Online shopping isn't impervious to error, and Seth Horvitz recently found himself on the side of a huge mistake. What was supposed to be a new HDTV ended being a deadly weapon instead. How did a third-party Amazon merchant screw up those boxes?
Although Amazon wasn't the seller that shipped Horvitz a Sig Sauer SIG716 semi-automatic assault weapon — the company doesn't sell and doesn't allow its third-party merchants to sell firearms; only airsoft guns and toy replicas.
After attempting to contact the seller with no replies, Horvitz notified the Metropolitan Police Department. Stunned by the mishap, its officers promptly confiscated the weapon.
Horvitz, who's got a wife with a child underway, said that all he wanted was a 39-inch Westinghouse LED TV to use as a secondary computer monitor. He never expected to get his hands on any guns. Well, he got more than that: Horvitz claims that gun rights blogs have mocked him for notifying the cops about the rifle shipped to him.
The situation is rare enough, and wouldn't have been news if it was, say, a misplaced basketball. An assault rifle — now there's a shipping label you want to be a little more careful with. We'll see what happens when Amazon and the seller fess up on what happened. In the meantime, don't get your hopes up if you're looking for a new gun. The chances of it happening again are slim to, hopefully, none.
