The expectation was moderate. The place was remote, and this time Mapquest didn’t help in giving us the correct directions to get there. Instead of using 70% highway and 30% farm roads, the internet address finder gave us 70% farm roads and 30% highways. This lead us soon astray –do we turn here or in the next barn?- and got lost in the middle of the already nowhereness of Ohio. Finally, Pim's mental GPS kicked in and we managed to find the town of Medina, where the spectacle was taking place. The event was in the County Fairgrounds and once we parked the Dodge Avenger at the convention center lot –basically, a cowland covered with sand- we approached the warehouse where the gun show was housed.

No pics allowed

Pim thought of a gun show as a museum-like experience: “They are going to show us Civil War guns, give lectures, give us flyers, rigth?”. Well, not exactly. This made apparent that the intensity of what was awaiting us wasn’t still obvious. As we approached the main entrance, the first signs of what a gun show is all about in yankeeland started dripping like oil from a leaky carburator. How to describe it? It’s  a mixture of an eerie feeling with one spoon reality and three of absurdity. Nowhere else in the world I think you can see people leaving the premises of a shopping place joyfully with a sense of accomplishment in their faces and carrying a shopping cart with two semi-automatic rifles, three handguns and thirty boxes of ammo. If you dare to stare at them, their face expressions tells it all: “You see my guns, right? I made a killing of a shop!”. But the grip with reality left Pim uneasy: “David, was that real?”. “Of course, what you think, people come here to buy chocolate tortes?”.

Six dollars turned out to be the mandatory fee for the entrance, and when I asked pretty thrilled “Can we take pictures?”-hoping for a Chuck Norris-style pose- those two middle-aged women inside the reception booth threw me a cold shower: “It’s not possible to take pictures from the Devil” they answered. Well, they really didn’t answered that, but you get the point. Photos were not going to be permitted inside the show.

Which makes you think exactly why not? After all, all these gun lovers and N.R.A.s like to con us that guns, in the U.S. of A., are alike potatoes or corn, basicaly a slight variation of the same farm products that this nation dispatches. But then, one is left wondering, what makes guns and sniper rifles so special, not allowing pictures to spread their beauty? Would a grocery market forbit to take pictures of their tomatoes and cabbages? Of course not! But of course, we know guns will never attain grocery status anytime soon.

So, as we entered the show, we got into business pretty fast: tables and tables packed with all types of handguns on display gave us the first welcome. Of course this was followed rapidly by shotguns and more shotguns, and by rifles and more rifles, but those were still some meters away.

Moreover, this hierarchy mattered little at first, because after a few steps I just went blind. Sort of. The first sensation this massive amount of weaponry produced on me –where is Pim? Ah, she still behind me- was disorientation. Plain disorientation. “Where to look? Is this real? No, no, is this reeeeeally real? Should I run?” are some of the questions my brain scrambled.

 I felt lost point blank and I would say I acquired a sort of gun-blindness, as if my eyes, lost swimming around so many agents of distilled dead couldn’t integrate what they properly saw. As if my brain, shocked by so many unusual and un-daily items felt disturbed “I am going to survive after this?”.

But a couple of minutes later everything returned to normalcy: “Ok, how much is this one?” I asked “Oh, excellent choice, Browning high powered…practical, $736”. “And this other?” “Oh, even better, caliber 50”. Ok, translation for the profane: that “caliber 50”, basically a Smith & Wesson model 500, is a gun capable of piercing First World War tanks. Yeah, ready for the trenches guys, we are in business here! But before any transaction could proceed, I had to place the million dollar question. That scary question that you can’t find on google right away. That question that even Cha Cha deflects to answer and even cops aren’t sure about or they will answer a “No” by default.

The tank shredder S&W 500

The critical question is “Can foreingers buy guns in the U.S.?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”. The gun seller answered my question as if Billy the Kid drawing his gun, and he even put the tank-piercing driller right away in my hand as if saying “Buy it, damn it!”

“Are you sure?” I was still doubtful. “Absolutely, look” And he popped out a form. “Here and here, do you have legal status?” “Of course!” I answered “Ok, then... then I just need three months of yout utility bills, sign here, and this gun is yours…Take it, it’s yours!”. Wow, so easy uh? It felt like rejecting a candy bar. But that’s how it happened. Looks like one can buy guns in the U.S. even if not a citizen. By this standards, guns are like potatoes. Great discovery, great deal. But wait, there’s more: “Look at this Pim, AK-47s!” “No,  not exactly” one of the bystanders corrected me as if I just stated New York is a river in Africa. “Oh, excuse me, I’m a noobie in these issues. What is it  then?” “Oh, the arm…the arm is shorter, it’s a handgun version” he pinpointed. At this point, closeness had settled in between us and the guy felt entitled to kept going “This AK-47 handgun version also makes better muzzling, better grip, better recoil…you know, when you shoot to the ground Groa Groa Groa Groaaaaa!!” Holly shit, this fella is nuts, let’s get the hell out of here! I thought immediately. Wearing glasses, middle aged and chubby, the guy just represented in the air the effect of unloading a cartridge on the ground. The explosions he represented looked like an experimental new way to plant seeds without a plow!

We manage to lose him by sneaking in between some other ammunition tables and bulletproof vests and I refound my little friend S&W 500 standing next to a Desert Eagle, that gun that you use in Counter Strike when low on money. Well in reality, the Desert Eagle looks like it can send any part of your body to the grilling barbeque with a single shot. And it weights a helluva heck. Looking so similar to the S&W 500’s piercing capabilities,  I couldn’t kept it but ask the seller: “Which one has bigger caliber?”. Somehow I missed the point. Of course, not all the sellers around here are going to be as friendly as the previously “Buy-it-damn-it”, so this one bluntly replied me: “What is it written here?” Making me feel stupid for having dared to ask something that should be obvious. Clearly, this guy was not in a Billy-the-Kid mood for selling, so I just excused myself: “Oh, I am sorry, I am just a little twit that never practices on Sundays” and I left.

Besides the killing machines on display, this gun show also featured its bona-fide mini-zoo. It’s easy to spot all kind of people on it, mainly confined to low standards of life. This includes white and trailer trash, which are abundant in every meter, every stand. Maybe they can’t buy new pants or a decent shirt, but their gun allocation money is always unfazed. One also can find disabled people willing to potentially disable other people by means of guns: well chairs and mobile oxygen tanks are commonplace. Of course missing a leg or an arm puts you in a disadvantage facing a reckless criminal, maybe that’s why so many amputated people also showed off their willingness to compensate their loss of flesh with a gain in deadly lead.

But another interesting trait of this show sipped through the gun holsters and army caps. Very few blacks, very few asians and very few woman. And besides Pim, no asian women. Ok, maybe that’s because this place is a God forgotten corner of Ohio, or maybe it’s because something else. Something that we suspect: Mr. Racism and Mr. White Supremacy? After an hour straddling across the place, Pim started feeling unconfortable. She noticed the staring and the checking. Yeah, maybe this is the first time all this weirdos have seen a asian woman in 3D. Or maybe it’s because Pim noticed there is only a cop “protecting” this place. Well, I don’t see the need for more, it’s like walking among plutonium, who would dare to use it without melting himself?

Finally, if you ever go to a gun show, don’t ever understimate the rapacious feeling that’s going to build on you. So many guns, so easy to acquire them, it’s not difficult to not feel compelled to buy one in the end. The “What if” thought is the main culprit behind. “What if I surprise a robber in my house?” “What if somebody assaults the bank while I’m on it?”.”What if, what if?” Lots of “What ifs” which are the covert motor behind this business. But this “What if” has to be preceded by the “I have to”, which is what the sellers wants you to ignore. To stop a bank robber “I have to know how to shoot”. To stop a grocery mugger “I have to carry the gun first”, etc. “Oh, look at this small one” –a double barreledl Derringer- Pim tells me “It looks so cute and it would fit so well in my purse…and it’s just $246”. Even myself I am susceptible to the 1911 models. Come on, every man has his model, and people in this business know this. So, after a little of restraining myself, the mind starts giving in “Should I buy one? Mmm…looks so cute, perfect to show my friends: look, look my new baby!”. Yeah, the feeling starts to become so irrisistible, but luckily my videogamer mind comes to the rescue: “Ok David, what you prefer, a $750-computer or a $750 handgun?”. Clearly, with Starcraft 2 around the corner I have no choice but to give in. “Pim, let’s go, we have seen enough”.