The Annoyed Man wrote:ScottDLS wrote:The Annoyed Man wrote:Well, to heck with that. I did t mind having a cop unload my weapon, but when they told me I had to either throw away $50 worth of ammunition or walk it back to my car, I decided that was the very last time I'll try the Ft Worth gun show. I'm too old and cranky for that crap. After it took me 35 minutes to get across the 30 east to 35 north interchange, I headed up to Cabelas. My money spends just as good there.
I DO MIND UNLOADING MY WEAPON! If I might ask, how did they know you were carrying? And, the FW Police made you unload? Why doesn't city hall and the State Fair do this too. The AG won't do anything about it...
No, they didn't
make me unload, because I told them I thought the policy was in violation of the law, and complete cow manure, and that I was going to find some other way to spend my afternoon.
I
was thinking that they would probably make me unload, but I didn't think they'd make me throw away $50 worth of perfectly good ammo. There's a table with three cops sitting at it, and then it looked to me you pass through a metal detector. So, there was no getting in with a concealed gun, at least that I could see. Maybe someone else did and got away with it, in which case, I say Good for YOU!!!
So I surrendered to the inevitable, approached the table, and said "I guess I have to declare a gun here?" The officer asked, "are you carrying a loaded gun?" When I said yes, he said there's two ways I can enter: (1) You can unload the gun here and empty the magazines, but you can't carry any loose ammo into the show. You can leave the ammo with us, but you won't get it back. OR, (2) you can walk back to your car, unload the gun and magazine(s), leave the ammo in your car, and come back in."
Well, I'm an old man, and I have a bum knee and a bad back (both of which were already hurting by the time I got to the entrance), and that was a long walk from the parking lot - no way I was going to walk back out to the car, then walk back into the venue. It just wasn't worth it. (BTW, with all the construction going on around there, parking options are pretty reduced.) I told the nice officer that there is no way in hades that I was going to throw away $50 worth of premium self defense ammo (46 rounds of 135 grain Hornady +P Critical Duty, $24.49/box of 25 at Bass Pro where I bought it), just so I could
also pay the entry fee on top of that. I told him that I thought it was cow manure, and I told him that I know what the law says, and
YOU know what the law says, and I can't believe that a law enforcement officer is helping the city to violate the law. Then I said that I'd find something else to do with my afternoon. He had no answer to that, so I left.
And I
did find something else to do with my afternoon. I went to Cabelas instead and spent $2,000 on a thermal rifle scope I might have bought at the show if the promoters weren't such mullet-heads. They can all go pound sand. I'm never going to the Ft Worth gun show again until they pull their heads out of the dark places they've been keeping them.
I'll be sending a letter to the gunshow management. I know it will do bupkis, but I want them to know that their foolishness is costing their vendors money, and it will make
me feel better. When it starts costing their vendors more to pay for booth space than they make in sales profits, they'll stop attending the show; and hopefully the organizers will go out of business.
Not that I have an opinion about it.
But honestly, I'd like to end the conversation there, because I didn't start off to hijack Crossfire's thread. Sorry about that Crossfire.
