Well guys, I got a chance to go to the fun show today and experienced what I'd have to call an unplanned-live fire-active shooter drill.
This was the first big gun show at the Atlanta Expo Center since March. There had been a few scheduled in between that got cancelled due to COVID. I did manage to go to a couple of smaller ones at a farmer's market, but those kind of sucked. For those of you from South Florida, this one would be comparable to the Tamiami Park shows when they're really full of vendors, or going way back to the ones they used to have at coconut Grove convention Center.
Anyway, I'd been there around an hour and I was looking through one of those big rotating bookshelves when a gunshot rang out.
Obviously since no loaded weapons or magazines are allowed in the venue, everyone immediately froze and started looking around. Then about ten to twenty seconds later, people started running toward the exits, ducking under tables and hiding behind big columns. Some also started running toward the back of the building around where I was. It was kind of a chain reaction. I moved to the corner of the table trying to see what was going on. I figured if I saw anyone coming I could use the shelves for cover and run out the back. This lasted for a while but no further gun shots rang out and eventually everyone seemed to calm down. Eventually, everyone got back to normal but as it was almost closing time a lot of vendors started packing up.
Apparently what had happened was that a guy was at a holster vendor and someone mishandled a loaded revolver. It was actually surprisingly close to where I was standing when it went off. Close enough that one of the vendors sitting behind me could smell the gunpowder (I was wearing a mask so I didn't smell anything). I didn't actually see any holes or obvious damage around the vendor's U shaped table setup, but around closing time I saw four Atlanta PD officers going to the vendor and saw him pointing down toward the area under his tables. My guess is that some idiot brought a loaded revolver and it got through because it wasn't a loaded magazine, and then when the vendor pulled it out of whatever bag the customer had it in, it went off. The good thing is nobody got hurt, but damn, it got scary for a minute. A lot of people also got very understandably angry, including myself.
Anyway, my heart got its workout for the day, that's for sure.
BTW, I'll be back in Miami in a couple of weeks, are there any shows scheduled anytime soon?
