A Day at the Gun Show

Saturday was interesting. My father-in-law and brother-in-law jumped on the Amtrak in Oxnard and rode down to Irvine to go to the Crossroads of the West gun show at the Orange County Fairgrounds. My son and I picked them up and took them to the show, and there were a couple of interesting events along the way.

The first was the scene at the train station in Irvine. The horse racing season just opened at the Del Mar Racetrack near San Diego, and the train is a popular way for people to go to the races. There must have been 200 people waiting to get on southbound train that my father-in-law was on. In fact, when the train had arrived in Los Angeles they added six passenger cars in anticipation of the crowd. The train was so long they had to unload and reboard in sections - the first half of the train, and then move up and take care of the last 5 cars.

At the fairgrounds it became pretty obvious that the gun show is a pretty popular place to go as well. There was a huge crowd. Because some folks bring guns to sell or trade, they had a table outside the entrance with a sign that said "clear all weapons here". On the table was a jar with several pieces of varied ammunition and a sign that read "this ammunition came from 'unloaded' guns". First rule of weapons - treat every gun like it's loaded. You don't want to find out the hard way that it is.

Once inside it was a real festival of firepower. We could have easily taken over a small South American country with the weapons and ammo found on more than 1,000 tables located in four big buildings. And knives - a zillion knives! If you couldn't find a knife you liked, you were way too picky.

There was lots of WWII stuff including various pieces of Nazi memorabilia. Everything from weapons to uniforms, patches, pins, etc. You could start your own Reich with all the stuff available there. Being that my father-in-law spent part of his youth in France fighting those guys, he has a strong interest in anything related to the war in Europe (he also has two purple hearts and a bronze and silver star from his work as a 19 year old private).

In one building a guy was selling Tasars, the electronic stun guns that shoot a very painful bunch of volts through bad guys. Every now and then he'd fire the thing off and you could hear the crackle all over the building. I threatened to buy one in order to get my 15 year old out of bed in the morning.

At another table I heard the sales guy talking to a potential customer. The customer asked about a particular weapon on display, and the salesman told him he couldn't buy that in California. Although I didn't see it, I could almost feel the *wink-wink* from the salesman which implied that there are ways to get around that little inconvenience.

Another booth offered concealed weapons training and licenses that "are good in 28 states". Unfortunately, California is not one of the 28 (or else I'd have one).

It was fun, and now my son has the bug to go to another one. He bought a soft case for his pellet gun and saw some swords he liked (the swords stayed there). I'm sure this isn't the last show we'll attend.

Sunday will be fun too - we're going to the Orange County Performing Arts Center to see the Broadway musical "Wicked" (Mrs. HolyCoast's birthday present). I'll tell you about it tomorrow night.