Gun Culture in Appalachia - Exploring Kentucky's Past and Present - Part 3
Gun Culture in Appalachia - Exploring Kentucky's Past and Present - Part 3
The Gun-Free Zone Gun Show
Last month, GVPedia president and founder, Devin Hughes, took a trip to Kentucky for a crash course in the history and hypocrisies of one of the nation’s deepest gun cultures. This is the third and final installment of this three part series.
L-R: Devin Hughes, Jennifer Mascia, Mark Bryant
By: Devin Hughes
The final stop on our tour of Kentucky was the gun show in Elizabethtown. I was definitely not expecting the first sign that greeted us:
“NO LOADED GUNS.”
That’s right folks. We had just stumbled into the most dangerous of places, at least according to John Lott and pro-gun advocates: a gun-free zone. But this was at a gun show. How could this be?
Surely this must be an error, or a clever protest designed by Soros-funded Antifa agitators. But as it turns out, most gun shows are in fact gun-free zones as confirmed by Mark. And a second sign made perfectly clear: “NO LOADED GUNS. NO EXCEPTIONS FOR CCW. Thanks!” A third and fourth sign helpfully told people that you should still keep muzzles down, and that if you were under the age of 14 you were not allowed entr… sorry, I mean you got in for free.
On one hand, I do approve of the safety consciousness of not allowing loaded guns into a gun show, which would be a self-evidently terrible idea. And yet… the irony!
Gun advocates are pushing loaded guns everywhere possible. State fairs? Check. Bars? Check. Elementary school classrooms? Freedom. Gun shows? Now hold on just a minute, let’s be reasonable here. That’s a step too far. Safety is paramount…
John Lott assures people that gun-free zones are deliberately targeted by mass shooters, and people in them are defenseless. While the gun show did have an armed security officer at the entrance, Lott considers shootings that occur where such armed security is present to be “gun-free zones” if no one else is carrying loaded firearms, which was the case here.
If pro-gun advocates actually believed their own rhetoric, there would be no way gun shows would be gun-free zones. And yet here we are.
Once we entered the danger zone, there were two main exhibition rooms. It didn’t take long to find a booth with a Confederate flag draped across it. At another booth selling plates for body armor, one was inscribed with the Three Percenter logo.
Even from the booths, it was readily apparent that racism and violent extremism are always lurking under the surface of the pro-gun movement. This does not mean all or even a majority of gun owners or people who attend and exhibit at gun shows are racists or welcome extreme violence — but the extremism is there, and we ignore it at our peril.
Dr. Garen Wintemute came to much the same conclusion just over a decade ago with his landmark observational study of gun shows across the country (you can find the political beliefs section of his study here — page 20 is of particular note).
When the guy at the armor booth noticed Jennifer and I looking over his selection, he cheerfully quipped “nothing says I love you like one of these.” Along with amusingly misreading the situation, his comment was unintentionally chilling given the lethal impact guns have on domestic violence, and the implications a gift of body armor would entail with those harrowing statistics.
Later, as Mark and Jennifer were preparing to leave, they overheard a guy passionately lecturing the guard at the front entrance about how the Las Vegas mass shooting was entirely a CIA plot to discredit Jason Aldean because he represented “real America.” As Jennifer would later remark, “Talking about a mass shooting at a gun show is like talking about 9/11 on a plane.”
One other thing of note happened during our short time at the gun show: Jennifer, Mark, and I weren’t the only ones perusing the booths. Towards the end of our tour, both Jennifer and I spotted a slim, diminutive white guy in camo looking at some of the assault-style rifles with a nervous energy in the space around him.
Both Jennifer and I were instantaneously struck by the exact same feeling: there was a strong chance we would see this guy again — on the nightly news after a tragedy. His manner clearly indicated he needed help, but there was nothing we could do. He could easily access a gun and all the ammo he could ever desire. Because this is America.
Just a week after I left Kentucky, a man was shot and killed just steps away from the hotel I stayed in. The steady beat of gun violence continues…
For more stories and observations from Devin Hughes’ trip out east — which continued on with stops in New York City and Connecticut — check out our recent podcast interview with him here.
Devin Hughes is the President and Founder of GVPedia, a non-profit that provides access to gun violence prevention research and data.
Images courtesy of Devin Hughes.