories and repair parts. We also had reloading components for making your own ammunition which doesn't seem to be as popular today as it once was. We have the powder, the bullets, and the primers. The fishing equipment lead to live bait and now have live bait all year long. Five years ago, a customer who had been injured in an accident decided that rather than sitting around, he'd go to gunsmithing school. The school was in Pittsburgh and he commuted and came home weekends for the entire nineteen months of school. When he got through with schooling, he came here and now we have a full time resident gunsmith.
Gunsmiths repair and build guns. If somebody wants something special, maybe they want a longer barrel, a special caliber, or a particular wood, he can custom build a gun to their specification. His name is Charles Spellman and he also does re-bluing which is a big part of gunsmithing because the bluing wears off and the metal is exposed and it can rust. It has worked well because his background is much the same as mine so we are able to communicate with customers and we are also able to counsel them, particularly on safety. For instance, today, a lot of people are going muzzle hunting for deer and they think they can be as careless with muzzle loaders as they are with conventional firearms but a muzzle loader has certain safety requirements. I tell them what they have to do to be safe, but, they really don't want to believe me because it means more work for them. Now, with Charlie here, he tells them the same thing so maybe they'll really think about it so they don't make a mistake and have an accident.
We take gun trade-ins and we buy them outright. The fact is, there is not a pawn shop in Wayne County and we can't function as a pawn shop because that's a completely different license, but we can buy the guns outright, put them in the book, which is a federal requirement, and place it on the rack for sale. Now in the event that the original owner decides he wants his gun back, we would make him a deal on the gun which doesn't break any existing laws. He would have to fill out the same paperwork as if he were buying any other gun and we have to run the checks that are required for any gun purchase.
All cartridge firearms require the federal review, but, muzzle loaders do not. Several years ago, the Federal Government came out with a program called the "Brady Bill" which was enacted by Congress, and, at the time, the goal was to take firearms away from private citizens. They thought this would save the country. At that time, the states were responsible for doing the background checks and The State of Ohio elected just to check on handguns and not check on long guns. They also charged a fifteen dollar fee for this check and there was at least a three day waiting period. If you bought on a weekend, the three day waiting period became a five day waiting period. Under the provisions of the Brady Bill, the federal government used the FBI, which now has the computers, and one of their offices is where we call to do the background check. They call it "InstaCheck" because normally it takes sixty seconds to perform a background check, and, in return for no longer charging the fee and giving us an "InstaCheck", they require all cartridge firearms including rifles and shotguns be checked as well as pistols.
According to the procedure, to buy a handgun, you must be twenty-one years of age and you must be an Ohio resident to buy in Ohio. For long-guns, rifles and shotguns, you just have to be eighteen years of age and there's no restriction on where you live. The form that's filled out is called the 4473 and is administered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. You fill out that form, they go into their computer banks, and, if you don't show up, you're approved. If somebody's name is the same as somebody who has a record, they would put them on "delay" while they went back and double-checked using the birth date and social security number to make sure they've got the right person.
We have a whole cross-section of firearms normally starting with a new cartridge called a "17 caliber" and the whole way up to rifles. Center-fire rifles can't be used to hunt deer in Ohio. Here, center-fire rifles are only for hunting varmints like woodchucks or they can be used by target shooters. Because you hunt deer with shotguns in Ohio, we do a lot more with shotguns because not only can you hunt deer with them in the proper areas, you can hunt rabbits and birds, too, which makes the shotgun a much wider-used tool. There are not any small bore rifle clubs in the area which is a shame because, like in my case, they provide great training for young people. There are no public shooting ranges, either. There are two private shooting ranges that have very nice facilities, but, you have to be a member to utilize them.
We consider ourselves a full-line, outdoor sporting goods store. We also are one of three deer check station for the Department of Natural Resources in Wayne County and this year we checked in one hundred ninety-eight deer which for us was a very, very nice season. If you shoot a deer, you have to bring it in and have it checked, and we take off the temporary tag which has to be put on in the field and give the hunter a permanent seal which is required to have the deer processed for the meat, have the head mounted, or get the hide tanned.
You can take firearm safety courses at Wooster Community Center. The courses are taught by volunteers in the area, and, a hunters safety course is required for all young people before they can get their first hunting license. If a young person is interested in hunting and has not gotten the safety course under their belt, they certainly should sign up at the Wooster Community Center and they'll be notified when the next courses are available.
The Gun Shop has the sporting equipment and the advice to make your hunting and fishing trips both safe and successful. Stop on by the shop today and don't forget to tell them that The Advocate sent you!
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