Behind a table bearing shotguns and revolvers, and next to a hand-written sign that read “Private Sale; No Paperwork!,” Mike Smith sat waiting for business.
Smith’s gun sale was private in one sense. But it was held in a very public place — the Salem Civic Center, where hundreds of gun lovers browsed through thousands of shotguns, rifles and handguns at a recent gun show.
If someone lingered at Smith’s table long enough to strike a deal, the transaction was fast and simple.
A Virginia law that requires potential gun customers to pass a criminal background check does not apply to transactions by unlicensed vendors such as Smith, whose occasional sales don’t generate enough business to subject them to government scrutiny.
But gun shows — such as the one that returns this weekend to Salem — provide a major market to small-time dealers.
Of the 10,456 gun transactions last year in the Roanoke Valley, 25 percent were made at the nine weekend gun shows at the Roanoke and Salem civic centers, according to state police records obtained under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. A background check by police is counted as a single transaction, regardless of the number of guns sold.
The busiest show had 511 transactions. That’s an average of 37 an hour.
And that doesn’t count all the guns sold. Data collected by state police show only the number of background checks conducted for licensed dealers at gun shows. Sales made by unlicensed dealers such as Smith go uncounted — and unchecked.
“It’s no questions asked,” said Jim Sollo of Virginians Against Handgun Violence. “As long as you’ve got the cash, they’ve got the weapons.”
Between 3,000 and 4,000 people typically attend a Roanoke Valley gun show.
By all accounts, most are law-abiding citizens. But there’s no way to spot the convicted felons looking to slip through what’s called the gun show loophole.
In recent years, Virginia lawmakers have considered closing that loophole by requiring all gun show dealers to have state police conduct instant background checks on prospective buyers.
The bill has been defeated each year. Its sponsor, Sen. Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, has already refiled the legislation (SB15) in what is becoming a perennial issue in the General Assembly.
Virginia is one of 32 states that do not require background checks for all gun show sales, according to the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation.
The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has raised concerns about gun shows. “The access to anonymous sales and large numbers of secondhand firearms makes gun shows attractive to criminals,” a 2000 study by the agency stated.
Of the gun trafficking investigations conducted by ATF between 1996 and 1998, gun shows were linked to about 26,000 illegally diverted firearms, making them the second-largest source of guns per investigation, the study found.
But according to the owner of Showmasters, a Blacksburg company that sponsors gun shows, less than 3 percent of the vendors at a typical show are unlicensed gun dealers who would be affected by Marsh’s legislation.
“The gun show loophole law? It’s a bunch of junk, ” Annette Gelles said.
“All of this kind of big brother stuff … why are they so focused on gun shows?”
During a gun show the first weekend of October at the Salem Civic Center, Smith set up shop with a small collection of guns from his Lynchburg home.
Smith said he doesn’t believe gun shows attract criminals.
It’s mostly hunters, target shooters and gun collectors who frequent the events, Gelles said. That much is obvious, Smith agreed, “just from looking at people and talking to people as they come through.”
Besides, he added, not many criminals would be interested in something like the diminutive Colt .32-caliber revolver for sale on his table, considering all the high-power weapons on the market.
“Nobody shoots anyone with a .32 anymore, ” Smith said.
Pro and con
The guns used in the Columbine school shootings were purchased at a gun show. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was a frequent gun show visitor and vendor.
Those are the kinds of stories told by gun show critics.
Statistics cited by supporters tell a different story.
Of the nearly 20 percent of state and federal inmates who used a gun while committing their crimes, less than 1 percent obtained their weapon from a gun show, according to surveys conducted in 1991 and 1997 by the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Close to 40 percent of the felons obtained their guns from friends or family members, the study found, and almost as many stole their weapons or bought them on the black market.
“I don’t think you have many outlaws who come in here,” said David Lambert of Bland County, who was selling guns just a few tables down from Smith at the Salem gun show.
“They’d rather break in your house and steal a gun.”
Because his weekend trips to gun shows don’t amount to a regular course of business, Lambert is not required to obtain a federal license or check his customers’ backgrounds.
A retired prison guard, Lambert considers himself a pretty good judge of character. He figures he can spot the bad guys from the way their hands shake, or their lips quiver, or their eyes shift.
“If I had an idea that someone was going to go out and rob somebody, I wouldn’t sell a gun to them, ” he said.
That’s not good enough for Sollo, who became involved with Virginians Against Handgun Violence after a deranged gunman killed a co-worker picked at random as she walked through her Northern Virginia neighborhood.
How much trouble would it be for unlicensed gun dealers to check out their customers’ histories? Sollo asked.
At two October gun shows, state police were using laptop computers to make the checks for licensed dealers in a matter of minutes.
The results from gun shows were not available. But of the 207,823 searches conducted statewide last year, 1 percent of them found a prohibited purchaser.
People prohibited from having a gun include convicted felons, those convicted of misdemeanors involving domestic violence and those involuntarily committed to mental institutions.
According to Sollo’s group, 40 percent of gun sales nationwide occur with no background check, and up to a third of the vendors at gun shows are unlicensed dealers.
Gun show promoters say the number of unlicensed dealers is much smaller. At recent gun shows in Roanoke and Salem, that appeared to be the case.
But based on the sheer volume of sales — one out of every four licensed transactions in the area is made at a gun show — Sollo believes the events should be more closely monitored.
“We don’t see this as a panacea,” he said of closing the gun show loophole.
“But we see it as one more way to cut off guns getting in the hands of the wrong people.”
Mainstream America
Outside the Roanoke Civic Center the weekend of Oct. 29, a sign greeted those who showed up for the gun show.
“Unload your guns. All of them, “it commanded in red letters.
Once attendees paid $7 at the door (children got in free), they entered a hockey rink-sized spread of weaponry that spilled over into the adjacent exhibit hall:
Hunting rifles. Shotguns. Pistols. Revolvers. Antique firearms. World War II sniper rifles. AK-47s. M-19s. AR-15s. Derringers. Muzzleloaders. Stun guns. Blow guns.
And those were just the guns.
Also for sale were knives, bayonets, daggers and swords. Ammunition. Hunting gear. Decoys. At Wild Bill’s Concealment Holsters, customers could find a way to carry their heat discreetly.
One booth was devoted almost entirely to the Confederate battle flag. The image appeared on bumper stickers with slogans such as “I’m Offended That You’re Offended, ” and “The Civil War: America’s Holocaust.”
Another booth offered Nazi patches and militaria for sale.
At the book table, much of the reading material was aimed at hunters and gun collectors. Other titles appealed to more divergent interests: “Stalk and Kill: The Sniper Experience, ” or “Guerrilla Gunsmithing: Quick and Dirty Methods for Fixing Firearms in Desperate Times.”
As Gelles, the show’s promoter, walked the crowded aisles, the question came up:
Are the people who attend gun shows a representative slice of mainstream America?
“I think they’re mainstream,” Gelles said. “Look at them. Do they look that unusual?”
As she spoke, two women who looked to be straight from the suburbs passed by, pushing their small children in baby strollers. A few feet away, a man in a black leather trench coat with a ponytail halfway down his back cradled a rifle in his arm.
Minutes earlier, Gelles had pointed out a tall man wearing a camouflage vest.
“That’s a typical customer,” she said. “He makes explosives.” (Legally, she added, for use in construction.)
To support her argument that there were no crooks in the crowd, Gelles pointed to a nearby table where a $3,300 price tag was attached to a heavy World War II rifle.
“Your classic criminal person, he’s not going to swing for that, ” she said.
“Plus he can’t hide it in his jacket when he goes to rob a 7-Eleven.”
Apart from some notorious national cases, gun control advocates admit it’s hard to say just how many weapons sold at the events go on to be used in crimes.
But they cite other evidence to back their arguments: Nine of the 10 states that supply the most guns to out-of-state criminals do not require background checks for all gun show sales, according to the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation.
Yet Virginia legislators have balked at closing the gun show loophole, saying there is no clear evidence of abuse.
To Gelles, it’s no surprise that 25 percent of the Roanoke Valley’s licensed gun sales are made at gun shows.
“It’s a one-stop gun shop,” she said. “That’s why they come: great selection and discount prices.”
In fact, many of the customers also aim to do some selling. It’s not unusual to see people walking from their cars into the civic center with guns for sale or trade slung across their backs — hence the “Unload Your Guns” sign outside the building.
Those sales are treated the same as ones held at a private home or a garage sale: no background checks required.
As Don Bruce of Hot Springs did some shopping at the Roanoke gun show, he carried his carbine rifle slung across his back. A “For Sale” sign was Scotch-taped to the gun’s muzzle.
“If I see something I like, I may do some trading,” Bruce said.
Scaring people
Lawyers, guns and money all played a part in what happened Aug. 13 at the Richmond fairgrounds.
Gelles was in town for a weekend show. She was dismayed to find a large number of police cars parked outside her building. “It looked like a crime scene,” she said.
Gelles said she later learned that ATF agents had teamed up with local police to closely monitor the show, dispatching officers to potential customers’ homes to confirm residency.
The only thing police did, Gelles said, was scare away her law-abiding customers.
“I was down about 1,000 people, which is seven grand to me, ” she said. “That’s a lot of money.” Gelles was so angry she called her attorney, who in turn called ATF’s deputy director at home.
“That’s breaking a federal torts law,” Gelles said of the agency’s actions.
“It’s called impeding and stopping lawful commerce. They’re scaring people.”
On her Web site, Gelles encouraged customers to contact her if they felt their rights had been violated. And she hired a lawyer to meet with ATF officials to discuss her concerns.
Officials with the agency’s Richmond office referred questions to their Washington, D.C., headquarters. There, a spokesman declined to comment.
According to Gelles’ lawyer, ATF “has no interest or desire to prevent law-abiding citizens from legally obtaining firearms.” The agency said it will no longer routinely monitor the Richmond show, the lawyer wrote in a letter posted on Gelles’ Web site. But ATF reserved the right to show up as part of an ongoing investigation.
On the weekend of Oct. 29, Gelles brought her show to Roanoke.
Among the thousands of guns on display at the civic center, there wasn’t an ATF agent in sight.