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Gun Show In Sacramento Sees Significantly Lower Attendance After Las Vegas Shooting

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- Guy Meyers, promoter of the weekend’s usually big Mount Aire Gun Show, was upfront about it. Attendance as of Saturday was down 50%. The timing was bad, the optics might have been worse; but mostly, he feels gun shoppers stayed home out of respect for those slaughtered or wounded by a gambler turned sniper last Sunday in Las Vegas.

“Our financial gain or not gain is insignificant. I mean, can you imagine being the father, mother, brother sister of those people?” He said.

It’s the first evidence, that for the moment, the horrible events of last weekend in Las Vegas may be impacting the sale of guns and related gear in California.

Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and then himself, wounding hundreds. Now, A pair of big California gun shows, one of them right here in Sacramento, look to be collateral damage.

The slaughter on the strip was the talk of the show at Mc Clellan Field, including a measure of sympathy, sprinkled with spin and laced with philosophy.

“Evil People," Meyers noted, “can do evil things to other people that they shouldn’t be doing with all sorts of tools, sometimes, people do that with a firearm, sometimes people do that with an automobile.”

From pistols and ammo to semi-automatics and the gear to go with them---if it was legal you could find it at the show. The unmodified AR-15 could be found but not so with accessories like the bump stock that reportedly made the Las Vegas shooter's arsenal more lethal. The semi-automatic sold briskly, a vendor told CBS13, partly out of fear the rifle would soon be banned.

In Orange County, attendance appeared to be higher at the Crossroads of the West show in Costa Mesa, billed as California’s largest, it went on despite calls that it be canceled out of respect for the Las Vegas victims. And in a sign of the times, an ex-cop named Ron Weaver had a booth.  Not selling guns, but gear to protect against active shooters

Crossroads, which held a better-attended show last month in Sacramento, has planned a major gun show in Las Vegas in two weeks. However, promoters are giving serious thought to calling it off, sensitive to the city that is still recovering from the October 1 attack.

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