Sure, call it "seller beware." Seller beware, if you try to swindle the honest and hard-working, some of them will point it out. Seller beware, they authenticity of your claims will be challenged. Seller beware, some people have a very low tolerance for BS.
I think that anyone trying to mislead others should expect to be called out on it, and if for whatever reason, I was ever on the other side of the table, I would hope somebody would set me in my place. The Golden Rule states simply that you do onto others as you'd have them do onto you, treat people like you want to be treated. I don't think I violated this. I treated him with about the same respect as he treated me and responded in kind.
As it is, I've sat on a broken USP Tactical 45 for years now knowing full well I could probably pawn it off on some poor sap whose played too much Rainbow Six. Why? Because I don't feel right misleading others and thus don't feel comfortable selling somebody something I know to be broken.
If they are going to charge people money to get into these events, the least they could do is make it worth it. People don't pay to get into a building so they can have their intelligence insulted, nor do they look forward to spending an afternoon being swindled and mislead.
Maybe I should have asked to handle it. But it occurred to me it didn't matter what he said, I was still going to check the arsenal markings to confirm my suspicions. At that point I was 99% positive that I was looking at a Chinese rifle, and I wasn't about to let him hide behind a 4" by 5" florescent pink sign. Like I said, what is he going to do? Kick me out. Big deal. I was on my way towards the door anyways.
At any rate, that was my second gun show and I don't think there will be another. Both the gun shows I've been too seemed seedy, about the moral equivalent of a motel you pay for by the hour. I've left both of them feeling a little dirty and more than a little disappointed. I would have never guessed you could make something as simple and normally entertaining to me as looking at guns so dirty and wrong, but somehow I've left both of the gun shows I've attended feeling violated--maybe not full out molested, but definitely well groped. No thanks. I think I'd almost rather go to the dentist than another gun show. So all the bottom feeders and scoundrels out there hiding behind the courtesy of others and attempting to feed off their ignorance can rest easier because you no longer have to worry about at least two upstanding and knowledgeable gun owners punking you out in front of your friends. But for the feathers I've rustled in the shows that I've went to, I remain unapologetic.