Information AboutGun Show |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT GUN SHOW | |
| firearms | |
| gun politics | |
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CURRENT Gun shows are typically held in public buildings, including Hotel s, Mall s, armories, Stadium s, etc., and are open to the public with a nominal fee for admittance. While some shows have as few as 200 tables each and a very few as many as 3,700 tables, most have about 450 tables. They are almost all held on weekends by a promoter who leases the large space, provides the tables, and then allows dealers to rent those tables to show guns, knives, crafts, wares or demonstrate services they can provide. A very high share of tables don't sell guns or ammo at all because of the difficulty of selling $500 guns in the tough recent economic times, but instead the low-dollar "stuff that sells": accessories like inexpensive rifle scopes and other inexpensive things such as pocketknives. As of 2005, typical dealer rent per table at most shows is in the $60 range, with some top shows charging over $80 per table. Dealers typically travel an amazingly-long circuit that often will have a Mississippi dealer in New York State for a show after one in between the week before. Consumers must typically pay $6 or $7 per person admission (plus often parking of $3-5 per vehicle). Actual sales volume at most guns shows is low in most states. Most consumers just come, park, browse for a couple hours, and go home. In recent years, gun shows have become controversial in some areas, as the scope of the right of private citizens to own firearms has become a topic of political debate. Those opposing gun shows argue that they contribute to illicit trafficking in firearms; those supporting gun shows point to 2nd Amendment rights and regulations which govern the sale of firearms at gun shows. Since 2000, gun shows have decreased in number. Promoters have either cut how often a show is run in a given locality or ended that show altogether in many places where not enough dealers continued renting tables. This, again, is a result of the dismal actual sales at shows at the same time expenses for dealers have sharply increased. Since 2002, the high (and increasing) cost of being either a dealer or a shopper at a gun show resulting from soaring table rent, gasoline prices, and admission has been driving much of the business to Web-based "gun shows" of sorts. Typically, they don't charge the very-high table rent that dealers at traditional shows pay, instead charging only either a low fee or a commission-on-sale to list an item, with actual transfer of any gun to be handled by a local licensed dealer for a small fee that also increasingly is becoming a major easy profit for some such dealers. Even many dealers still on the traditional show circuit are now also running extensive branches of their show business on such Web "shows" as Auction Arms or GunBroker and have much, maybe most, of their wares for sale there. Other dealers have quit the show circuit altogether, especially ones not selling guns, and totally moved to the Web to sell the inexpensive "stuff that sells" (parts, accessories, tools, books) in Web-based "shows" such as the Internet Gun Show that amount to almost an entire gun show in cyberspace that has various "tables" specializing in different things commonly sold at shows, but don't charge admission for browsing. FUTURE The future of traditional gun shows is dismal as of 2005, due to soaring gasoline prices making them a very-expensive way to shop and adding to dealers' already-high expenses at the same time table rent has gone way up since 2000, all at the same time steep climbs in admission and parking make them more expensive to shop at. Most dealers on the show circuit have been losing money on their show-circuit operations in recent years because of the high costs of doing a show and the surprisingly low amount of actual buying by shoppers. SEE ALSO |
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