Taking Aim at the Fairgrounds Gun Show

I’m against gun shows on public property. Period.

But I also abhor the argument that people who disagree with you must be just plain bad. That’s certainly not the case with Jeff Templeton, whose family owns the Utah-based Crossroads of the West gun shows.

It’s got another big show coming up Saturday and Sunday in Anaheim at Edison International Field (‘The Big A,” to us purists.) On March 25-26, it will be back at the Orange County Fairgrounds, where it puts on four shows a year.

I’d love to see someone here have the gumption of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which recently kicked out gun shows at the county-owned fairgrounds in Pomona.

One difference here is that the Orange County Fairgrounds is a state facility. And Edison Field, while owned by Anaheim, is operated by the same Disney management squad that runs the Angels.

After talking to officials at both the city of Anaheim and the fairgrounds, I don’t think either sees these things the way I do. They expect gun shows to be money-makers for them as long as the public is interested.

Steve Beardsley, fairgrounds deputy general manager, points out that the Templetons have been great customers for a dozen years, courteous and highly professional. Bob Templeton, Jeff’s father, has even been active writing standards for all gun shows, to make them more palatable to host communities.

In fact, the Templetons are so concerned about any of their vendors violating California’s numerous gun laws, they’ve got an extensive special section on their Web site just on what’s legal here.

The Polite Opposition

This week I talked at length with family son Jeff, who is marketing director for the operation. Extremely polite, Templeton is a 32-year-old father of four who says he was raised by “good conservative Mormon traditions.”

Templeton reads enough about the opposition to figure I’m no friend to his cause. I’d love to see him put out of business, and he knows it. But it seems almost impossible for Templeton to speak harshly to anyone, even me. I found him highly engaging; he makes going to a gun show sound like an outing at a neighborhood swap meet.

That’s part of the problem. Mary Leigh Blek, one of the county’s leading proponents of gun control legislation, went to a Templeton show to see what went on.

“To me, the purchase of a gun should be a very deliberate, thoughtful and sober undertaking,” she said. “What struck me about the gun show was the carnival-like atmosphere, complete with non-firearm merchandise that would make many blush.” (Like a toy Uzi.)

For the Templetons, gun purchases here are too deliberate. We’re the only Western state to require a 10-day waiting period for a background check before a gun show sale.

“In other states we can take care of it through a simple fax,” Jeff Templeton said. “California makes it a lot tougher.”

Tougher in other ways too. Other states require just one permit for gun show vendors. California? Five of those precious little stumbling blocks--a federal firearms license, a state certificate of eligibility, a state Board of Equalization sticker, a local business license, and a California firearms dealer’s registration.

Templeton was philosophical about it:

“That’s OK. Hey, that’s the price of doing business sometimes. We’ve got too many good people in California who like our shows for us not to come back. We’ll do what we have to do. And we’ll make sure the people who sell at our shows do the same.”

What does frustrate Templeton is keeping up with California’s recent spate of gun-control laws. Many of the Crossroads vendors can sell guns in other states that they can’t sell here under our new anti-assault weapon law. More restrictions are coming, when California’s ban on Saturday night specials takes effect in 2001.

Where Templeton and I disagree is on the residual affect of these gun shows. To me they help glorify handguns and make it more comfortable for folks to feel they need such a gun at their home.

So then we see an 11-year-old boy shot in Santa Ana (and still lying unconscious at UCI Medical Center), because some hothead fired a gun. We see a young man shot to death in Buena Park by a neighbor for stealing a Halloween decoration. And this week in Michigan, a 6-year-old with easy access to a handgun in the home shoots and kills a first-grade classmate.

Templeton knows that’s all appalling. “Whoever shot your 11-year-old should be punished to the full extent,” he said. “That person helps give people like me a bad name we don’t deserve.”

I don’t object to gun shows where you take your profit at the door so people can look at Civil War rifles and your World War I and II souvenirs--”the rusty and dusty,” Templeton calls them. It’s selling guns on public property I find appalling.

That’s what’s great about the new rules in Los Angeles. You can hold your gun shows on county ground; you just can’t sell anything that fires. That forced the Great Western Gun Show to move to Las Vegas, after 31 years at the Pomona Fairplex.

Someone with courage ought to take that step here.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 966-7789 or jerry.hicks@latimes.com