re: If a 12ga goes off in a crowded gun store....

Local gun store I use has a couple Mason jars full of live rounds that have been discovered chambered in used trade ins. It's unreal the amount of people who don't even think to clear the weapon even if they are selling it or trading it.

If the story is true and that was a used shotgun pulled off the rack, it's impossible for that to happen if one of several people who handled it would have cleared it.

A friend of mine got a .30-30 for Christmas years ago. His brother thought it was a good idea to load the gun inside the house and, of course, the gun went off making a small hole in the ceiling. They used Crest toothpaste to quickly mend the hole as the ceiling was the same color as the toothpaste. What they didn't realize was the big-arse hole in the roof right over their parents' bed which quickly manifested itself after a rainstorm. Luckily nobody was killed (or hurt) until the soggy ceiling above the parents' gave way one rainy night.