Dear Customers and Friends of The Armory,

I have somewhat bittersweet news for you all today. Starting on June 1st of this year, The Armory will begin liquidating it's inventory in preparation for permanently closing it's doors. But wait! It's not what you think! We are not bankrupt and have not run out of money. There is a reason for us choosing to go this path -

Almost a decade ago I started The Armory for one reason and one reason alone - It was my opinion that the Traverse City area had very poor access to modern and tactical weapons and that I thought I could fulfill that need. I remember seeing guns like AK47's advertised in gun magazines and calling around to local shops and being told "Why would you want that? It's a terrorist gun!" or "We don't deal in those here." And so after careful planning, The Armory was born. And it took off like a rocket.

Since then we've been on all kinds of wild adventures. I started a YouTube channel which became very successful, at least to me. We gave back to our community by donating money to local sheriff, fire department, and military charities as well as helped clean up the Hoosier valley range on a yearly basis. We saw Michigan law change during our business operations when handgun purchase permits were no longer required to buy a handgun from an FFL, or when SBR's became legal to own in Michigan. We are also proud to say that we handle all the Cerakote application for a big name in the gun industry: BCM.

But as time goes on it has become obvious that the market share of Brick and Mortar gun shops is waning. More and more people are switching to buying their guns and ammo online - and I don't blame them! It's easy, it's often cheaper, and as technology evolves it will get more and more streamlined. So while The Armory is not doing poorly currently, financially speaking, it came to a point where we had to make a choice: Will we invest **heavily** to try and compete with the online gun marketplace, or move on to something else? It's taken almost a year or more for me to finally answer that question. But unfortunately, we're at a point where I've decided that investing in other projects is a better financial decision.

So while closing The Armory is simply a business decision, I don't want it to downplay just how much I appreciate all of the customers and employees of The Armory that I've met along the way. I met some of the most stand-up type of people in my life while owning The Armory. Some of my life's fondest memories were made here. And I got to see some of the coolest guns I may ever see in my life, come through our doors. The Armory sold over 10,000 firearms to mostly local residents during it's time and and about 5000 guns were serviced or Cerakoted here. We've coated guns for major manufacturers, had our guns featured on blogs and a magazine cover, and we even color-matched an AR15 to a country singer star's favorite car. I've met fans of our YouTube both locally and from as far away as Germany. No matter what career path I find myself on in the future, I can safely say that no matter how much money they make none of them will be as exciting as fun as The Armory was.

And lastly, we leave our local customers in very capable hands. Lane from Ace Buyers, Dave at Great Guns, and the whole staff at Hampels and Shooters are all excellent people. One thing I pride myself in is not developing hostility among competitors, but rather working relationships that benefit eachother. If The Armory does leave any kind of void in the market, I'm sure they can easily take up the slack.

Now, here are some important details regarding the process of closing:

As we go through this process I want to make something abundantly clear: The reason we are closing is to persue new opportunities and NOT because we are going backrupt. It is extremely important to us that our customer's needs are fulfilled before we close up - even if we need to extend leases or licenses to do so! Here are the things that we will absolutely make sure are taken care of:

• All consigned inventory will either be sold, paid for, or picked up before we close our doors. NOBODY will be screwed out of their gun or met with a "sorry we're closed" sign when they come to get their gun or their check.
• All pending NFA transactions will proceed as planned and WILL NOT be cancelled or transferred to another dealer. We will also be contacting the ATF and informing them of our plans and they apparently will speed up the application process. NOBODY will get screwed out of their suppressor, SBR, or machine gun.
• Starting June 1st, all non-consignment inventory will be subject to closeout pricing. All our customers will have an opportunity to buy guns, ammo, and accessories for UNDER dealer pricing.
• While we have no idea how long the liquidation process will take, we're hoping it will be completed by the end of the year. As stated previously, we will keep our business location retained for as long as it takes for NFA transactions to clear. Initially, it's perfectly fine to keep your consignments here but after a month of closeout sales I'll be able to somewhat predict when a good time would be to start calling people to have them pick up their consignments. We will consult a lawyer on how to handle the event that a consignee cannot be contacted or that they have died or something. Again, I have no interest in stealing anyone's stuff and we will do everything we can so that on the day we close up for good, everyone has their stuff back that isn't sold.
• We will continue to take in gunsmithing and cerakote projects at our normal rate until we have an idea of how long liquidation will take. At some point we will stop taking in service projects. That is to be determined.
• Once a "stop date" is determined, any process that is ongoing will no longer be available. This includes putting items on consignment, having items coated or serviced, putting items on layaway, etc.
• Due to the length of processing times, no new NFA transactions will be accepted after June 1st. All previous or pending NFA transactions will continue as normal.

If you have any questions or comments, please add them to the original facebook post or contact us via one of the methods listed below.