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Reporter goes to firing line
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Reporter goes to firing line ... a rented Beretta in hand
Shooting galleries prosper, gun shows run daily and concealed weapons are no big thing
William Walker
MARK TERRILL/AP FILE PHOTO
BLOW-OUT SALE: Every day, somewhere in Texas, there's a gun show in progress. In fact, the Lone Star state leads the U.S. with 486 such shows a year.
David Portnoy/BLACK STAR PHOTOS
THEY SHOOT, THEY SCORE: Gun owners in Houston shoot at man-shaped targets in order to qualify for a state-issued CHL - a licence to carry a concealed handgun. Demand for CHLs skyrocketed after Sept. 11.
AUSTIN, Texas THE COLD METAL of the Beretta 9mm fits snugly into my right palm, my finger curling easily around the trigger. I slowly lift both arms, nestle the butt of the gun into my left hand to steady it, line up the sight on the tip of the barrel with the target and, without a thought, squeeze.
Blam!
My hands rock back and up. A white plume of sulphur-smelling smoke blows out and a shell casing flies sideways.
I hit the man squarely in the left shoulder, the bullet ferociously ripping through him.
Just typical Friday-night fun in George W. Bush's Texas.
The man is a paper target 30 metres away, inside one of hundreds of Texas' indoor gun ranges. This range is smack in the middle of a suburban shopping strip, just past the Wal-Mart and the Sonic drive-in hamburger joint.
The Beretta 9mm is one of the most powerful, accurate and deadly handguns in America. It's so trustworthy, it has been issued to 400,000 U.S. Army troops, including those in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
In Bush's Texas, guns are a way of life, as common as breakfast burritos or Saturday-night line dancing. One in every two Texans owns a gun. Thousands shoot for sport daily at indoor ranges like this one.
In fact, Bush defeated incumbent Democrat governor Anne Richards in 1995, launching his political career, in part by promising to sign a bill lifting a 125-year-old state ban on carrying concealed handguns. Richards had said she would "refuse to cross that line."
Now, Bush's Republican administration has filed a legal brief (through Solicitor-General Ted Olson) before the Supreme Court that argues the U.S. constitution provides that all Americans have the right to own a gun. That gun policy reverses a position held continuously through the last four Democratic and last five Republican presidential administrations.
Two years ago, months before the presidential election, National Rifle Association (NRA) first vice-president Kayne Robinson said if Bush won, "we'll finally have a president ... where we work out of their office (and have) unbelievably friendly relations."
The NRA gun lobbyists want "friendly relations" in a country where 200 million handguns are privately held and where 29,000 people were killed with them last year, more than 10 times the number killed by guns in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, New Zealand and Australia combined.
Each year in the United States, more than 4.5 million guns are sold, including 2 million handguns. In addition, about 2 million used guns are resold.
With a gun-friendly White House and Americans looking for more personal protection after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. gun industry is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance.
In the two months before the attacks, Texas issued 10,000 permits for concealed handguns; in the two months afterward, it issued more than 25,000.
More than 300,000 Texans have such permits. All that's required is a $140 fee (all figures U.S.), a background check (for criminal convictions or evidence of alcohol or drug dependency) and some training, which varies.
But that's just for those who want to carry concealed handguns. Guns can be bought at any of Texas' giant gun stores - many the size of supermarkets - with just a simple piece of paperwork. And records of gun sales aren't available even to Texas police.
Walking out of the shooting range with a brand new Beretta 9mm of my own would have been as simple as plopping down a credit card to pay the $587 sticker price. Extra ammunition clips cost $49 each.
For many, the best way to choose a gun is to rent one and test it at an indoor shooting range, where brand-new models are available to rent.
It couldn't be much easier. Five minutes after I walked into the shooting range, I was loaded and cocked - despite my warning to the staff that I was a beginner and needed a lesson.
I left an hour later - and just $33.28 poorer - with my ears ringing and hands numb from the violent explosions. Enthusiasts call it "the buzz."
Tom (not his real name) rented me the Beretta ($8) and sold me a box of 50 rounds ($8.99), the human target (75 cents), safety glasses (50 cents) and ear protection (50 cents). There is also a $12 non-member fee.
I was shown how to load 10 rounds into the ammunition clip that slides into the gun's butt and release the safety catch. My identity was never checked. All that was required was for Tom to hold my Washington, D.C., driver's licence, which he attached to a clipboard.
I also had to sign a waiver. "You're supposed to read all this, but just sign here. It basically protects us in case you shoot yourself," Tom said.
When it was over, I dutifully swept up my brass shell casings that scattered all over the floor, dumped them into a recycling bin, removed the ammunition clip from the gun, put both back in their protective casing and left the firing area.
"Y'all have a good time?" Tom asked. "You want to try the Glock?"
Uh, no, thanks.
"That the Beretta?" a customer asked me in a friendly, one-of-the-boys, gun-club way. "You like it?"
A middle-aged man was talking to Tom about bringing in his .44-calibre handgun for what sounded like shooting classes.
"We just take your picture with this Polaroid here," Tom said. "You go upstairs for a half-hour class and that's it, you're done."
What was that about?
"Oh, its for a CHL," Tom said, making me think of some gunslinger's version of the Canadian Hockey League.
Actually, CHL stands for Concealed Handgun Licence, but Texas does have shooting leagues and clubs that stage competitions featuring computer-generated moving targets.
According to KeepAndBearArms.com ("the gun owners homepage"), 11.4 million Americans go target-shooting for sport, the same number of people who play baseball.
Guns in Texas are as common as pickup trucks. In many cases, they go together.
Most owners will tell you the guns are for self-defence. Yet studies based on statistics by U.S. gun-control advocates show that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than it is to be used in self-defence.
"A gun is just a tool," says Todd Saxet, 40, owner of a popular gun-show business.
"It's no different than a pair of pliers. It's all how you use it. It's all in the intent of the person using it. The gun itself ain't dangerous at all."
He's speaking in an Austin suburb where a Saxet buy-and-sell show is in progress. Sellers walk up to him as he speaks, wads of cash in their hands from gun sales this day.
"Look, people are going to hurt each other regardless," says Saxet. "We've had all the laws on the books that you'd ever want, since the '60s. It all comes down to folks' intentions and you've just got to punish the criminals."
Ordinary, everyday Texans don't worry much about the massive proliferation of weaponry, but those who do worry, worry about events like Saxet's.
Through what's called the Texas "gun-show loophole," anyone can walk into one of these bazaars and buy a handgun or rifle - no identification, no security checks, no waiting. It's as easy as buying a cheeseburger at the refreshment stand.
Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, who lived in Waco, is believed to have purchased 200 automatic and semi-automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Texas gun shows before the FBI firebombed his compound in 1993.
The assault rifle and TEC-9 assault pistol two Littleton, Colo., teens used in 1999 to gun down 26 students at Columbine High School, killing 13, had passed through the hands of unlicensed dealers at gun shows, the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) reported.
And the FBI is probing reports that terrorist cells have had U.S.-based members buy weapons and ammunition in large quantities at gun shows, including some in Texas, to be shipped overseas.
Every day, somewhere in Texas, there's a gun show in progress. In fact, Bush's home state leads the nation with 486 gun shows a year, by last count.
This three-day show is jam-packed with more than 400 exhibitors, selling everything from handguns to high-powered rifles, Uzi submachine guns, flesh-ripping hollow-point bullets, knives of all sizes and varieties, gun scopes, holsters, even targets with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's face printed on them.
Gun lovers are famously defensive of their pastime and anyone who would intrude on it. One of the show's popular T-shirts mocks the agency that enforces gun laws. The shirt says: "ATF. Alcohol. Tobacco. Firearms. Great, who's bringing the chips?"
Another bumper sticker on sale says: "God. Guns. Guts. Keep America Free."
The crowd looks no different from one at any suburban shopping mall: husbands and wives, a man carrying a baby, an elderly couple, teenagers, pairs of young women.
"Look around," says Saxet, who presides over 40-odd shows a year. "Do these people look like a bunch of criminals to you?"
No, but suddenly one of his show organizers and an off-duty Austin police officer rush outside to the overflowing parking lot at the convention centre. Some teenagers have been driving around, videotaping the licence plates of cars parked outside the show.
"Aw, they're probably just kids casing for robberies," Saxet says.
It's a troubling thought. Police admit any house that's known to contain a gun becomes a prime target for would-be thieves, many of whom need money to feed a drug addiction and know a stolen handgun will bring fast cash.
Some of the exhibitors, like Brent Fullerton, are aware of a federal bill, co-sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, to crack down on gun shows and regulate sales.
"I don't think it's going anywhere, not with Bush there," Fullerton says.
"It's about time we got someone on our side in the White House. Clinton sure didn't do anything for us for eight years. We took a beating."
This Canadian is almost at a loss for something to buy that would be legal to bring home - except for a Shania Twain CD on one of the tables.
Beside the Canadian country singer's disc is a black 9mm Beretta. It looks just http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1022099948342&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pagepath=News/World&col=968350060724
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/10/2002 10:57:59
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/10/2002 10:59:02
Shooting galleries prosper, gun shows run daily and concealed weapons are no big thing
William Walker
MARK TERRILL/AP FILE PHOTO
BLOW-OUT SALE: Every day, somewhere in Texas, there's a gun show in progress. In fact, the Lone Star state leads the U.S. with 486 such shows a year.
David Portnoy/BLACK STAR PHOTOS
THEY SHOOT, THEY SCORE: Gun owners in Houston shoot at man-shaped targets in order to qualify for a state-issued CHL - a licence to carry a concealed handgun. Demand for CHLs skyrocketed after Sept. 11.
AUSTIN, Texas THE COLD METAL of the Beretta 9mm fits snugly into my right palm, my finger curling easily around the trigger. I slowly lift both arms, nestle the butt of the gun into my left hand to steady it, line up the sight on the tip of the barrel with the target and, without a thought, squeeze.
Blam!
My hands rock back and up. A white plume of sulphur-smelling smoke blows out and a shell casing flies sideways.
I hit the man squarely in the left shoulder, the bullet ferociously ripping through him.
Just typical Friday-night fun in George W. Bush's Texas.
The man is a paper target 30 metres away, inside one of hundreds of Texas' indoor gun ranges. This range is smack in the middle of a suburban shopping strip, just past the Wal-Mart and the Sonic drive-in hamburger joint.
The Beretta 9mm is one of the most powerful, accurate and deadly handguns in America. It's so trustworthy, it has been issued to 400,000 U.S. Army troops, including those in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
In Bush's Texas, guns are a way of life, as common as breakfast burritos or Saturday-night line dancing. One in every two Texans owns a gun. Thousands shoot for sport daily at indoor ranges like this one.
In fact, Bush defeated incumbent Democrat governor Anne Richards in 1995, launching his political career, in part by promising to sign a bill lifting a 125-year-old state ban on carrying concealed handguns. Richards had said she would "refuse to cross that line."
Now, Bush's Republican administration has filed a legal brief (through Solicitor-General Ted Olson) before the Supreme Court that argues the U.S. constitution provides that all Americans have the right to own a gun. That gun policy reverses a position held continuously through the last four Democratic and last five Republican presidential administrations.
Two years ago, months before the presidential election, National Rifle Association (NRA) first vice-president Kayne Robinson said if Bush won, "we'll finally have a president ... where we work out of their office (and have) unbelievably friendly relations."
The NRA gun lobbyists want "friendly relations" in a country where 200 million handguns are privately held and where 29,000 people were killed with them last year, more than 10 times the number killed by guns in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, New Zealand and Australia combined.
Each year in the United States, more than 4.5 million guns are sold, including 2 million handguns. In addition, about 2 million used guns are resold.
With a gun-friendly White House and Americans looking for more personal protection after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. gun industry is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance.
In the two months before the attacks, Texas issued 10,000 permits for concealed handguns; in the two months afterward, it issued more than 25,000.
More than 300,000 Texans have such permits. All that's required is a $140 fee (all figures U.S.), a background check (for criminal convictions or evidence of alcohol or drug dependency) and some training, which varies.
But that's just for those who want to carry concealed handguns. Guns can be bought at any of Texas' giant gun stores - many the size of supermarkets - with just a simple piece of paperwork. And records of gun sales aren't available even to Texas police.
Walking out of the shooting range with a brand new Beretta 9mm of my own would have been as simple as plopping down a credit card to pay the $587 sticker price. Extra ammunition clips cost $49 each.
For many, the best way to choose a gun is to rent one and test it at an indoor shooting range, where brand-new models are available to rent.
It couldn't be much easier. Five minutes after I walked into the shooting range, I was loaded and cocked - despite my warning to the staff that I was a beginner and needed a lesson.
I left an hour later - and just $33.28 poorer - with my ears ringing and hands numb from the violent explosions. Enthusiasts call it "the buzz."
Tom (not his real name) rented me the Beretta ($8) and sold me a box of 50 rounds ($8.99), the human target (75 cents), safety glasses (50 cents) and ear protection (50 cents). There is also a $12 non-member fee.
I was shown how to load 10 rounds into the ammunition clip that slides into the gun's butt and release the safety catch. My identity was never checked. All that was required was for Tom to hold my Washington, D.C., driver's licence, which he attached to a clipboard.
I also had to sign a waiver. "You're supposed to read all this, but just sign here. It basically protects us in case you shoot yourself," Tom said.
When it was over, I dutifully swept up my brass shell casings that scattered all over the floor, dumped them into a recycling bin, removed the ammunition clip from the gun, put both back in their protective casing and left the firing area.
"Y'all have a good time?" Tom asked. "You want to try the Glock?"
Uh, no, thanks.
"That the Beretta?" a customer asked me in a friendly, one-of-the-boys, gun-club way. "You like it?"
A middle-aged man was talking to Tom about bringing in his .44-calibre handgun for what sounded like shooting classes.
"We just take your picture with this Polaroid here," Tom said. "You go upstairs for a half-hour class and that's it, you're done."
What was that about?
"Oh, its for a CHL," Tom said, making me think of some gunslinger's version of the Canadian Hockey League.
Actually, CHL stands for Concealed Handgun Licence, but Texas does have shooting leagues and clubs that stage competitions featuring computer-generated moving targets.
According to KeepAndBearArms.com ("the gun owners homepage"), 11.4 million Americans go target-shooting for sport, the same number of people who play baseball.
Guns in Texas are as common as pickup trucks. In many cases, they go together.
Most owners will tell you the guns are for self-defence. Yet studies based on statistics by U.S. gun-control advocates show that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than it is to be used in self-defence.
"A gun is just a tool," says Todd Saxet, 40, owner of a popular gun-show business.
"It's no different than a pair of pliers. It's all how you use it. It's all in the intent of the person using it. The gun itself ain't dangerous at all."
He's speaking in an Austin suburb where a Saxet buy-and-sell show is in progress. Sellers walk up to him as he speaks, wads of cash in their hands from gun sales this day.
"Look, people are going to hurt each other regardless," says Saxet. "We've had all the laws on the books that you'd ever want, since the '60s. It all comes down to folks' intentions and you've just got to punish the criminals."
Ordinary, everyday Texans don't worry much about the massive proliferation of weaponry, but those who do worry, worry about events like Saxet's.
Through what's called the Texas "gun-show loophole," anyone can walk into one of these bazaars and buy a handgun or rifle - no identification, no security checks, no waiting. It's as easy as buying a cheeseburger at the refreshment stand.
Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, who lived in Waco, is believed to have purchased 200 automatic and semi-automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Texas gun shows before the FBI firebombed his compound in 1993.
The assault rifle and TEC-9 assault pistol two Littleton, Colo., teens used in 1999 to gun down 26 students at Columbine High School, killing 13, had passed through the hands of unlicensed dealers at gun shows, the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) reported.
And the FBI is probing reports that terrorist cells have had U.S.-based members buy weapons and ammunition in large quantities at gun shows, including some in Texas, to be shipped overseas.
Every day, somewhere in Texas, there's a gun show in progress. In fact, Bush's home state leads the nation with 486 gun shows a year, by last count.
This three-day show is jam-packed with more than 400 exhibitors, selling everything from handguns to high-powered rifles, Uzi submachine guns, flesh-ripping hollow-point bullets, knives of all sizes and varieties, gun scopes, holsters, even targets with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's face printed on them.
Gun lovers are famously defensive of their pastime and anyone who would intrude on it. One of the show's popular T-shirts mocks the agency that enforces gun laws. The shirt says: "ATF. Alcohol. Tobacco. Firearms. Great, who's bringing the chips?"
Another bumper sticker on sale says: "God. Guns. Guts. Keep America Free."
The crowd looks no different from one at any suburban shopping mall: husbands and wives, a man carrying a baby, an elderly couple, teenagers, pairs of young women.
"Look around," says Saxet, who presides over 40-odd shows a year. "Do these people look like a bunch of criminals to you?"
No, but suddenly one of his show organizers and an off-duty Austin police officer rush outside to the overflowing parking lot at the convention centre. Some teenagers have been driving around, videotaping the licence plates of cars parked outside the show.
"Aw, they're probably just kids casing for robberies," Saxet says.
It's a troubling thought. Police admit any house that's known to contain a gun becomes a prime target for would-be thieves, many of whom need money to feed a drug addiction and know a stolen handgun will bring fast cash.
Some of the exhibitors, like Brent Fullerton, are aware of a federal bill, co-sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, to crack down on gun shows and regulate sales.
"I don't think it's going anywhere, not with Bush there," Fullerton says.
"It's about time we got someone on our side in the White House. Clinton sure didn't do anything for us for eight years. We took a beating."
This Canadian is almost at a loss for something to buy that would be legal to bring home - except for a Shania Twain CD on one of the tables.
Beside the Canadian country singer's disc is a black 9mm Beretta. It looks just http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1022099948342&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pagepath=News/World&col=968350060724
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/10/2002 10:57:59
Edited by - Josey1 on 06/10/2002 10:59:02
Comments
Can anyone make the article "thinner" so it's readable?
Edited by - competentone on 06/10/2002 10:16:47
MARK TERRILL/AUSTIN, Texas THE COLD METAL of the Beretta 9mm fits snugly into my right palm, my finger curling easily around the trigger. I slowly lift both arms, nestle the butt of the gun into my left hand to steady it, line up the sight on the tip of the barrel with the target and, without a thought, squeeze.
Blam!
My hands rock back and up. A white plume of sulphur-smelling smoke blows out and a shell casing flies sideways.
I hit the man squarely in the left shoulder, the bullet ferociously ripping through him.
Just typical Friday-night fun in George W. Bush's Texas.
The man is a paper target 30 metres away, inside one of hundreds of Texas' indoor gun ranges. This range is smack in the middle of a suburban shopping strip, just past the Wal-Mart and the Sonic drive-in hamburger joint.
The Beretta 9mm is one of the most powerful, accurate and deadly handguns in America. It's so trustworthy, it has been issued to 400,000 U.S. Army troops, including those in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
In Bush's Texas, guns are a way of life, as common as breakfast burritos or Saturday-night line dancing. One in every two Texans owns a gun. Thousands shoot for sport daily at indoor ranges like this one.
In fact, Bush defeated incumbent Democrat governor Anne Richards in 1995, launching his political career, in part by promising to sign a bill lifting a 125-year-old state ban on carrying concealed handguns. Richards had said she would "refuse to cross that line."
Now, Bush's Republican administration has filed a legal brief (through Solicitor-General Ted Olson) before the Supreme Court that argues the U.S. constitution provides that all Americans have the right to own a gun. That gun policy reverses a position held continuously through the last four Democratic and last five Republican presidential administrations.
Two years ago, months before the presidential election, National Rifle Association (NRA) first vice-president Kayne Robinson said if Bush won, "we'll finally have a president ... where we work out of their office (and have) unbelievably friendly relations."
The NRA gun lobbyists want "friendly relations" in a country where 200 million handguns are privately held and where 29,000 people were killed with them last year, more than 10 times the number killed by guns in Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Germany, New Zealand and Australia combined.
Each year in the United States, more than 4.5 million guns are sold, including 2 million handguns. In addition, about 2 million used guns are resold.
With a gun-friendly White House and Americans looking for more personal protection after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. gun industry is undergoing somewhat of a renaissance.
In the two months before the attacks, Texas issued 10,000 permits for concealed handguns; in the two months afterward, it issued more than 25,000.
More than 300,000 Texans have such permits. All that's required is a $140 fee (all figures U.S.), a background check (for criminal convictions or evidence of alcohol or drug dependency) and some training, which varies.
But that's just for those who want to carry concealed handguns. Guns can be bought at any of Texas' giant gun stores - many the size of supermarkets - with just a simple piece of paperwork. And records of gun sales aren't available even to Texas police.
Walking out of the shooting range with a brand new Beretta 9mm of my own would have been as simple as plopping down a credit card to pay the $587 sticker price. Extra ammunition clips cost $49 each.
For many, the best way to choose a gun is to rent one and test it at an indoor shooting range, where brand-new models are available to rent.
It couldn't be much easier. Five minutes after I walked into the shooting range, I was loaded and cocked - despite my warning to the staff that I was a beginner and needed a lesson.
I left an hour later - and just $33.28 poorer - with my ears ringing and hands numb from the violent explosions. Enthusiasts call it "the buzz."
Tom (not his real name) rented me the Beretta ($8) and sold me a box of 50 rounds ($8.99), the human target (75 cents), safety glasses (50 cents) and ear protection (50 cents). There is also a $12 non-member fee.
I was shown how to load 10 rounds into the ammunition clip that slides into the gun's butt and release the safety catch. My identity was never checked. All that was required was for Tom to hold my Washington, D.C., driver's licence, which he attached to a clipboard.
I also had to sign a waiver. "You're supposed to read all this, but just sign here. It basically protects us in case you shoot yourself," Tom said.
When it was over, I dutifully swept up my brass shell casings that scattered all over the floor, dumped them into a recycling bin, removed the ammunition clip from the gun, put both back in their protective casing and left the firing area.
"Y'all have a good time?" Tom asked. "You want to try the Glock?"
Uh, no, thanks.
"That the Beretta?" a customer asked me in a friendly, one-of-the-boys, gun-club way. "You like it?"
A middle-aged man was talking to Tom about bringing in his .44-calibre handgun for what sounded like shooting classes.
"We just take your picture with this Polaroid here," Tom said. "You go upstairs for a half-hour class and that's it, you're done."
What was that about?
"Oh, its for a CHL," Tom said, making me think of some gunslinger's version of the Canadian Hockey League.
Actually, CHL stands for Concealed Handgun Licence, but Texas does have shooting leagues and clubs that stage competitions featuring computer-generated moving targets.
According to KeepAndBearArms.com ("the gun owners homepage"), 11.4 million Americans go target-shooting for sport, the same number of people who play baseball.
Guns in Texas are as common as pickup trucks. In many cases, they go together.
Most owners will tell you the guns are for self-defence. Yet studies based on statistics by U.S. gun-control advocates show that a gun kept in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than it is to be used in self-defence.
"A gun is just a tool," says Todd Saxet, 40, owner of a popular gun-show business.
"It's no different than a pair of pliers. It's all how you use it. It's all in the intent of the person using it. The gun itself ain't dangerous at all."
He's speaking in an Austin suburb where a Saxet buy-and-sell show is in progress. Sellers walk up to him as he speaks, wads of cash in their hands from gun sales this day.
"Look, people are going to hurt each other regardless," says Saxet. "We've had all the laws on the books that you'd ever want, since the '60s. It all comes down to folks' intentions and you've just got to punish the criminals."
Ordinary, everyday Texans don't worry much about the massive proliferation of weaponry, but those who do worry, worry about events like Saxet's.
Through what's called the Texas "gun-show loophole," anyone can walk into one of these bazaars and buy a handgun or rifle - no identification, no security checks, no waiting. It's as easy as buying a cheeseburger at the refreshment stand.
Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh, who lived in Waco, is believed to have purchased 200 automatic and semi-automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition at Texas gun shows before the FBI firebombed his compound in 1993.
The assault rifle and TEC-9 assault pistol two Littleton, Colo., teens used in 1999 to gun down 26 students at Columbine High School, killing 13, had passed through the hands of unlicensed dealers at gun shows, the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco (ATF) reported.
And the FBI is probing reports that terrorist cells have had U.S.-based members buy weapons and ammunition in large quantities at gun shows, including some in Texas, to be shipped overseas.
Every day, somewhere in Texas, there's a gun show in progress. In fact, Bush's home state leads the nation with 486 gun shows a year, by last count.
This three-day show is jam-packed with more than 400 exhibitors, selling everything from handguns to high-powered rifles, Uzi submachine guns, flesh-ripping hollow-point bullets, knives of all sizes and varieties, gun scopes, holsters, even targets with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's face printed on them.
Gun lovers are famously defensive of their pastime and anyone who would intrude on it. One of the show's popular T-shirts mocks the agency that enforces gun laws. The shirt says: "ATF. Alcohol. Tobacco. Firearms. Great, who's bringing the chips?"
Another bumper sticker on sale says: "God. Guns. Guts. Keep America Free."
The crowd looks no different from one at any suburban shopping mall: husbands and wives, a man carrying a baby, an elderly couple, teenagers, pairs of young women.
"Look around," says Saxet, who presides over 40-odd shows a year. "Do these people look like a bunch of criminals to you?"
No, but suddenly one of his show organizers and an off-duty Austin police officer rush outside to the overflowing parking lot at the convention centre. Some teenagers have been driving around, videotaping the licence plates of cars parked outside the show.
"Aw, they're probably just kids casing for robberies," Saxet says.
It's a troubling thought. Police admit any house that's known to contain a gun becomes a prime target for would-be thieves, many of whom need money to feed a drug addiction and know a stolen handgun will bring fast cash.
Some of the exhibitors, like Brent Fullerton, are aware of a federal bill, co-sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, to crack down on gun shows and regulate sales.
"I don't think it's going anywhere, not with Bush there," Fullerton says.
"It's about time we got someone on our side in the White House. Clinton sure didn't do anything for us for eight years. We took a beating."
This Canadian is almost at a loss for something to buy that would be legal to bring home - except for a Shania Twain CD on one of the tables.
Beside the Canadian country singer's disc is a black 9mm Beretta. It looks just like the rental pistol at the shooting range, but this is a 1-of-2,500 collector's edition, emblazoned with gold letters: "M-9 U.S. Army Edition - Operation Enduring Freedom."
"I can give you a great deal on that one," the vendor says.
You'll have to "scrunch" things up to make it "fit" on this thread...
Edited by - competentone on 06/10/2002 10:34:26
Whats this all aout? Most Powerful? MOst Accurate? Most Deadly? This reporter is some kind of *!
Chris8161
Admit nothing, deny everything, demand proof!
9mm one of the most powerful, accurate and deadly weapons in the world? I like 'em fine, but I'd have to say my .357 mag. and my .44 mag. are probably much more "powerful and deadly."
Lord Lowrider the LoquaciousMember:Secret Select Society of Suave Stylish Smoking Jackets She was only a fisherman's daughter,But when she saw my rod she reeled.