Gun show morons

Here is one that nobody has mentioned.
I took my son to a gun show when he was 8 (don't worry, he was well disciplined)
The gun show was trying to charge him adult admission price. After I read them the riot act, I informed them that if he is charged adult admission, than he will be the one purchasing a firearm. They finally realized there ignorance.
 
I always ask if I can handle. I never dry fire unless they say (without me asking) it is ok. I always carry a flashlight, bore light and a dry polishing cloth that I wipe the firearm down with before setting it down to wipe my and others prints off. I most always get a "thanks". This lets the person know I respect their property and if I am serious the conversation goes from there. Even if I am not interested I clean it. I dont pick things up just to look at something I think is neat.

The strollers and handicap scooters dont bother - I understand. Lets face it, our society is getting bigger and isles are smaller. I have a black belt and played sports where I was taught my head leads, I turn my head where I want to go before moving to see who is standing there.
 
Just because some people are uninformed doesn't mean they are idiots. There are plenty of folks who come to the shows who don't know the etiquette and normal dealings of them. There aren't any cards at the entrance telling them what to do, or how to act. Now, I'm not saying there aren't idiots there, I've bumped into a few of them. The sellers will be tolerant, because a few of these idiots are really buyers and probably not much at negotiating. I still love most the shows, from 200 tables to the Wanamaker's at Tulsa. Like now, I'm shopping for a pistol scope, no LGS around keep any in stock. I can go to a big show in DFW and get to see different kinds and look through them. Unless their price is really good, I'll go back to the LGS and order what I like. Really, the gun show has a lot fewer idiots than a trip to Walmart or the mall, and folks are friendlier.
 
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Have seen all these and more.
The LGS's I have worked at do not do shows. Too labor intensive and the margin is rarely as good as remaining at the store.
Lost count of all the times a customer has used my sternum as a dry fire target. I always check/clear before handing over, but few customers re-check. Muzzle control seems a foreign concept for the majority.

My wife and I attend various outdoor shows, boat shows, home shows, and gun shows.
The routine 'aisle blockers' always seem to be obese people who gather in a large knot, oblivious to the fact they are impeding others.
(At gun shows some buffet slayers are dressed as 'tactical operators', which seems a hoot to me...)

More and more baby strollers, always in attendance, are becoming doublewide two-seaters.

Guess I'm becoming a curmudgeon.....
 
Gunshow etiquette (or lack of) is real and needs to be practiced. I may not teach my kids/g-kids much but gun safety and g-show behavior is one they've learned.
Dogs, stop & talkers, baby strollers with kid(s) and their mothers who by appearance you can tell don't really want to be there are all things that you hafta deal with at gunshows today. And we pay to experience/endure these things.
ETA:
I've been on both sides of the tables at g-shows and won't mention the morons that are potential buyers that sellers have to deal with.
 
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or the grandpa who insists that it is okay for their 8 year old grandkid to pick up a Browning Broadway trap gun or near mint Win 42 Skeet off your table , "It's okay, he is with me"... , and then gets in a huff when you tell him & the kid they aren't toys....and DO NOT touch them.

He sure got a funny look on his face when I found him at his table a couple of rows over, later the same day & he wondered if I would be just as dumb and rude as he had been at ours.
 
I haven't been to a gun show in the last 3-5 years that all the guns weren't either tied action or had gun locks on them. There is an etiquette at gun shows, and if we don't educate the "new" people as we see the problems, they will continue to irritate everyone. Common courtesy is no longer being taught in schools, insist on it at your tables.
 
I Hate Gun Shows

The last gun show I attended here on Long Island featured a very large man piloting a wide electric buggy, sort of a motorized wheelchair. I guess you might call it the Hummer of such mini-vehicles.

Part of me felt sorry for the guy while another part of me was angry that the occupant allowed himself to grow to approximately 500 pounds, necessitating a vehicle that brought his isle to a halt, whatever isle he happened to be in.
 
When I have a table and I get the guys who camp in front of the table to talk....I simply ask them NOT TO. "Hey guys, your blocking the table". Works just fine.

There are so many idiots who attend shows...then again that's a cross section of Society today. We have a lot of uneducated, impolite fools out there.

I have seen some very amusing counters to some of the bad behavior at shows. My favorite....

A guy is walking around with a nice M-70. Stops at a table and is showing it to the table holder in hopes of selling it. There's another guy NOT with the rifle owner listening to the discourse, also looking at the rifle. The table guy and the rifle guy agree on $600.

Immediately the 3rd party states "That gun right there is worth FAR more than six hundred dollars, more like eight".

With this the table guy literally throws the gun into this guys chest like a Marine DI. The guy catches it and is totally stunned.

The table guy tells him... "So are You OFFERING him eight hundred"?

Stunned guy says.... "No".

"Then MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS and move on".



Few things annoy me more ,especially when I'm the guy negotiating a deal...Than some know it all, who really doesn't...Interjecting his opinion , in matters that are none of his business anyway.

FN in MT
 
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My biggest gripes have more to do with promoters and dealers
than the public. The public provides all kind of aggravation for
free, you just get use to it. Promoters who have a guy at the
door, bankrolled to short stop any good deals coming in really
*** me, when you are paying good money for your tables. The
sale of tables to people selling Flea Market items, organizations
handing out literature for para military groups, ect- has no place
in gun shows. News loves to run camera over rows of guns and
Bubba with his camos and sunglasses, spouting off about black
Helicopters. Then there is the dealers that constantly interfere
while you are dealing. It seems like there is always one. They
are the ones that have $17 worth of $11 guns on their table,
baggies full of brass "assortments" , you know the type. No one
spends much time looking at their stuff. It gives them plenty of
time to walk around and interject themselves into deals of others.
I have come to the point with these guys, that I tell them to stay
away from my tables. They are so dumb that's the only way to
get rid of them. Most just scurry away, others get huffy, I really
don't care as long as they don't come back.
 
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