For a Few Dollars More

At the Oklahoma Gun Show, people trade used machine guns, hunting knives and camouflage suits.

Trevor Cupp looks as though he had a rough night. The kid with the red dreadlocks can hardly keep his eyes open as he enters the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds this morning. He’s not really ready for conversation, pushes his ten dollars across the counter at the entrance and starts shuffling through the aisles. Trevor Cupp took today off; his Japanese seminar at college will have to wait. The 23-year old has more important things to do. He desperately needs a couple of machine guns.

“We’re collectors, man,” Cupp says, finally deciding to talk. He’s now got six weapons at home, the same number as his friend Justin Sylsberry, a gaunt medical student who has a Swiss Sig 556 in his arms and a semi-automatic K31 slung across his back. He wants to sell both today and reinvest the money immediately. Both want to stock up on guns before the presidential election because it a sure thing, says Trevor, “If Obama wins the prices here will go up.”

In front of the exhibition hall, people of all ages and all socio-economic levels wait patiently in line to get in. Singles wearing cowboy hats with a Colt stuck in the waistband of their jeans, small families who keep the kids quiet with plastic pistols or slingshots, students like Trevor and Justin. But you also see types like the bald, bull-necked guy who came in from the suburbs with his son and his machine gun. He’s wearing a muscle shirt bearing the message “Sic ‘n Crazy.” He’s asking 800 dollars for his “Noozy” because, he says, he needs the money.

In the darkened exhibition hall, the trading of everything that can cause harm begins. Used Winchesters and Walthers change hands for a few hundred dollars. Cupp finds the Heckler & Koch he’s been looking for in the second to last row. Next to it a couple of monstrosities one might think had been invented for the “Man in Black” series. Besides that, there are bulletproof vests, hunting knives, camouflage suits and shirts with built-in holsters.

Whoever signs up at the National Rifle Association’s information stand is given a free baseball cap. Those help when you’re trying to draw a bead in the sun. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone that right in the middle of everything someone is hawking “Vietcong Hunting Club” stickers along with original swastika armbands. Not even the police officer at the door, half-heartedly checking ID’s at the door seems interested.

Cupp has no idea where this enthusiasm for weapons comes from. “I guess, well, it’s just cool. You feel stronger with a gun.” But Cupp says he doesn’t feel it’s necessary to justify his interest. “Nobody asks people who go to church every Sunday why they go, do they?”

Then he turns away. He still needs something to shoot.