Scenes From A Gun Show

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to ingest a super-sized slice of Americana.

Is it legal to sell shooting books without a background check?

I got a bug up my butt to rent a table at a local gun show for the weekend to sell some of my books. Obviously my primary goal was to break my back for a weekend to provide for the family. Hanging out at a gun show for a couple of straight days was purely an unplanned fringe benefit, and I’m sticking by that story.

You hear a lot on the news about gun shows, and how delightfully evil they are, right? Criminals buying guns, thermite grenades and TOW missiles for sale and not a background check to be seen for miles around. While I’ve attended dozens, OK, hundreds, I’ve never invested the time to do some good old-fashioned crowd watching.

Being a lousy journalist, but somewhat good at stalking, I decided to make some notes throughout the weekend on my observations. This is quality science folks, because I was an Economics major in college. Real numbers economics, not home economics, so I can count reliably to nearly three digits.

Here’s what I saw…

31%

Percentage of people wearing hats. As one might expect, about 75% of all hats were ball cap types, but a surprisingly low percentage were camo or emblazoned with things like “don’t tread on me” or “molon labe.” Most were logoed with the wearer’s favorite sports team. I looked hard, but did not see any hats promoting Poysippi, Wisconsin’s Legion of Broom curling team. Rounding out the hat community were a good number of floppy jungle hats, Panama Jacks and bandana head wraps.

14.9%

Percentage of attendees what were children.

23%

Percentage of attendees that the Brady Campaign refers to as children when they recite crime statistics. This demographic actually represents people aged 17-25.

Fortunately, these were the only guns pointed at me this weekend.

22.2%

Percentage of women attending the show. Yes, I did numerous aisle counts and averaged the results. I was that bored. Guys, if you saw me looking at your wife or girlfriend, it was all in the name of science. Really.