I enjoy an occasional gun show.
Prices: Sure, you have your overpriced dealers (same ones who are overpriced in their store usually). You have an occasional unscrupulous dealer who figures he'll see more browsers at the show than a couple months in his store who will raise the prices figuring he'll get a sucker or two. However, most vendors I've seen are local dealers who keep prices the same as their stores, and some may have a "gun show special" and discount at least some of their wares.
Variety: I think most people don't have more than 3 or 4 gun stores they regularly frequent. Even when shopping for a particular item, I doubt I shop more than 3 or 4 stores (especially with today's gas prices). At a good gun show there will be dozens of stores represented that I can compare and shop all at once. Because of this, it makes it easy to shop for a good price, or for a hard to find gun.
Idiots: It has been a while since I've seen an obvious Nazi vendor. There are the booths selling war memorabilia, but usually the Nazi Germany stuff is also mixed with US, Japanese, or other European participants memorabilia as well. While I wouldn't buy an actual WWII Nazi piece, it is a legitimate collectors item (it is very different from the reproduction stuff popular with Neo-Nazi types). You can sometimes see an occasional yahoo among the vendors of other items or the customers (I've had some interesting looks with my yarmulke at gun shows). However, you can run into them anywhere.
Overall: I've bought some nice guns at gun shows. I've had some good deals on cleaning supplies and ammo. I've run into a few idiots, but I've also met some great people at gun shows, some of the best in fact.
One vendor had a lot of Nazi and KKK stuff. And the Nazi stuff wasn't authentic memorobilia or collectors items. It was bumper stickers and pins and other cheap junk. Same with the KKK garbage. Not the best face to present to the public. He also had some stickers that were quite derogatory towards "faggots". I wonder why he didn't have any "I hate Ni##ers" stickers with his KKK stuff. Do all the gun shows have a guy like this?Oh well, I better shut up, my Liberal is showing.
This isn't that common anymore. Around here I haven't really seen it since my first couple gun shows.
As for the "I better shut up, my Liberal is showing", you may want to be careful what you say. You are implying that conservatives are OK with that crap, maybe even aligned with it. You are implying that you hate racists
because you are liberal (implying that conservatives are racist or at least have no trouble with them). As a Jew who is often the target of bigots, and a pretty strong conservative these days, you are coming really close to being offensive there (only "close" since I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't actually mean anything there).
Just so you know, the KKK and Neo-Nazi types are unpopular with conservatives as well. In addition, they are a frequently complained about aspect of gun shows by even the most ardent gunnies. They are pretty unpopular with most people in the "gun culture" and with conservatives, not just with chardonnay or white zinfandel sipping liberals.
