‘Dead crawl’: Vegas gun shows said to slow in wake of Route 91 massacre
This weekend saw the return of the Great Las Vegas Gun Show, one of the first firearms shows in the city since it saw the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
On 1 October, Stephen Paddock holed up inside the Mandalay Bay hotel with nearly 50 weapons and more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition. Shooting down on the Route 91 Harvest festival, he killed 58 people and injured 489.
On Saturday in an off-strip convention hall, vendors sold handguns, semi-automatic rifles and ammunition to locals and tourists. Displays advertised holsters, rifle cases, tactical gear and multi-colored grips. For women, there were bedazzled concealed-carry purses and petite, lightweight guns in Tiffany blue; for the kids, camouflage bags that read: “My first rifle”.
But a black fabric partition cut the convention hall by a third, shrinking a room that in recent years has been filled to the brim. In terms of attendance, the Great Las Vegas Gun Show did not appear nearly as great.
“This is actually smaller than it’s been,” said Robert Fares of Silver Bullet Concealment, a company based in the city. “Just a year ago, it stretched all the way down.”
Las Vegas hosts gun shows at casinos and convention centers throughout the year. Several were canceled following the Route 91 shooting.
One show, Crossroads of the West, would have occurred a few weeks after Paddock’s attack, in the same convention hall as this weekend’s show. After conversations between organizers and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, it was cancelled out of respect to the dead.
Mike Zolczer has a home-based company, Polyphonic Audio, which sells custom hearing protection. Following Route 91, he said, “business has been a dead crawl, because most of my money comes from gun shows”.
Like Zolczer, Silver Bullet Concealment referred to a decline in business shortly after the mass shooting. It said sales were slowly returning to normal.
Midwest Arms Collector, the organizer of the Great Las Vegas Gun Show, declined to release numbers
on attendance, describing it as “average”. It did not associate any spike or decline in sales with the Route 91 shooting, instead citing an overall national decrease in gun sales since Donald Trump’s election victory. Some argue that gun sales decrease under Republican presidents because gun owners do not fear increased regulation.
Still, the modest crowd at the first Vegas gun show in weeks did not reflect expectations on the busiest shopping weekend of the year. Discussion of Route 91, of Paddock, of good guys versus bad guys with guns – as well as a general distrust of media – could be heard throughout the hall.
“You can identify as anything you want,” said Robert Fares, a vendor. “Just don’t make me pay for it, and don’t infringe your desires upon me. If I want to own a dozen high-capacity magazines, that’s my right.”
On Saturday, many pursued that right. Vendors selling assault rifles drew a stream of attendees. Women waited as their boyfriends aimed rifles toward the ceiling, peering through scopes. Among the crowd were families with kids and strollers passing tables lined with tub after tub of clips and magazines. Handwritten signs displayed the number of rounds, from five to 40.
What were not clearly advertised or on display were bump stocks, the device Paddock used to make his semi-automatic weapons fire more like automatic ones. In the aftermath of the shooting, political momentum seemed to gather to ban them. But in Congress, at least, that momentum has stalled.
A string of gun shows are due to be staged in Nevada over the next two months, culminating at the end of January with the daddy of them all, the Shot Show, the world’s largest, which usually attracts more than 60,000 attendees. It will be housed in the Sands Expo Center on the Las Vegas Strip, three miles north of the Mandalay Bay.
Convention sales constitute a major portion of Las Vegas tourism revenue, sales at gun and firearms shows prominent among them. Since 1 October, the city has been actively combating any suggestion that it is no longer safe. Billboards on the strip, city events and commercials blaze slogans: “Vegas Strong”, “Vegas Resilient”, “Vegas Together”.
Two of the canceled October gun shows were to take place in casinos. How the return of such shows to resort properties will affect tourists remains to be seen.
For over a month after the shooting, the Route 91 festival site remained largely intact, still displaying banners, signage and vendor equipment, as law enforcement slowly released items from the crime scene. At the Mandalay Bay, glass now covers the windows Paddock shot out. But they are a slightly different color from the panes around them. They stand out like a scar.
If I want to own a dozen highcapacity magazines, that’s my right