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Effectively immediately at locations selling firearms, AAFES is requiring NICS checks on everyone CHL or not. This is wrong! They just lost a customer.

No offense but I doubt they're worried about losing customers.

Sorry, but I gotta ask, why does everyone get so upset about the NICS check. It usually only takes me an extra 10 minutes or so.
Just curious.

When I was a kid, many moons ago, the base exchange sold things for much less than you could get stuff off base. Don't know if this applied to guns, but I would not mind another NCIS check to get a huge discount.

jocat54 wrote:Sorry, but I gotta ask, why does everyone get so upset about the NICS check. It usually only takes me an extra 10 minutes or so.
Just curious.

Because the law allows those of us who have a CHL to skip the check and it was the reason for some of us to get the CHL. We have a few members on this forum who have had delays or denials due to similar names as a banned person in the NICS files. A CHL avoids that problem.

I have never had it take more than a few minutes, but I have seen others wait much longer.

srothstein wrote:

jocat54 wrote:Sorry, but I gotta ask, why does everyone get so upset about the NICS check. It usually only takes me an extra 10 minutes or so.
Just curious.

Because the law allows those of us who have a CHL to skip the check and it was the reason for some of us to get the CHL. We have a few members on this forum who have had delays or denials due to similar names as a banned person in the NICS files. A CHL avoids that problem.

I have never had it take more than a few minutes, but I have seen others wait much longer.

I do understand about a CHL, but it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me, guess to others it is.

AAFES is a DOD agency. Doesn't surprise me at all...

pbwalker wrote:AAFES is a DOD agency. Doesn't surprise me at all...

It's is, and yet still acts like a gready retailer... It is a stand alone, self funded adventure designed to systematically rip off US service men and women.. .. (yes there is truth and personal bias intermixed in that response) Overpriced, no significant discounts for the same service (think big box or on line retailers, cuz it’s the same prices available and same lack of service)

Weapons at most PX’s are mishandled, not stored with care and often damaged in both. The Fort Hood PX, have over a dozen High End hand guns Kimbers, Colt, ect) that are set at FULL retail prices, and look as if they have been dragged behind a car for each trip from safe to counter and back.

bronco78 wrote: It's is, and yet still acts like a gready retailer... It is a stand alone, self funded adventure designed to systematically rip off US service men and women.. .. (yes there is truth and personal bias intermixed in that response) Overpriced, no significant discounts for the same service (think big box or on line retailers, cuz it’s the same prices available and same lack of service)

And yet, when you're downrange in B-F-E there's the AAFES store, selling cookies, skivvies, fans, and all that other crap that GI's so love to have remind them of home in a combat zone.

Look, when you're stateside, AAFES saves you tax, and that's about it. in Texas, that's 8.25%, enough for most to shop there. If you want to burn the gas to go downtown to Cosco or Wally World then do. Understand that AAFES can't undercut the civvies without calling a lot of heat down upon themselves (and those who were in about 30-35 yeas ago will remember when AAFES almost lost the priveledge of hosting exchanges CONUS except in the remotest of bases) - Congress was about THAT close to shutting them down due to pressure from the burgeoning big box and department stores.

n5wd wrote:

bronco78 wrote: It's is, and yet still acts like a gready retailer... It is a stand alone, self funded adventure designed to systematically rip off US service men and women.. .. (yes there is truth and personal bias intermixed in that response) Overpriced, no significant discounts for the same service (think big box or on line retailers, cuz it’s the same prices available and same lack of service)

And yet, when you're downrange in B-F-E there's the AAFES store, selling cookies, skivvies, fans, and all that other crap that GI's so love to have remind them of home in a combat zone.

.

Well perhaps, but not so in my experiences,, at the end of this tour I'll have 51 months deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. In general, very few service members get to see a AAFES except when they are moving though a larger FOB that has one..

In 4 tours this is the first one where I have been on a base that has an AAFES , since we started with the Patrol Base, Combat Out Post concept about 10 years ago, the majority of those deployed are on much smaller locations, not support by AAFES . We are supported by family and friends. AAFES deployed and the Eagle Cash card are bull programs invented by an officer, Senior NCO or Senior Civilian looking to make a mark for them self's, they work great for the minority that are stuck on a FOB or Airbase the majority of the service members get nothing from these "programs"

Make no mistake Im not bashing the rank and file AAFES folks, the subordinates that are working for, helping to run the AAFES locations that are here, great folks,, ya, it's a job,, but they seem to care about doing it as well as can be done.

In my little corner of Afghanistan along the Pakistan border I relied on care-packages from my employer back home rather than the slim-possibility that our "PX" was A) Open, B) Had something delivered that they could sell, C) Had something in stock that I actually wanted.
I can't imagine how tough it was for Vets back in the WWII, Korea or Vietnam that were out in the bush and needed something extra...

Purplehood wrote:I can't imagine how tough it was for Vets back in the WWII, Korea or Vietnam that were out in the bush and needed something extra...

Absolutely, in it's time and day, the PX while deployed was a life line Im sure.
With SPAWAR (Free Internet provided to Service members at even the smallest patrol bases) Local internet service paid for, Full Mail services available, and on line purchases.. the "Need" for AAFES is slim to none. .. Over priced cameras, archaic lap tops, TV's and DVD's priced at full retail..Logo civilian T shirts a service member can’t wear (no civilian clothes allowed) $300 knives no soldier “needs”, $200 auto opening knives no Soldier can legally bring back in personal baggage,, and get confiscated at customs, and or cause soldier to be punished for owning., pallets of Soda, available in the DEFAC for free.. and CHIPS.. yes lots of Chips,,,


Back in my dads day in Korea, and Viet Nam, where you could buy beer.... ok, AAFES great idea.. Today, only use is separating soldiers from deployment pay on CRAP they do not need, and folks back home, friends, family and just GREAT citizens of the United States Of America who just want to help…. Send us plenty of lickeys and chewys

I guess if I was a smoker or dipper, and needed my carton or log weekly.. I'd insist AAFES was there for me... other than that.. If I were King for a day,, I'd send the whole scam packing.

The savings at BX, NEX, PX is not in the prices anymore, but there is no sales tax so knock of 10% on anything you would buy for the same price. They do have sales like anywhere else. FWIW, if you buy a weapon at Carswell JRB, expect SPs to come and escort you off of the base.

bronco78 wrote:

pbwalker wrote:AAFES is a DOD agency. Doesn't surprise me at all...

It's is, and yet still acts like a gready retailer... It is a stand alone, self funded adventure designed to systematically rip off US service men and women.. .. (yes there is truth and personal bias intermixed in that response) Overpriced, no significant discounts for the same service (think big box or on line retailers, cuz it’s the same prices available and same lack of service)

Weapons at most PX’s are mishandled, not stored with care and often damaged in both. The Fort Hood PX, have over a dozen High End hand guns Kimbers, Colt, ect) that are set at FULL retail prices, and look as if they have been dragged behind a car for each trip from safe to counter and back.

All you have said is true. But, if you can, remember the day when AAFES didn't sell firearms? You could get something from the sportsman center, if you liked Highpoint. I just went to the Warrior Way PX here at Fort Hood, after reading this, and they confirmed what the OP stated. CHL no longer matters when purchasing a firearm. I attribute it to the AAFES leadership, politics is their ball. Shoot, we had a heck of a time getting AAFES to even sell firearms. The leadership we worked, at the time, even stated publicly that they didn't like guns and all other Brady comments. Now, millions of dollars later they have changed their minds, but appear to be working backwards. While speaking with the individuals at the Warrior Way, they stated that they will also stop selling any AK types/clones and will no longer display so-called black rifles/assault rifles, except for what they currently carry, after they sell out, special orders only for M16 types/clones. AAFES intent is to only carry arms considered to be sporting rifles, i.e. bolt action? I asked why, and it was told to me that it was because AKs are easily converted to fully automatic and assault rifles being sold to Mexico. AAARRRGGH!! To be fair this is AAFES policy not the Fort Hood PX. So to all service members and those who utilize AAFES, turn in ICE complaints to the AAFES Headquarters. As bronco stated they are still in it for the money. Most soldiers are not interested in tradionary deer hunting rifles, they want those M16/M4 clones. Weapons are one of the highest selling items, just behind computers/gear. Politics trump and I believe many senior officers are horrified that soldiers are buying firearms and are not the toy robots they so highly desire. I could start a hole new subject on that premise alone.