‘Obama, come and take it’: gun show business booms amid fear of regulation
As Barack Obama discusses ending the ‘gun show loophole’ that exempts some buyers from background checks firearms sell fast at Alabama event
Matthew Teague
GuardianUK
Monday 4 January 2016
Thousands of people surged past Louis Bakane’s little booth at the Great Southern Gun and Knife Show this past weekend, and he had a theory as to why.
“They’re panicking,” he said. The federal government is closing in, he figured, starting with an executive order expected this week from Barack Obama.
Bakane listened to an alternative theory: maybe Smith & Wesson, Remington, ammunition manufacturers and the people who run the Gun Show profit from perpetual panic. What if that’s the reason for the everlasting fear?
“Well,” he said, after a moment. “They’ve got to keep the lights on.”
So gun control, for owners like Bakane, is an ideological trench war. And the latest salvo from the opposing side is now whistling through the air: after years of fighting with Congress over gun control measures, Obama is expected to press forward with an executive order curbing certain kinds of gun sales, in the hope of lessening gun violence.
He is scheduled to meet on Monday with the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, to examine ways to strengthen the order against legal challenges. The order’s central change will probably require background checks at gun shows, in effect closing the “gun show loophole” that allows unlicensed private dealers to sell guns without checks.
This weekend, the Great Southern Gun and Knife Show had the frantic energy of a traveling circus. Thousands – many thousands – stood in a line that snaked out the door, and each paid $9 to enter with the hope of spending more money inside.
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