Looking for new writers and graphic designers!

Come to our meetings every Sunday night at 8:30pm 5th floor of Lerner (near the student government office).
All are welcome.

Buy a T-Shirt

Do you love animals? Or sodomy? Then buy a Fed T-shirt!

About Us

We have a long and storied history. Learn more about us...

It’s That Time Again
Issue 18.4: Evil
Posted: Octoberish 2002

My Very First Gun Show Sans Hangover

Ted Holden

One time, a friend of mine walked into a gun show with an AK-47 with a flash suppressor, folding stock, and double-wide 30 round banana clip. Suddenly, the guard walked up behind him and took him over to the security station. Five minutes later, my friend came back with [a smile on his face and] a twist tie running through the rifle's receiver. If you don't know why that's funny, well, then you've never been to a gun show.

October 5 was a big day amongst my friends - It was the big, semi-annual Gun and Knife Exhibition at the Big E in Springfield, MA. To the uninitiated, this is the fourth biggest gun show of the fall season in the Northeast.

6:00 AM: We wake up rather late for the gun show and quickly pile into my friend Vern's Mazda, ready to make the two-hour trek to Springfield. In the group are Vern, Vern's roommate Jamaican Dan, and his ROTC buddy, and me.

8:00 AM: We arrive at the show. Some dealers are working the floor, with World War II relics under glass and random gun parts strewn about the tables. Only about half of the booths are selling anything; the rest are just there to show off their guns in a mighty display of implied super-phalluses. Of those selling equipment, only about 20% are selling firearms. And there are no attractive people there. It's all either obese veterans or obese veterans with big white beards.

9:15 AM: We reach the Commie/Fascist corner of the room. This is the corner where everybody is selling spoils of war from either the USSR or Nazi Germany. This is, for some reason, the most popular area of the room. Most of the stuff is actually from World War II, like Iron Crosses or Hitler Youth knives, but there's always this one guy who is selling reproductions of Iron Crosses or Hitler Youth knives. Yes, he scares me, too.

11:00 AM: We reach the NRA sign-up booth. The NRA booth is ALWAYS directly across the aisle from the over-priced food stand, yet somehow nobody has ever visited. Everyone who attends a gun show is invariably a lifetime member of the NRA already, so naturally the NRA booth guy is the most respected, yet loneliest man at the show.

12:00 PM: We return to the main area of the floor, where Vern is looking for a driver that can remove an oddly shaped screw from the stock of his FN-FAL. Only one booth is selling parts and tools exclusively. Vern asks the gruff gentleman behind the table if he had the correct tool; he glances up at us from his copy of American Rifleman and grunts, "I make my own tools." He then ignores us.

1:50 PM: The last of the "Walkers" show up. The "Walkers" are all fifty year old men that wander the floor with crappy shotguns and rifles, with signs and flags mounted all over their bodies advertising their "BARGINN RIFLE DEELS!" (This is not an exaggeration. Most men at a gun show can spell nothing but gun names.) Jamaican Dan finds the last of them, who is selling his World War I British helmet. It was, as advertised, GRATE and CHEEP.

3:20 PM: Our group reaches the Ammo Hut, which is always all the way across the parking lot from the gun show. (Safety first, kids.) We can't buy any, though, as we are all out of money by this point. As we depart the lot, we reflect on an overall successful show, and Vern reflects on his first gun show without a hangover.

Oh, and about that friend wth the souped-up AK: That day, he sold it on the floor to some Korean guy with a $200 markup. Go Capitalism!