Gunning For Good: A Gun Dealer Helps Kids

If you are timid about, or even repulsed by, guns, you might find a stroll inside Bob's Little Sport Shop in Glassboro wickedly unnerving. Rows of rifles lined up at eye level to the right of you, more to the left of you and, below them, in glass case after glass case, hundreds of handguns. The place reeks of nascent firepower.

Wayne Viden, 43, is entirely comfortable in his weapons-crammed workplace. Like brother Bob, 44, he got his hunting license at age 10, killed a rabbit at 11. He knows that some look down on his career choice and says that even his wife "doesn't like killing animals, but she understands." The business started by his father, the "Bob" of Bob's, is stamped into his DNA, and he holds his head high.

"I don't apologize for what I do because there is nothing wrong with it," he said. "It's part of our freedom. We're proud of what our father has accomplished with this shop and with the NRA [National Rifle Association]. It makes us want to follow in his footsteps."

This is your cue, if you're a hardened gun detester, to roll your eyes about still another right-wing zealot who has taught his kids how to shower the land with guns and bullets and violence. You may even recognize Bob Viden, 69, as the gun dealer who spouts patriotic poetry on self-paid radio spots on WPHT-AM and makes you shudder at his flag-waving.

But hold off, brother, to hear the other part of this story, the African part. That's the part where white-maned Bob Viden gazes up to the wall of his shop, at a photo of a smiling young African girl amidst other photos depicting African scenes.

Viden, you see, spends a lot of time in Africa. Sometimes killing big game. Sometimes working with missionaries to feed little children.

"Africa for me started when I was 16 and a guy who worked with my dad told me all about his trips there," explained the elder Viden. "He put such a bug in me that I stopped reading comic books and started reading Hemingway. I just had to go someday. First time was in 1984, and that was 17 trips ago." He has bagged Cape Buffalo, kudu (of the antelope family), lion and more.

He also snapped that little girl in the photo. "She's smiling because of her first pair of shoes," he said. He stared thoughtfully at the image, a serious look on his face. Bob Viden seems often serious, especially about some core issues — freedom, gun safety, kids in need.

During one of those 18 African trips taken by Viden and wife, Gail, the couple was working with missionaries in the Congo.

"A little boy came up and asked 'Can you get me a pair of shoes?'" Viden recalled. "The missionaries said that helping children with shoes was important because parasites enter the body through the feet. She said we could save a lot of children if we could get shoes over there."

Then, matter-of-factly: "So we came back and started collecting shoes."

That was 1995, and the next trip back the Videns took 200 pair of shoes — well, new sneakers really. Then the concept took off. "We started the project [Operation Footsteps] through the shop, and then the church [Methodist Church of Glassboro] got involved, then many others got involved, sending us shoes from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, all of South Jersey. The Safari Club chapters of Central Jersey and Delaware Valley, they all helped out, so many."

Like always, the couple took a few hundred shoes when visiting Africa last year, but the major donations now ship in containers loaded into ocean freighters. "I'm taking 5,000 pair of shoes to Indiana Monday. They'll go into a container headed to Zambia."

The tally so far, said Viden: 65,000 pair of shoes.

The Viden sons, both graduates of Glassboro High and Rowan University, marvel at the evolution of their father, who led two lives for 20 years, climbing poles by day as a lineman for the Atlantic City Electric Company, working in the garage-based gun business by night. Back then, Dad was the guy who taught them to hunt. Over time, they saw him evolve into a respected board member of the NRA, a mover and shaker with various other advocacy groups, and a humanitarian they admire.

"In the '60s, Mom pretty much ran the business during the day, with my grandfather [Bob Sr.] until Dad left his job" said young Bob. "Wayne and I just enjoyed what he taught us. As kids we pretty much worked just to go on hunting trips. We both lived at home, had junky cars. But I hunted bear in Canada; mule, deer and elk in Montana. Dad didn't push us to hunt, just showed us, and we liked it. If he had pushed, I probably would have rebelled." He has passed on the sport to his sons, 11 and 14, who both got licenses at age 10 and killed their first pheasants last winter.

The attraction of the outdoors and hunting was powerful, said Wayne. "I never wanted to do anything else. My grandfather taught me a lot about working with the bows, and I like working in the archery department. I like to talk about hunting. Setting up customers with the right equipment is satisfying. You're always learning here, plus, I get to see my family every day. How many people can say that?" (The oldest sibling, Wendy, works in the office part-time.)

The elder Bob Viden is surprised himself at some turns in the road, including the radio poetry spots. "I have no idea why I am doing it. I just started it a year ago, and it worked out well," he said. "I have been writing poetry for 20 years, had some published in some periodicals." (Wendy also has compiled them into a slim book.)

After 10 years, the garage trade moved into a new building, and Viden eventually quit the day job. "My wife and father gave me an ultimatum. You built this place, so quit the electric company or we sell the business." Gail has been at his side for every African trip, through all the business challenges. And he has persuaded both sons to visit Africa. Twice. ("I took my wife there on our honeymoon, a wonderful place to be," said young Bob. "Then the kids came, so no trips now.")

Like Wayne, young Bob said running the shop with his father and brother is an ideal career choice because "a cubicle for me would be deadly." The sons play down their role in Operation Footsteps. "We move some things around, but he does most of the work," said Bob. "I think it is a noble thing, something that others might do for a few years and get tired of it, but he stays with it, gets great satisfaction out of it. He is passionate about helping people."

Ever tease dad about being a media star? We do not rib our father, said Bob, who thinks he can put his finger on a turning point in Dad's life.

"He wasn't always as artsy as he is now, writing poetry, writing songs. Yes, he writes words to songs, and a friend at church puts them to music. It wasn't always that way, but back in 1992 he had a heart attack and I think he had an awakening; he realized that there is more to life than just you."

While he doesn't emote like the late NRA icon Charlton Heston, whom Viden stood next to when sworn in as an NRA board member, the patriarch at Bob's Little Sport Shop does articulate gratitude in his terse, flat style: "I've been blessed."

One blessing he cites: the great people he has worked with on the board of the NRA, the pro-gun association reviled by liberals. And there's the One Shot Hunt Club (OSHC), a group of American hunters so thrilled by the beauty and game of Africa that it formed to give something back. That something includes wheelchairs (1,000 so far), aid to African schools, and establishment of computer centers. Bob Viden is on the board of directors.

The Glassboro-born gun dealer gets lots of phone calls thanking him for his radio poetry. He says he may do more. Not sure when; he just does things as they occur to him. And in those books and songs, Bob, is there a point you are trying to get across, an action you hope to trigger?

"I just want people to vote freedom when they vote," he said.

Gun Sales Have Spiked, So Has Age of Buyers

Here's a news blast: More and more baby boomers literally are going boom — with handguns.

That's the word from Glassboro gun dealer Bob Viden, who said the large number of first-time gun purchasers in their 50s and 60s has dramatically increased overall sales in the past two years, not only at his outlet, Bob's Little Sport Shop, but across the nation.

"It used to be that first-time gun buyers were 20 or so, just old enough to purchase a gun," said Viden, who has been selling guns since 1965. "Now we're getting guys in their 50s and 60s, which is why we have increased to six the number of safety instructors here."

While Viden said he could not divulge the exact number of new gun permits processed through his shop, he did say that the increase has "happened all over the country." (Specific numbers for gun purchases in the state are not made public, according to a spokesperson for the New Jersey State Police.)

First-time buyers are choosing handguns predominantly, Viden said. He said a nationwide gun-sales increase began with the election of President Obama in 2008. He offered his guess at the reason.

"They were speculating that there would be more restrictions placed on the ownership of firearms and they wanted to get [a weapon] before those restrictions came in. The other reason was talk about all the new taxes that might be placed on guns and ammunition that would wind up with guns costing a fortune.

"Neither one has happened, and we hope they won't."

But those possible reasons, accurate or not, dealt only with the timing of a purchase. Why do more people want guns?

His guess: "I think all the unrest throughout the world and the Middle East recently caused people to think, 'Maybe I should be able to defend myself if something happens.'"

But there also is another type of first-time purchaser, typified by a woman in the music department of his church, someone he has known for years. He had no idea how she felt about firearms. But, after his shop installed a nine-lane indoor shooting range, the woman asked if it was true that he now had a range?

"I told her yes, but I really didn't know where she was coming from. Then she said to me: 'I always wanted to shoot pistols.'

"I said 'Come on over and shoot.' Now she calls my wife up and they come shooting here. She's having a ball."

Viden's warning to first-timers: "It's really foolish to buy a gun and not know how to use it." He recommends a firearms safety course taught by a qualified instructor.