’NOT WARMONGERING’
Local show highlights gun history
Tom Tweney’s fascination with firearms first began in high school, when he was on a cadet rifle team. Now, the Belle River man exhibits his hardware at as many gun shows as he can.
“It’s a hobby,” Tweney said. He had his .22-calibre, single-shot “boy’s rifle” from 1904 on display at Sunday’s Militaria, Gun and Sportsman Show at the Canadian Transportation Museum and Heritage Village.
“Some people collect stamps, some people play golf. People that collect and restore firearms, it’s the same thing,” he said. “We don’t regard it as a dangerous thing because most of (us) are law abiding. Unfortunately, we’re getting a bad rap.”
Each month, Tweney travels to two or three gun shows in Ontario. In addition to guns, he displays several military badges and medals at his table. His grandfather’s service in the Canadian Machine Gun Corps during the First World War inspired him to start the collection.
Tweney, like many of the approximately 40 vendors in the museum’s event hall on Sunday, has a passion for history and displays it with pride. Some of the exhibitors had old coins and military uniforms to present, while others had dozens of rifles laid out. “Our driving force is history, and you can’t do history without guns or weapons,” said Mickey Moulder, vice-chairman of the museum’s board. “It’s part of the game.” Moulder had almost ten handguns, some of them more than 100 years old, at his table. Though none were for sale, he was ready to share some history with anyone who stopped to listen.
“It’s not a warmongering thing,” Moulder added, acknowledging some people question the need for gun shows. “It’s just history. It could just as easily be farming, but it touches a nerve. It’s not glorified. You don’t see people marching around and talking gibberish about war. Guns are woven into our past.
“They’re not to be glorified,” Moulder said. “We’re better off as a nation if people understand guns as opposed to being afraid of them. It’s more dangerous to suddenly be confronted with one and not know which way is up.”
For the fifth year in a row, the Canadian Transportation Museum and Heritage Village hosted the show, which featured a wide variety of historical items, as well as hunting and fishing gear. During the one-day event, about 400 people stopped by, eager to buy, sell, trade or learn about the past. “There’s a lot of passion for it in this area, especially hunting,” said Emily Atkinson, media and events co-ordinator for the museum and heritage village. “We get a lot of people who come out looking to buy equipment for hunting season.”
Entrance fees paid by attendees of the gun show help keep the museum and heritage village open, said Moulder. He estimates it costs $500,000 each year to run the place.
Five staff members and many volunteers maintain the 100-acre site, which has about 20 historic buildings in its heritage village dating back as far as the early 1800s. Inside the 2,500-square-foot transportation museum, antique cars, trucks, planes and more are on display.
About 40,000 members of the general public visit the museum and heritage village each year, as do about 13,000 students on class field trips, Moulder said.