Gun Shows and Gun Culture
You would think it would be enough for the gun control zealots to legislate, license, register, restrict, or outlaw firearms, ammunition and the law-abiding firearm owner to within an inch of their very souls, but that just isn’t enough. They want to eliminate anything to do with the horrors of “gun culture” from our communities and from our minds, because THAT is what will make everyone safe! Welcome to the beginning of the end of gun shows.
What is the latest and greatest in vogue gun control scheme out here on the (extreme) left coast? Getting rid of gun shows of course! It’s all the rage out here in California. Local, county and state politicians are jumping on the bandwagon to stop gun shows from operating in publicly owned venues. Why? Duh… guns. If it has anything to do with firearms in any way, shape or form, they want to get rid of it.
Where is this going on? San Diego County, Santa Clara County and the State of California for the Cow Palace in Daly City… among others. Politicians backed by “local activists” are making the case that banning gun shows will somehow make everyone feel safer.
For a hint at the logic, here are the comments from State Senator Scott Wiener who is backing SB221, a bill that would specifically bar the historic Cow Palace from hosting events that would involve the sale of guns or ammunition.
“Our country is awash in guns, and schoolchildren are dying,” said Wiener. “We need fewer guns, and we need to stop the proliferation of guns whose only purpose is to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. We should not have gun shows in the heart of the Bay Area. The Cow Palace gun shows should have ended a long time ago. Better late than never.”
And just to add a little bit of incentive, the budget for a new roof for the 1940’s era Cow Palace is being tied into the proposal.
If you think this sounds like a solution in search of a problem, you would be correct. Gun shows at venues around the state must follow all local, county, state and federal regulations, which they do to a tee. The widely spread myth of a “gun show loophole” has long since proven to be nothing more than a means to cause fear in the eyes of the uninformed public to get them to support more “common sense gun control laws”.
What is really going on is an assault on gun culture. And their definition of gun culture is anyone or anything that sees firearms in a positive way. Or, the way they look at it, unless you see firearms as something that should be completely banned from civilian ownership and use, you are part of the gun culture problem.
Law-abiding citizens legally own roughly four (4) million firearms in this country. The reasons they own them are as varied as our nation. There is no one profile of a “gun owner” in the United States, people from every walk of life, every race, every religion, every political affiliation in every corner of the country own them and use them responsibly each and every day.
These good people buy everything from new and used firearms, ammunition and accessories all the time. The firearms industry itself makes up about $ 31.8 billion of the U.S. economy, and that was in 2012.
Have you ever been to a gun show? If you have, you know what’s there. For those who haven’t, it’s a fascinating collection of new and used just about everything you can think of. Gun shows can fill entire convention centers or just a small meeting hall in a basement.
Overwhelmingly gun shows are populated by small vendors and companies with some kind of a niche in the market. You can find everything from new and used firearms from just about every corner of the globe. If you are looking for historic military firearms (weapons of war in gun control speak), you’ll find them from every military conflict, from every side of the conflict. You’ll see hard to find magazines and parts from out of production firearms that nobody else may ever have. You’ll find more accessories than you knew existed, some innovative, some a little strange. You’ll also find hats, mugs, jewelry, clothing, commemorative pins, patches and coins, crafts and creations as well as fishing gear and self-defense training programs mixed right in together.
I went to a gun show just this weekend and as usual, I was amazed at the variety of what you can find there. I saw a range of items from blunderbuss to modern sporting rifles, and everything in-between. I saw an original Red Rider BB Gun, an actual World War II FP-45 Liberator and custom hunting rifles that cost more than a luxury SUV. I saw books, I saw rare and hard to find parts, I saw custom crafted accessories I’ve never seen before and I saw ammunition I didn’t think still existed.
But as fascinating as the items on the floor were, I was more interested in the people. Despite what the gun control zealots tell you, I saw a cross section of the community. I saw old and young, men and women, wealthy and not so well off. I saw elderly in wheel chairs and kids in strollers. I met some wonderfully knowledgeable people who knew WAY more than I know about firearms, and a few blowhards that are better at talking than actually knowing things.
In other words, when you go to a gun show, you’re going to find a room or rooms full of people who see the positive benefits of owning firearms, each in their own special way.
This is what the politicians are trying to stop. People conducting legal commerce, acting in accordance with every law, rule and regulation tossed in to make their lives a little more expensive and harder. They are trying to stop people from learning, sharing knowledge, innovations, ideas and a little bit of bullshit along with legal firearms and accessories.
In 1997, the U.S. 9th Circuit found that a Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors’ ban on selling guns at county-run venues to “avoid sending the wrong message to the community relative to support of gun usage,” violated the First Amendment rights of gun show promoters. While seemingly an important ruling, this hasn’t stopped communities and the State of California from continuing to work on banning gun shows and/or gun sales in the name of “public safety”. After all, this is the 9thCircuit and Constitutional rights are always in flux.
Gun shows are not, and never have been a public safety issue in California, or anywhere in the country. They are however a demonstration of the positive side of gun culture, which makes them a prime target of the gun control zealots in our community and the politicians they support. It’s just another NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) argument against legal commerce and politically incorrect thinking.
I choose to think incorrectly.
Bob
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