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OC Gun Show: Let No Crisis Go to Waste/Refuge For the Weary
California State Senator Dave Min of Irvine and Katie Porter, from the US House of Representatives, Democrats, both attended the Orange County, CA gun show this weekend. They were, reportedly, escorted by sheriffs and were kept far from the deviant potential gun-owners that they ostensibly came to observe.
Oddly enough, no media appears to exist about these visits, only local word of mouth and eyewitness accounts. It appears that they may be biding their time on their anti-gun stances until the moment is slightly more favorable. It can only be assumed that their strange appearances may be related to Dave Min’s bill to ban gun shows on government property, but they have not chosen to openly disclose their time at the shows. Possibly because it would not be inflammatory enough for the restrictions they are advocating.
As someone who enjoyed this gun show, I would like to add that it was the most diverse crowd I’ve probably ever seen. I saw a man with full-body tattoos (including face), a woman with dyed hair and piercings (though in CA this is not surprising anymore), multiple older Veterans, many Asians, Hispanics (do I say Latinx?), many Black Americans, and many people of various indeterminate ethnicities and sexualities (I didn’t feel I needed to ask them about it). I watched the most polite crowd I’ve ever seen in Southern California endure 80+ degree temperatures without shade and without concessions (OC Fairgrounds would not allow food/drink vendors) and without seating. People were kind to one another, laughing, and enjoying the outdoor environment.
While, ultimately, I did not enjoy the outdoors as much as others (I now have something in common with my mortal enemy: shellfish) it seemed that it was a really relaxed affair. With proper seating, shade, and food/water, it would have been a really lovely afternoon supporting the injured economy with stimulus money.
As it is, anyone who has attended one knows: there are few guns at any California gun show. There are accessories and ammo, but not a whole lot of guns. There are muskets and 18th-century pistols (some with the most beautiful embellishments). There are various components to help make out-of-state firearms California legal (encouraging people to be law-abiding!) and there is usually at least one vendor that is helping people take their California Firearms Safety exams. There are jerky and home-made hot sauce (go with the ghost pepper variety, it’ll take your breath away). There’s usually even fudge (I think they bowed out with it being outside). More often than not, there’s handmade jewelry, silver, hand-forged knives, t-shirts with pithy sayings, and buttons. New for this year were the various home-made masks and gaiters.
There were children, babies, service dogs, plain ol’ people with their dogs, elderly, disabled. Every variety of people were there. I heard at least four languages spoken while I was there and that is on the low-estimated end. It was hard to completely discern from 6 ft. away and masked. But it was beautiful. People chatting in the lines they were waiting in (because you couldn’t all gather together, you know, safety first). It was a great sense of relief and joy. And unity.
Real unity.
Not the unity that you get during political photo ops.
This was the kind of unity where everyone respected one another, were polite, chatted politely, and gave everyone room to do whatever they needed to do.
Heck, even the Libertarians were there.
I’m glad I only found out about the attendance of my political “betters” (clearly not Representatives) as I was leaving, otherwise, it would’ve soured the experience for me. Instead, I got to see a truly diverse, truly polite, kind, helpful, and better society where people loved America (whatever their vision of it was) and believed in the rule of law and of the natural rights of citizens. It was a place where people talked ideas and even disagreed, but nodded or shook heads and laughed.
It was a place where I met a lovely woman who was anxious about taking her FSC exam, despite reading the manual many times and having understood gun safety well. She was just convinced that California was so difficult, that she really probably was not going to pass. I reassured her that it wasn’t so (I recently had to retake my exam, since my certificate was from the olden days of “Handgun Safety Certificates”) and that she would be just fine. We chatted at great length about women needing to be empowered, about the history of the gun as the great equalizer, and about how it makes sense to practice rights as fully as able and to respect those rights.
The gun show in CA in particular is less and less about the guns themselves and is more a haven for entrepreneurs selling unique or handmade items. It is a place where people of a certain mindset can feel free (or free-er) to be themselves and to speak knowing they won’t be immediately demonized. It is a place where they know they can respect while being respected.
After all, an armed society is a polite society.
It is even the first place where, after 40 years in California, I saw a BMW driver who was fully entitled to back out, pull back into his spot, wait, and wave us on as we walked behind his shiny black sedan.
Truly, the OC gun show is a wonder.
…By the way, the day after I met that lovely lady I was wandering around and she tapped me on the shoulder while sauntering away. “I passed!” she said from a distance and waved.
Published in Guns
Yer on a roll, TRN.
I have yet to attend a gun show, but the next one advertised, I will be there.
Possible spoiler alert:
She passed.
They’re good fun. At least out here, it’s not just weird gun nuts.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s those there, too. But it’s not like going to ComicCon back in the 80’s if you catch my drift.
So you need a “Fire Arms Safety Course” to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights?
When do they institute the “Voter Safety Course” to ensure safe execution of the right to vote?
A few low-information voters can certainly do a great deal of damage. So it would seem that if exercising a 2nd Amendment right requires fingerprinting and background checks, voting should require a basic ID check?
I think you will find far more guns for sale at southern gun shows, but the article is right, mostly accessories. I have only bought one gun at a gun show my whole life. Thanks to the now retired 3 day waiting period, I had to drive to the gun store I bought it from several days later, added an hour and a half to my purchase, plus gas. The wait period is to kill gun shows…prevent all but local venders from participating.
Last gun show, I bought reusable heat packs for spring baseball season to fight off the cold, a laser sight, two boxes of .22 Stingers, some cleaning tools and pads, and a hot dog.
No. You need a Firearms Safety Certificate. One must pass a fairly basic test that ensures that you understand that one side goes bang and the other is where you hold it and that if at any time anything ever gets shot with it and someone doesn’t like it, you’ll be in trouble. This includes inanimate objects as well as animate. This also includes where you’re shooting it.
It’s good for people to know basic stuff like, “don’t ever assume a gun is unloaded” or “always know what is behind your intended target”.
That said, I don’t know how it is unconstitutional to require immigrants to take a citizenship test in order to vote, but those who are born here do not have to. I mean, it’s probably racist, right? We require them to know about our government, but all the pale people have to do is be born here and then just get to vote for whoever they want! It’s unfair!
I say everyone should have to take it.
ID check and I’d require a 4 question test. On the order of….
1 What are the three branches of the Federal Government?
2 What are the first ten amendments to the Constitution called?
3. Where do all taxing and spending originate?
4. What document starts with ‘We the People of the United States…”
Immigrants don’t take the test to vote. They take it to gain citizenship.
Thanks to a bizarre interpretation of our laws anyone who gets born in the US whether their parents are legal or not gets the prize of citizenship.
Sure. But they take the test to get all privileges and rights of citizens. Which means voting. No one would call it that or say that, but that’s what it is.
Senators Min and Porter may have thought they were going on safari to observe the Southern California Redneck in its native habitat.
“I see we may be approaching one of the male specimens…. wait! No! This is an alt-tattooed street racer from Fontana! We shall have to keep searching…”
Truly, though, it was remarkable how demographically balanced it was. There were slightly more pale people, but probably not by much. It was a pretty even display of diverse folks. It was touching to see.