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I rarely get squeamish. I thought I’d be fine on Sunday when I wandered a Harrisonburg gun show for a few hours. It made for a decent story and I was glad to do it. As it is with any good story — each will teach me something new. This one did, too. Maybe this one did, especially. But that’s a whole other post.

I was squeamish. Something about the thousands of guns. It didn’t matter that each was cabled to the table and zip tied through the action. I squirmed. But hold on. Before you scream of my “liberal media bias!” let me explain.

I like spiders. Most bugs. My pro-bug stance is laughable, even. People had a good time teasing me a few weeks ago when I moved into a new apartment with a sliding glass door and refused to kill the ants that burrowed their way through the track. I found an organic mint tea recipe that was suppose to repel them. I sprayed it on the floor to “gently” deter the ants. They stopped comming, mostly because I think they might have drown in the tea I sprayed. That wasn’t suppose to happen. But the problem is fixed and the house smells minty. The point?

I really did like the ants. They were good bugs just doing their thing. But I got squeamish with HUNDREDS* of ants. And so it is with guns. And gun shows. Except I have no plans to drown them in mint tea.

On that note, from Monday’s Daily News-Record:

New Promoters Revive Gun Show

By Kelly Jasper

HARRISONBURG — John White doesn’t “want no craft show.”

That’s what the Waynesboro man says Harrisonburg gun shows used to be — craft shows featuring all sorts of vendors with knickknacks and folk art. Few had any guns to sell.

“It’s a gun show,” he said. “I want guns.”

White is owner of The Gunsmith in Lyndhurst. He stopped bringing his business to Harrisonburg shows in the early 1990s.

For the first time in more than 10 years, something drew him back to the weekend gun show at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds.

White says it has a lot to do with who’s running the show.

Two new promoters took over the show this year and more than doubled its size in their first year.

Annette Gelles runs Showmasters. Her fiancé, Steven Elliott, runs C&E Gun Shows. They partnered to promote the two-day show at the fairgrounds.

Dealers bought 220 tables at $55 a piece, setting up display after display of handguns, rifles, ammunition, knives and accessories in the fair’s homemaking department.

“This is like it was back in the ’80s,” White said.

2,000 Visit Weekend Gun Show

Jerry Cochran owns Trader Jerry, a business with shops in Salem and Claypool. He’s been dealing in Harrisonburg for 25 years.

“We did this show before anybody did,” Cochran said.

This weekend, Cochran said he saw a return to the heyday of Harrisonburg shows, when thousands of people, including many families, came to browse and talk about the tables of guns and “militaria.”

More than 2,000 people came through the show on Saturday and Sunday, Davis said.

Both dealers and visitors, except for law enforcement officials, were asked to check their guns at the door, a requirement of the promoters.

No loaded magazines or firearms are allowed inside. Dealers also run zip ties through the action of each gun.

“The last thing we want is an accident,” Gelles said.

At The Gunsmith’s tables, White uses cables to secure his guns.

“You remove the temptation,” he said.

He’ll sometimes refuse to sell a gun and makes sure the ones he does sell are of a certain quality.

“Anything under $300 attracts the wrong kind of people,” he said.

As a retired police officer, White says it’s important to monitor who buys what. It’s why all dealers perform background checks, he said.

“I have brothers out there —other officers,” he said. “I can’t sleep if I don’t take those precautions.”

Gun Show Popular With Families

Dealers said, however, that most people visiting Harrisonburg shows aren’t looking for any trouble.

“We enjoy talking to people, answering questions,” White said.

Being a hunting community, most conversation and sales are geared around the upcoming season, dealers said.

At this show, Gelles said, she saw a lot of hunters, as well as an increasing number of families and women.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Gelles said she saw women’s attendance at gun shows jump from five percent to 20 percent.

“Even the manufacturers are putting out pink-handled guns,” she said. “We couldn’t drag them (women) in before.”

The promoters plan to return to Harrisonburg in December, a time when gun sales are especially high, Gelles said.

“The weekend before Christmas is big,” she said. “Let’s be honest. They’re giving guns. Dad doesn’t want a tie.”

The show will run Dec. 9-10 at the fairgrounds.

“This is basically a new show,” White said. “I’ll be back in December. That means a lot.”

* Ma, don’t worry. There weren’t actually HUNDREDS of ants in my apartment. Maybe only dozens. I didn’t really count. Let’s just call that part literary exaggeration. But of course, I also said in the story that there were hundreds of tables of guns. Those I did count. That part was journalism. Love, Kelly