Inside look to stir critics of gun shows — and laws

By Abigail Goldman

Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Readers of the recently released report “Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody’s Looking” will likely fall into two main camps:

Those who read the report with disgust, and those who read the report with disgust.

The first camp will argue that the author, Garen J. Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, is an activist trying to advance a gun control agenda. Their outrage will be proportionate to the level of firearms regulation they’re willing to accept; the less gun control they want, the angrier they’ll get reading Wintemute’s lengthy account of activities researchers documented while attending 78 gun shows in 19 states, including Nevada.

The second camp, meanwhile, will be aghast by covert photos Wintemute’s researchers took of everyday gun show fare: rows of semi-automatic firearms lined up for sale, dirt cheap guns, merchandise with neo-Nazi, neo-confederacy, or just pro-violence messages.

Their shock will turn to outrage when they read about people who were observed attempting straw gun purchases, about private and unlicensed firearms sellers who woo buyers with the promise of no paperwork or background checks, about the “buzz” assault weapons generate at gun shows.

There’s no question that Wintemute’s study, released this month with more questions raised than answered, is calling for much closer scrutiny of gun shows, which are their own unique microcosms. The very people who are most critical of American firearms laws would probably sooner get their teeth drilled than set foot inside a gun show — a turn-cheek disdain that may only make it easier for disreputable sellers or buyers to operate in the shadow of scorn.

Of course, it could also be argued that anybody who believes laws are never broken at gun shows, and that people who shouldn’t walk away with guns never do, should welcome outsiders carrying notebooks and cameras with open arms — fine-tooth combs can’t catch lice if there aren’t any.

Wintemute’s researchers didn’t confirm any straw gun purchases in Las Vegas. In fact, they didn’t confirm anything illegal at Las Vegas gun shows.

They did, however, see things that would give plenty of people pause — like a guy walking through a Vegas show with what appeared to be an Uzi, telling onlookers he had nine more for sale.

A private seller, hawking items from his own collection, he could, if inclined, quietly sell those Uzis to anyone.

Researchers watched a Vegas gun show salesman hype a pistol with rounds designed to pierce body armor, calling the firearm a “cop killer.”

There’s nothing illegal about that, but nothing commendable about it either.

Likewise, at another Las Vegas gun show, Wintemute’s researchers observed members of the White People’s Party, which has ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance, run a “noisy recruiting station” outside the entrance.

Perfectly legal, but perhaps unsettling, considering National Alliance founder William Pierce has called gun shows a “natural recruiting environment.”

Also in Vegas: A woman whose T-shirt read: “Some people are alive simply because it’s illegal to kill them.”

Hilarious joke, or creepy foreshadowing?

In Reno, researchers observed a private firearms seller tell a man eyeing his guns, “as long as you’re OK with the law and have a Nevada driver’s license, we’re fine” — only to sell him the firearm without asking to see the license, insisting on payment in cash.

These stories, and others in the report, are going to be hotly debated by people on sides of the gun control fence. For now, it seems, the only thing both groups have in common is outrage.