Wasilla HIgh School gun show ends today

WASILLA — Gun enthusiasts, collectors, businessmen, and generally outdoorsy folks turned out in force Saturday for the first day of the Wasilla gun show.

More than 200 vendors of guns and accoutrements, as well as knives, ivory, candy, seasoned peanuts, camping gear, and numerous other outdoorsy artifacts filled the Wasilla High School gymnasium and spilled out into a nearby common area.

The event aims to raise money for the Warriors hockey team (when asked how much money the gun show raised, organizers said it was typically enough to support a year’s worth of hockey), and organizers said some of the proceeds would go to benefit Hope for Heroes, a charitable organization for veterans recently struck by a fire.

Most gun venders interviewed said they were collectors trying to dispose of guns from personal collections. As a result, the show is similar to a rummage sale with a very specific focus, many collectors said.

Eric Taylor is one such collector. He was displaying at least a dozen rifles, some of which dated back to the 1940s, and are maintained under a curio and relics license.

While none of the questions put to gun owners were overtly political, politics about guns never seemed far from anyone’s mind during newspaper interviews, sometimes in unexpected ways. Taylor, for example, said he’d closed two sales Saturday without a background check, something permitted under existing law.

“That’s the law, and I’m not necessarily in favor of that,” he said.

Others were more direct. Asked if there was anything else he generally wanted to add at the end of his interview, Doug Albright of Doug’s Repairs of Fairbanks took aim at all gun regulation.

“We don’t need to regulate guns, we need to regulate bad people,” he said. “Guns aren’t the problem. Guns are inanimate objects. They do not cause crime in and of themselves.”

Another vender, Robert Hubbard, who’s come to the show for about a decade, said that while the show floor was crowded, gun regulation and politics are typically big drivers for attendance.

“Two years ago it was standing room only, because of the Sandy Hook thing,” he said. “Everyone was freaking out.”

Owners can make as much as a few thousand dollars off of a gun show sale, depending on local economics, Taylor said.

“It depends on how many firearms you have and how you have ‘em priced and how good supply and demand is,” he said.

The majority of attendees with firearms on their minds were buying and selling by equal measure, Taylor said.

“I would venture to say most of the dealers here, probably just pick up good deals and try to make a little bit of money off of the side,” he said.

Despite ostentatious displays of firepower, like Albright’s .50-caliber tripod-mounted Browning machine gun — purchased from a company which had used it in Hollywood movies — the main movers were a variety of guns acquired through estate purchases and other ways, Albright said.

“I’m selling sunshine and smiles,” Hubbard quipped.

Other venders sold what they billed as cover for ill-advised gun purchases, like Wayne Hanson and Flossie Spencer, who peddled Alaska native-carved walrus ivory and whalebone figurines and jewelry. Spencer, originally of Barrow, but living in Anchorage, is teaching herself how to carve ivory.

“When men come here, I joke with them, I say ‘You’re gonna buy a gun, huh? You better buy some bling to come home with!’” Spencer joked. “It’s like: ‘Look what I got you, dear!’”

For Spencer, the process has been a bit of trial-and-error.

“The way I did it, I got a drill bit, some drill from a pawn shop, and I just started,” she said. “It’s expensive.”

“If I lived in a village, a lot of kids there are lucky because instead of wood shop they have ivory carving and stuff,” Spencer added. “Luckily there’s Youtube.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.