Dan Wortham says he’s happy to see me; he says the gun crowd has been getting a lot of bad press, and he wants to talk about what a gun show is really like.
Wortham’s manning a booth at the Arkansas Gun & Cartridge Collectors Club’s Gun & Knife Show held at the Arkansas State Fair Complex a couple of weekends back. I’ve stopped at Wortham’s booth because a knife with a jewel-encrusted handle has caught my attention. The weapon is quite alluring, with quartz and multicolored stones on the handle. He also has several vintage firearms in his cases, including a Colt .44-caliber revolver listed at $4,500 with an engraving of an eagle on its handle.
Wortham asks what brought me here, and I tell him I’m a writer who has never been to gun show. I want to see what a gun show is like and write about the experience. He’s happy to hear that.
Wortham’s business cards feature a silhouette of a flint rifle and read: “Antique and collector weapons. Buy. Sell. Trade. Wanted: Bowie Knives.” Wortham says he started accumulating and making knives in the ’60s, and his booth is a collection of militaria, including guns, knives and other items, such as badges.
“[It’s] more or less a hobby,” he says. “I like history. A lot of this has a lot of history. I’ve been doing this for years. It grows on you.”
Being a history buff myself, Wortham’s collection catches my attention. It’s a booth of vintage weaponry. Antiques that just so happen to be or have been deadly.
Wortham opens a case and produces a snub-nosed 1871 Colt revolver that he says some saloon lady probably carried for protection. “They call it a Colt Cloverleaf because the cylinder holds four shots,” he says. Wortham says he picked up the revolver in a trade. He then mentions he’ll be at the Mid-South Civil War and Antique Military Show in Southaven, Miss., the next weekend, selling and searching for more historical weaponry.
Is this what I expected from a gun and knife show? I’m not sure. “A madhouse” is how a co-worker who has attended past shows described it to me. A madhouse in that the Arkansas Gun & Cartridge Collectors Club’s Gun & Knife Show would be crowded with people. It is. Arriving shortly before noon Saturday — the first day of the two-day show held in the Hall of Industry — the fairgrounds are already packed with vehicles. Inside there is a mass of people.
But what other expectations did I have? None really. With the gun issue front and center, I simply wanted to attend a gun show and write about the experience. Talk to the people there. Not take a side or wade into the politics of gun ownership, but simply record what I saw. Here it is.
The parking lot, yes, it’s crowded with vehicles of makes and models of every variety. Of course, a lot of pickup trucks, and the vehicles already parked on this day stretch down what is the midway of the fairgrounds in the fall. Other vehicles are parked in nooks around the Hall of Industry. Oh, it’s going to be crowded inside the hall. Some of the people walking toward the show have their rifles and shotguns slung over their shoulders. Others have their pistols holstered.
Walking up the steps of the hall there are a couple of cops loitering outside. Admission is $8. Inside, people entering are divided into two groups: those with guns and those without. When asked, I state I’m not carrying a firearm. (Full disclosure: I own a Rossi .38 revolver, but it has never left my house.) Those answering that they are carrying a firearm are searched. All federal, state and local firearm ordinances and laws are obeyed at the gun show. People looking to sell their guns must make sure they are empty. I’m not sure what’s stopping someone from simply lying about whether they are carrying a firearm or not, though.
The hall, roughly three-fifths the size of a football field, is packed with booths and people. The majority of people are white males. There are some women in the crowd, usually accompanying a husband or boyfriend, and some minorities, but mostly the crowd is white and male. Young and old. I see a child walking around munching on the last of a bag of chocolate chip cookies. I see babies. And I see the elderly, including two rather charming looking gentlemen dressed like modern-day versions of Old West gunfighters. Charming, even though one is carrying his revolver in a shoulder holster.
No one is in a hurry. People shuffle around from booth to booth at a glacial pace, heads down; there’s a lot to take in. There’s a low hum of conversation. But everyone is oh-so-nice. Usually in a crowded area such as this, where people are continually bumping into each other, there are bullies who just push their way through the masses. Not here. People bump into you and say, “Excuse me,” or, “I’m sorry.” Maybe the atmosphere has something to do with the pleasantries.
The overall look of the show is muted shades of green, gray and brown. Razorback red stands out. There’s also a lot of red, white and blue. American flags. All of this is under harsh fluorescent lights.
The National Rifle Association is represented at the gun show, including one booth with fliers saying, “Gun control activists are TARGETING YOUR GUNS.” Those last three words are in bold on the flier. One side reads, “Once again, anti-gun zealots are being joined by opportunistic politicians on both the federal and state levels to mobilize the destruction of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Second Amendment.” The flier states that the “NRA needs you to fight for freedom.” How does one fight? In less-bold letters, the flier says you should “contact your lawmakers today!”
The opposite side of the same flier has a photograph of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California glowering through the top of her glasses. It includes a quote from Feinstein in 1995 on 60 Minutes about the national assault weapons ban which has since expired: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in — I would have done it.” The flier doesn’t mention the quote is 18 years old. All it says is that “Feinstein’s ban is just the tip of the iceberg.”
There are some anti-government, anti-Obama materials around, too, including some booths with bumper stickers unflattering to the president. One bumper sticker reads, “Obama-Nation. Change we can’t afford.” There’s a communist hammer and sickle on one side of that sticker, colored in red, white and blue. Another one reads, “Barak Hussein Obama for ex-president.” Yes, the president’s first name is misspelled.
(The best anti-government material at the gun show? A gentleman walks by wearing a T-shirt that features the glum face of an American Indian on it. The caption? “Trust the government? Ask a Native American.”)
But the anti-government material is limited to only a few booths.
On the flip side, it’s surprising to see all the non-gun-related, non-knife-related items at the gun and knife show. More than one booth is selling Valentine’s Day baskets. And not Valentine’s Day baskets filled with ammo or knives, but candy, chocolate, a stuffed animal and all the other Valentine’s Day trimmings. Another booth is selling fake roses, and there’s a combination gun and jewelry booth with a number of rings, earrings, necklaces and the like, including several beautiful pieces featuring turquoise stones. And there’s the booth selling various types of jerky, including some deliciously spicy, hotter-than-hell jerky and some equally tasty, though milder, Cajun alligator jerky.
There’s a nice booth owner named Jerry who is selling military-related books, including a collection of World War I panoramic photographs. “There’s a little bit of everything,” he says about the gun show. Another booth has Civil War-era glass plate negatives.
Some booths are knife only. Cases and cases of knives, from pocketknives to larger knives, swords and even machetes, including one booth selling double-sided machetes. “For the apocalypse, you know,” the booth owner says. He’s joking, talking about zombies. One knife dealer features a small pocketknife barely two inches long. It’s a McIntosh Heather, manufactured by a Cleveland hardware company in the first decade of the 20th century. The knife’s price tag? $275, or about $100 dollars an inch. What makes the knife so expensive? It’s a stupid question I ask of the booth owner. “Well, they ain’t made ’em in a long time,” he says. “What makes a 1908 Ford so expensive?” And there are enough Bowie knives to keep Jim Bowie armed for eternity.
But mostly there are a lot of guns. An arsenal of big and small, long and short firearms. There are antique rifles from World War I and II. Lee-Enfield rifles. And military rifles from the 19th century. Colts and Springfields. One booth’s sign reads: “Wanted. Japanese WW2 swords, pistols, rifle and other militaria.”
There are shotguns and rifles for hunting. Brownings and Remingtons. And handguns of every variety. Glock .40s and .45s. Rugers. Tauruses. Even the pistol of James Bond, a Walther PPK.
And there are a lot of assault weapons. Rows and rows. Matte black and sleek. AR-15s. Weapons resembling the Soviet AK-47. Assault weapons mounted on bipods. A Colt Sporter M4 with two 20-round magazines, sling and kit for $2,400. The carbine is the civilian cousin of the Colt M4 carbine, an assault weapon the Colt website notes is “designed to exploit firepower capability in confined spaces where lightweight mobility, speed and violence of action rule.”
When I ask a man wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans and a pair of Merrell trail running shoes, who gave his name only as Jim, what brings him to the gun show, he says he’s not really looking to buy. “I’m just more curious is all,” he says.
Caleb Evans isn’t looking for a gun. What he really wants is some ammunition, and besides that he’s just curious. “You always see things you wouldn’t expect [at a gun show],” he says. “Gun shows get a bad rap. Most of the people here are collectors or have an appreciation for guns. The lunatics give us a bad name.”
Fortunately for Evans, there’s a lot of bullets at a gun show. One table is stacked with ammunition in all its shapes and calibers. Green and yellow boxes of shotgun shells. 7.62mm bullets. Boxes and boxes of ammunition.
People walk by with rifles slung over their shoulders and poles stuck in the barrels. A sign typically announces the gun is for sale. One person walks by with a piece of posterboard on his chest, hanging from a string around his neck. Beretta Storm 9mm. $425 or best offer.
A gun show. It’s all so strange, I think, as I walk out the exit.
The most disconcerting, yet perfectly legal, thing I see doesn’t technically happen at the gun show, but outside of it. While walking back to my vehicle, I glance over into a small screen-porch building directly in front of the Hall of Industry. There, I see a man counting money; and another man inspecting what appears to be an assault weapon. Who is this man, buying a gun off in the shadows? But hey, this is America, land of the free. No questions asked.