You can find just about anything at John Lamplugh's gun shows. There's beef jerky for the hunting crowd, "confetti cannons" to perk parties up, Amazing Greg's Lens Cleaner, and then there's the more ominous stuff like hatchets, Nazi flags, and t-shirts with slogans like When I snap, you'll be the first to go.
But the crowds who packed into Lamplugh's gun show last weekend at the Philadelphia National Guard Armory in the Northeast weren't there for the backpacks and brass knuckles. They came for the guns. And they cleaned the place out.
Mass murders by bullet-spraying madmen— Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Fort Hood, Aurora, and Newtown— have inspired a spate of gun-control proposals, including one by President Obama that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, while requiring more stringent background checks.
Perhaps predictably, such moves galvanized the gun-rights community, whose members have rushed to buy up arms and ammunition they fear might be banned. At last weekend's two-day gun show in the Far Northeast, the line of customers snaked around the armory's parking lot long before the show opened for business. Because New Jersey doesn't allow gun shows, many had come from across the river. Minutes after the doors opened, the aisles grew as crowded as the beer booth at an Eagles-Cowboys game, as customers, mostly men, jockeyed for a clear view of the martial merchandise.
Lamplugh, as owner of Carlisle, Pennsylvania-based Appalachian Promotions, organizes about 35 gun shows a year in Pennsylvania and Maryland, including this Philadelphia show. He's had three shows since the Newtown, Connecticut massacre and attendance skyrocketed at each, he said. "I've upped our staff to accommodate it, and I've had vendors cancel because they're sold out of guns. Manufacturers and sellers can't keep up with the demand," Lamplugh said. "If you tell Americans they can't have something, they want it ten times as bad."
Few buyers would talk with this reporter, though, muttering complaints about the "liberal media", while others shouted insults at a television news crew. All had strong opinions about any proposals to restrict guns.
"I've been stockpiling ammunition since Clinton was in office," said Peter Abate, 33, of Morrisville in Bucks County, who had come looking for spare springs for his M-16's high-capacity magazines. "For people who say 'guns kill people', I guess we can blame pens for spelling errors, then."
Clyde Havrilla, 65, came not for guns, but rather for parts to make more of the distinctive bullet bracelet and earring that he wore. But the Vietnam veteran keeps a rifle in every room of his Manville, New Jersey home, and rejects any efforts to restrict guns. "We have a Second Amendment right to have them guns," Havrilla said. "Just because you have a couple of insane people who went nuts and killed people doesn't mean the rest of us are going to go nuts and kill people."
Many dealers echoed such sentiments. "Why don't they ban hammers or baseball bats? Those have been used to murder people," said Mike Steele, 27, a licensed dealer from Aston in Delaware County. "A gun ban would just affect law-abiding gun owners. Criminals would still find a way to get them. It's like crack-cocaine and meth and any other drug: they're illegal, but that doesn't stop people from doing them."
Some gun owners' commitment to their cause is so resolute that they derailed one of Pennsylvania's biggest gun shows last week. Show promoter Reed Exhibitions decided to bar modern sporting rifles from its Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, set for early February in Harrisburg, in an effort to avoid "negative attention" that would "disrupt the family-oriented event."
But after more than three hundred of twelve hundred scheduled vendors pulled out in protest and more than nineteen thousand people "liked" a Facebook page boycotting the event, Reed announced that it would cancel the show.
Cops often lurk undercover at shows like this, but there is one thing they can do nothing about: the so-called gun-show loophole. That's somewhat of a misnomer, because the loophole is not limited to gun shows. Federal law requires criminal background checks only for guns sold through licensed firearm dealers. That adds up to just sixty percent of all US gun sales, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Anyone else can sell a gun without a license or a background check as long as gun sales aren't their primary business. Such private sales often occur at gun shows but also online, through classified ads and among people anywhere.
Pennsylvania requires background checks on all handguns, no matter the seller. But private sellers of long guns aren't required to check a buyer's background. That's a lure for some buyers. "I've had people be surprised about the background check; they came to the show because they didn't think they needed one here," said Bill Steele, 63, a licensed dealer from Delaware County. "As a licensed dealer, I have to do background checks, but I want to do them, too. I don't want to put guns in the hands of a criminal."
Gun shows are big business. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2007 estimated that up to 5,200 shows are held each year in the United States, with larger shows selling about a thousand guns a weekend. Lamplugh estimated that his Philly show drew about ten thousand people.
At Lamplugh's show, gun enthusiasts predicted that their rights would prevail in the gun-control fight. "I got people calling me from Massachusetts, Chicago, other places," Lamplugh said. "In their areas, they can't get AR-15s. They can't get ammunition. An AR-15 a month ago cost $800; now you have a hard time getting one for $3,000. People are buying guns and standing up against gun control. Politicians should listen to them, because the politicians work for the people."
Rico says he was just at a different gub show with his friend Gus, and they were doing a good business, but Rico still wouldn't buy an AR-15 if you gave it to him...
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