When you try or look at gun you don't have to have a PAL so that's why they don't ask. They only need to ask when they are selling/giving you possession. I know at one of my local gun store they have consigned gun and if you want it but you are still waiting for your PAL to arrive they would let you try it and you can put a deposit on the gun. I can agree that being handed an unlocked gun in a store have never happen to me. But all the store I went usually had the gun on demo so they were all locked. They never had to assemble one for me. I understand that it suck that you didn't have proper customer service but I used to work retail and it's easy to be overwhelm by customer. Also, we don't have crystal ball that tell us which customer will actually buy and which is only looking because that happen. But yeah I think you might be a bit of a safety sally.