Now that I live in the Gunshine State, I went off to the Palmetto Gun Show to work the booth for my gun club. It was interesting (and fun). Here are some more or less stream of consciousness thoughts:
- There was a good turnout. This was the opening day of the show but they do this every month. Traffic was brisk from beginning until I left after lunch. There were whole families there and every race in the rainbow was represented.
- There were a lot of guns for sale on dealer's tables. I haven't been comparison shopping so can't say definitively about prices but in general they looked reasonably sane.
- I'm not sure about the guys bringing their own heaters around to sell by themselves. One guy had what he said was a vintage WWII 1911 with web belt and holster and was looking for $1800. That seemed rich to me but ask I said I haven't been pricing on the antique market.
- Ammo was at a premium. Pricing was high and it looks like dealers were buying out other dealers before the show started (and then marked each box up). While I'm not enormously well stocked, I'm well stocked enough not to have to spend $20 for 50 .22LR (!). I mean, seriously?
- There was a LOT of Donald Trump stuff there, and not in a let's clear out the old inventory sense. People were walking around in MAGA hats and there was what looked like a lot of fresh inventory being scooped up by the crowd. However this plays out, The Donald is not fading away. Oh, yeah - several vendors had "Biden Is Not My President" T-Shirts for sale and I saw more than one dude walking around in them.
- Didn't see any tables of Nazi memorabilia. Might be the first gun show I've been to that didn't sport that.
- Where the heck is the jerky? I don't think I've ever been to a gun show where you couldn't buy any.
- Finish Mosins were going for how much? Sure if you want a Mosin you want one done by the Finns, but the days of the box of $50 Mosins are long gone.
- There was a big area where they were signing people up for Concealed Carry classes. It was mobbed.
- Lots of people were interested in my gun club. A bunch asked about the Appleseed sessions we offer.
- The last two are a good sign - people aren't just buying guns but in practicing and carrying them.
My takeaway is that the gun culture is very strong here in Florida.
7 comments:
With the exception of ammo pricing, good news for a change.
Perhaps a matter for own blog but I keep reading on all the blogs how one needs to buy sufficient ammo to keep in practice with guns. Maybe I defy the stereotype. I can take a fresh pistol out of the box and hit whatever I aim at nearly any distance. I wonder if that is rare or do people who talk about continual practice with your pistol think you need to keep those to the heart shots in 2 inch groups at 50 feet? Were I to use a gun on someone it would be because they broke into my home and the ranges are generally considerably less than 50 feet at that point.
OTGH, I am thankful that I loaded up with ammo 15 years ago and it probably says something about me that I haven't expended any of it on the range since I left SOCAL.
Ammo is stupidly overpriced -- over a buck a round for .223/5.56? Grrr. Plenty of shotgun ammo though, I guess skeet'll become the plinking, or something like that.
Good to hear.
@HMS Defiant
For me, practice and training is a vital thing. I am not a natural athlete like my father was and if I am going to be proficient at a physical skill, I need work. In addition, as I get older and more decrepit, my physical ability degrades. Training is my way of postponing the day when I can't do it anymore. So far, it is working.
Richard,
what you said is perhaps my fear. I'm getting and decrepit and losing vision. Maybe it's where I live or Trump as president but I don't have the fear to motivate me to shoot for perfection. OTGH, none of us has the ammo to practice for that and it was never in my stream. I gave thought to the legal lethal outfall of shooting anybody some years ago and decided not to do it. OTGH, I spent years living in the middle east and terror was a weapon they think the perfected. They have no idea what Curtis Lemay created and used or the 8th Air Force. So far it has been fairly easy to stay within the bounds of civilization. I realize that has changed a bit just in the short time I've been alive. Back when I lived in West Seattle on California it was still 99,999999% civil. So was the city when I drove or walked over to it. Now? Not so much but that just means I won't go there. That was over 40 years ago and now my nephew lives and works there. We don't keep in touch but I could ask his mother. She attended University of Chicago and lived off campus in Hyde Park with her 3 female roommates. All of them little girls living by the exotic habitats of darkness and murder. I don't think she has ever known fear. I have. I have lived in the world's most dangerous places but they don't hold a candle to living in a place like Hyde Park. Of course, once when I was changing ships and stations I drove through Chicago on my way to California and stopped by to visit her. She was playing ultimate frisbee with friends on the quad and spotting this guy she moved right over, picked up her book bag and moved it away from me. I'll admit that in 1985 there weren't too many naval officers sporting beards, but I was 30 days leave and didn't shave. OTGH, I probably did look a little dangerous at that point and isn't that the whole idea of self defense? I don't really look much like that today but as the gunner on Gambier Bay said, I'm getting them into pistol range and from there? I can take them even without a pistol.
I hope you at least hummed Tam's (View From The Porch) Funshow sond as youndrove to the gunshow.
And I quote,
"Flintlocks and Flop-tops
And Number Three Russians
Black-powder Mausers
From jackbooted Prussians,
Shiny Smith PC's from limited runs
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Socketed bay'nets
On Zulu War rifles,
Engraved, iv'ried Lugers
That make quite an eyefull
Mosin tomato stakes sold by the ton
These are a few of my favorite guns.
Rusty top-breaks!
Smallbore Schuetzens!
And all of Browning's spawn
I just keep on browsing my favorite guns
Until all my money's gone."
-Tammara Keel
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