Can't carry at gun shows??????

[OEF_VET]

"Shall not be infringed upon" Does that ring a bell?

Yeah, but how about "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."? Now, switch service with admittance. They don't have to let you in, just like it's not a necessity for you to go there. Therefore, if you don't like their rules, don't go.

Frank

 

[Dorian]

I just let em inspect my empty gun, tag it... then I remove the tag, holster it, and have my mags in my pocket. That's not one in the chamber, but better than the gun in the car.

 

[Majic]

The Richmond shows have been doing it for years. Now there are no signs specifically targeting concealed, but they ask to check ALL firearms being brought into the building.

 

[Brigrat]

You can reserve rights to refuse service all you want, and make up all the rules you want, but your gun show better not be on public property like a fair ground. Your right of refusal goes bye bye on tax payers land. May the 2nd ammendment live forever.

 

[Cacique500]

At the Richmond shows Majic is correct - all firearms are inspected at the door. And as Dorian does, I just put it back in the holster with two mags in my pocket.

The second I walk out I load it back up and go about my business.

 

[Model520Fan]

It has been quite a few years since I went to a gun show, but that stuff had already started. However, there were no metal detectors.

A sensible person carries a loaded gun going to or from his car at a gun show. Sure, you don't need a loaded gun INSIDE a gun show, but how would you unload it? A sensible person doesn't play with loaded firearms in public, including unloading and loading with a bunch of other people around, perhaps doing the same thing.

Personally, I think that posting those rules is just fine. Just don't figure that everyone is going to follow them. The rules are good because they keep most people from pulling out loaded guns at gun shows, and provide a basis for ejecting those who do. When they start backing the rules up with a metal detector, I just won't go. I don't carry around a lot of money unarmed when the money is hidden in my pocket. I am certainly not going to carry around GUNS in the vicinity of a GUN SHOW unarmed.

 

[Greybeard]

Quote: "A sensible person doesn't play with loaded firearms in public, including unloading and loading with a bunch of other people around, "

Yep, most of us will agree with that one. But the problem is the varying perceptions of "sensible". At the Market Hall show in Dallas a couple of years back, an individual who had a table (and had entered through a side door) decided to do a "show and tell" with his tricked-out carry gun. A.45ACP round got lit off 45 minutes after the show opened. Thankfully, there was no major damage - and the ND was handled in such fashion that it did not make the Dallas Morning News on Sunday morning ...

Perhaps, rather than "Dealers", "Vendors" may have been a better word to use in my prior post. Either way, the vast majority of such sellers on days I've worked gun shows are quite happy to see the "guns must be unloaded and tied" policy, realizing that it takes just ONE IDIOT to potentially ruin things for many.

While working the tie table last year, I was handed an old single action "Cowboy Handgun" with at least a 10" barrell. As I flipped open the loading gate, I noticed brass with an unhit primer. And spun the cylinder and and saw another. Fortunately, the particular facility has a little room just off to the side of the tie table. I promptly took the gun in there, unloaded 5 or 6 rounds of .45 Colt, then returned to the tie table. I handed the man a pen and piece of paper and said "If you'll write your name on this while I tie off your gun, you can come by on your way out and we'll return your ammo." His response: "What ammo?" :banghead:

 

[Greybeard]

4Truck -

Another "answer" in http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64092 posted today, Feb. 9, 2004. And lots of other folks probably considering themselves "lucky". This time.

 

[Model520Fan]

Quote: "A sensible person doesn't play with loaded firearms in public, including unloading and loading with a bunch of other people around, "

Yep, most of us will agree with that one. But the problem is the varying perceptions of "sensible". At the Market Hall show in Dallas a couple of years back, an individual who had a table (and had entered through a side door) decided to do a "show and tell" with his tricked-out carry gun. A.45ACP round got lit off 45 minutes after the show opened.

That was exactly the point of my saying "Personally, I think that posting those rules is just fine. Just don't figure that everyone is going to follow them. The rules are good because they keep most people from pulling out loaded guns at gun shows, and provide a basis for ejecting those who do."

When you have rules that "require" all guns to be unloaded and tie-wrapped, you greatly reduce the likelihood that the individual carrying a concealed loaded weapon is going to even allow it to be seen, much less start playing with it. Like I said, I'm in favor of the rules, but I'm not going into the gun show if I'm forced (by search or metal detector) to follow them. But I WILL be limited by those rules, just like anyone else would, to keeping my untie-wrapped gun hidden where it belongs if I don't want to get thrown out of the show or arrested or whatever the law provides for.

 

[Country Boy]

What is more foolish: the foolish rule, or the fool that follows it?

 

[Correia]

Uh guys? Rather than have a bunch of conjecture about the signs, maybe this will help.

www.naas-info.org/

Basically there are only a couple of insurance companies that will insure gun shows. Most of these companies will only insure the promoter if they meet the NAAS guidelines. When a promoter signs up to be a member of NAAS (which you pretty much need to do if you want to get insurance) you agree to follow the guidelines that they worked out.

The guidelines are strict and kind of stupid, but were done by the association to keep from being sued out of existence.

The signs are just a CYA policy. In states where they have no authority, they have no authority. Like I'm pretty sure that here in Utah, very few of us unload and zip tie our CCW guns when we go in. But the sign still needs to be posted so the promoter can follow the rules, and therefore keep their insurance.

 

[KahrKarrier]

Same thing here in my part of Florida. The last show I went to in Palmetto Florida (Suncoast Gun Shows) There was a uniformed Deputy Sheriff at the tie table and 4 uniformed Deputies roving all over the show floor. Loaded weapons were strictly forbidden!!!
In Florida it is against state law for legally licensed CCW's to bring their weapons into a bar, saloon, honky tonk or any establishment considered to be a "nuisance establishment" probably for all the same reasons. It's also against state law to bring your weapon into a school, courthouse, public meeting place and a whole list of places that weapons are not permitted.
Florida was one of the original "shall issue" states but that doesn't mean you can carry any place you want to.

 

[milton]

Unless there is a legal reason, I say Carry! Just don't take the gun out. If you are too stupid to follow this rules, a dealer shouldn't sell you a gun.

I wonder how many vendors actually turn down a sale because of stupidity of buyer. Very few!

 

[ctdonath]

1. With thousands of people handling thousands of guns in a small space in a short time period, statistics just plain are not favorable (review the current "everyone either has or will have a ND/AD" thread). The fewer loaded & untied guns, the less chance for accident.

2. The chance of needing a gun for defense at a gun show is virtually nil, as plenty will be brought into service if needed. While merchandise does occasionally "walk off", an armed robbery is incredibly stupid.

3. There are some places where having a loaded weapon does constitute an elevated risk. Asking (asking) someone to unload upon entry - yet retaining possession of weapon and ammo - is hardly an "infringement".

4. Concealed means CONCEALED.

 

[rick_reno]

Can't carry at gun shows?

Our county sports club has a gun show every spring, and I work (volunteer) at the table where guns are checked in. Bottom line, it's done because of liability. We don't want loaded guns coming in the door, and I've checked a few guns coming in for sale/trade that have had rounds in them. Lots of these folks just grab their gun and head off to the gun show, and often those guns are loaded.
The interesting thing is getting those plastic ties around/thru some of the odd firearms that come thru the door.

 

[tc300mag1]

The Guns shows here make you unload them and Zip tie the action open.. For your safty they say

 

[4Truck]

I really have no issue for a weapon that may be sold or traded, my problem comes from my personal CCW, that which I have absolutely no intention of displaying or selling.

Perhaps the sign should be amended to read-

All guns to be sold or traded must be cleared and tagged prior to entrance to the show.


It isn't that I don't feel safe at the show, it is the fact that our second amendment and the State Of Virginia both trust me to carry a concealed weapon and I don't feel it is anyone at the gunshows business whether or not I am carrying, so long as I don't remove the weapon from it's holster.

Besides, who are we to judge competence?? I will be the first to admit that some people make me nervous around guns, and I may not feel that they are responsible enough for the task at hand, but it is not my business whether or not they choose to carry, it is there god given right just as it is mine.

 

[BluesBear]

that which I have absolutely no intention of displaying or selling

That may be your intention and you may very well have the disipline to adhere to it.


But,
I have seen far too many people, at gun shows that did allow CCW, who upon discovering a table displaying one of those fancy custom pleather laminate holsters with carbon fiber paddle, that they read about in an article written by Massad Cooper-Taylor in the 1998 New And Exciting Wonderful Gun Stuff You Just Gotta Have Annual, and upon noticing that it's "ON SALE", say to themselves, "Self, I wonder if my Super Compact Smith & Kimbfield 1957A4 Enhanced Beveled Combat Special with Dual Laser Range Finding Grips, 3D night sights and New Mexico Trigger will fit in there?"

And before you know if you have instinctively drawn your CCW with all of the finesse and grace of Nightcrawler after a hard day and a hot date, and are shoving it in the holster when you realize that the "Patented Proprietary Pistol Protection Plug" in the holster is pressing precariously against your trigger.


An ever alert security person noticed you don't have the mandatory red cable tie securing your weapon from accepting ammunition and taps you on your shoulder to inquire as to why at the same moment the overtly courteous vendor tries to grab the same holster from your hand to demonstrate it to the gentleman with the salt & pepper gray mountain man beard wearing an eye-patch who is accompanied by his Clairol Red-haired significant other who has unsuccessfully attempted to conceal her 44DD busom inside a 36C deerskin halter top.


Somewhere around this point in time someone will seriously wish that each and every gun in the room was unloaded.
:banghead:

 

[BogBabe]

ROTFLMAO, BluesBear!

While part of me bristles at the idea of being disarmed while at a gun show (of all places!), another part of my realizes it is, in fact, a sensible idea.

If I invited a handful of friends, known by me to be safe and responsible gun owners, over to my house to do a sort of firearm "tupperware party," where everyone brought their guns and the guns were being handed around and looked at by everyone -- I'm pretty sure I'd insist that all guns be cleared the instant they were produced, and I'm pretty sure I'd permit no one to load a gun, or handle a loaded gun, during that period of time. A gun show is like that, only on a larger scale, and attended by lots of people you don't know.

So yeah, if I were running a gun show, that's one of the rules I'd have.

 

[Shootcraps]

Goll dern, Mr. BluesBear. You use your mouth prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

 

[Model520Fan]

How Rules Work

I really have no issue for a weapon that may be sold or traded, my problem comes from my personal CCW, that which I have absolutely no intention of displaying or selling.

Perhaps the sign should be amended to read-

All guns to be sold or traded must be cleared and tagged prior to entrance to the show.

I agree with your intentions, but I don't think that the sign you propose is sufficient. For reasons posted by others, most colorfully BluesBear, there will always be some idiot who has a reason to take his out. At any given moment, most gun shows will have between three and three dozen idiots wandering around, depending mostly on the size of the gun show. If the sign permits them to have loaded guns, sooner or later, maybe one will come out. If the sign absolutely forbids it, and the penalty is embarrassment, expulsion and perhaps arrest, it is far less likely that a gun will come out. This is a good thing.

I am in favor of strict signs. Searches or metal detectors are up to the folks who run the show, but if they have them, I won't be there.

The issue, for me, is not what ideas the sign advances, but what I think the sign actually accomplishes. Just my way of looking at things on this particular issue. In general, I might even go the other way.

 

[KahrKarrier]

Some of you are really hung up on "your rights", I am very happy that I can carry at all. If there are situations that prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons, so be it, then I have two choices to make: 1. I don't go. 2. I leave my gun in the glove box of my truck, go to the event and enjoy myself.
Those of you who would circumvent the rules by carrying anyway, are the same group of people who could be responsible for the rest of us loosing our CCW priveledges which so many of us, who choose to follow the rules, fought so hard to get. Consider this, most safety regulations are written in blood! The event staff is trying to keep that blood from being your's.
:banghead:

 

[riverdog]

They don't have to let you in, just like it's not a necessity for you to go there. Therefore, if you don't like their rules, don't go.

The signs not allowing a loaded CCW have nothing to do with 2nd Amendment rights, that's a red herring and not a very good one. If you don't like the rules, don't play. Stay outside with your CCW, but don't break the establishment's rules just because you feel they don't apply to you. Whatever happened to "folks with CCW are honest law abiding citizens". The 2nd Amendment does not trump the rules established by the private individual/group running the gunshow.

 

[KahrKarrier]

RIGHT ON RIVERDOG!!!

 

[Black Dragon]

At the Indy 1500 gun shows you have to have the mag removed and the a zip
tie in place. They have the local cops and the sheriff at the door to
check on you. When you leave they ask you about it. If you don't have
the zip tie you had better have the sales paper work or proof that the
firearm is yours. I guess they had a couple of side arms try and grow legs.