On January 11-12, Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio volunteer Clint Lake attended the 2007 SHOT Show in Orlando, FL. Following is Part 1 of a blog on his experience.

By Clint Lake

Where to start? The number of vendors here are of truly epic proportions. The building is easily 4 - 5 football fields long and a football field wide. Sections are broken into "Law Enforcement/Tactical", "General Shooting/Firearms", "Hunting", and "Outdoor Wear". Rows and rows of guns, gun stuff, and gun nuts!!! (and oddly enough a couple of Vegas showgirls)

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By John Longenecker

Week after week, I see articles from around the world about incoming illegal guns. Today, I read an article which wonders where they come from.

This is not even germane to the predicament, for it reflects a misunderstanding of the very nature of the problem, and therefore its straightforward solutions.

Many nations oppose weapons for oppressive reasons, not for reasons of justice or for keeping the peace. For many nations, keeping the peace is code for oppression, silencing opposition and delivering widespread, un-opposed murder. For them, guns in the hands of the people would mean justice, and not the kind they would appreciate.

In free nations, it’s getting closer to that, because it confuses the concept of illegal guns with lawful guns and lawful, righteous intention, and therefore confuses their respective purposes.

To frame the issues as if they are identical is a lie.

Specifically, lawful guns keep the peace, because governments cannot. Simply put, any government that keeps the peace will probably be an oppressive one — using force, of course, and, as is the case with New Orleans’ confiscation of lawful weapons in 2005 and the incoming National ID cards around the corner, it would be almost entirely because they cannot tell the good guys from the bad guys. (Supposedly.)

The people do a much better job of it than officials, and officials want the job of it, whether we approve or not. See the storm forming?

Usurping that authority of citizens to act in their own self-defense (in keeping the peace) puts the people on the path of dependency and oppression, a decisive and decisively anti-liberty, anti-American move.

Stopping the flow of incoming illegal weapons by trying to discover whence they come is approaching it from the wrong end. It is a distraction. A ruse.

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