End of an era! No more MA Gun Shows. Promoter is pulling out.

drgrant said:
These shows have been garbage long before the new laws were passed. The final straw was X yrs ago when they started harassing the ammo vendors and making them set up cordons
etc all because one minor incident happened that had absolutely nothing to do with the show itself.
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I’d argue.. a lot longer than that…

I remember back a long time ago.. there was a brick and mortar FFL. That would put aside stuff for gun shows. He would jack up the prices over what he’d sell the same thing in his store for. He said idiots would be so caught in the gun show “loophole” they convinced they were getting a super deal. Basically auction fever.

He’d also sell all the crap guns nobody would look at in the store as super rare vintage varients…more rusted the better.


I think gun shows really died when they killed the hobbiest/ home FFL dealers.
 
drgrant said:
As far as "the future of shows in MA" goes, I'd rather see gun clubs running their own smaller shows vs this garbage.
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This is actually a fantastic idea. My club did some kind of tools/garage sale type show a couple years ago where people got a spot and could sell tools, toys, etc. and there were a few guys with reloading gear. You didn't have to be a member to get a spot to sell, but members got a spot for free and it was open to the public.

For Mass, the laws are so fukked IDK, but states like CT and RI I think this would rock. I could sell you a**h***s my reloaded .32 S&W ammo and no blue card needed.
 
T-Unit said:
This is actually a fantastic idea. My club did some kind of tools/garage sale type show a couple years ago where people got a spot and could sell tools, toys, etc. and there were a few guys with reloading gear. You didn't have to be a member to get a spot to sell, but members got a spot for free and it was open to the public.

For Mass, the laws are so fukked IDK, but states like CT and RI I think this would rock. I could sell you a**h***s my reloaded .32 S&W ammo and no blue card needed.
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It’s been a while but I remember attending a gun show at Hopkinton many years ago. They should do it again.
 
Gun shows?

What f***ing year is it?

LARP as antifa on twitter and instagram to get free fed-funded guns.....

Oh wait...what's that? They defunded USAID? Never mind.
 
JDL said:
It is just one more victory for this gun hating state. The Massachusetts legislature is getting exactly what they want out of the passing of the recent gun law. The gun shows may not have been that great of recent, however they still were gun shows. If we keep going in this direction nothing will be left not even gun shops. By the time we get most or all of this new anti gun legislation removed/overthrown, declared unconstitutional the dammage will already have been done. Little by little every thing is being chipped away from the Massachusetts gun owner.
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I doubt anyone in power even knows these shows exist, this isn't some kind of a conspiracy its the logical long term outcome of a shitty money grubbing promoter.

The laws here are terrible but they did not kill these shows. Greed and poor management did.
 
Dench said:
I dont think ive ever been to a gun show worth attending. Strikes me as odd but that seems to be the consensus
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Last one I went to I liked was Manchester, maybe 15 years ago.. I was there for 10 minutes.

Walked in and some dude was selling tubs of South African 5.56 for pretty cheap, I bought around 6 of them for like $.10 a round. Can't remember exactly, but it was more than that.. Loaded up my pickup and waited for my friends to finish shopping.

Ironically enough I have never bought a gun at a gunshow, just ammo.

Laws didn't kill gunshows, greed did.
 
drgrant said:
The laws here are terrible but they did not kill these shows. Greed and poor management did.
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This is true.. But I really think it is the home FFLs.

At this point the FFL has to have retail store. So even if one focused on gun shows. It is a ton of work. To bring all your crap to a show, set up, break. Etc. and they still have to pay for that retail location.

The days of that Luger/ P38 guy. That had an FFL but not retail location and would sell off their non keepers is just gone.
 
seanc said:
This is true.. But I really think it is the home FFLs.

At this point the FFL has to have retail store. So even if one focused on gun shows. It is a ton of work. To bring all your crap to a show, set up, break. Etc. and they still have to pay for that retail location.

The days of that Luger/ P38 guy. That had an FFL but not retail location and would sell off their non keepers is just gone.
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I get that but this particular promoter basically accelerated all of that in between the ratting and all the other bullshit like jacking the table prices and then also only giving preferred locations at the show to her pets and so on. Eventually it got to a point where even the pets left. (Like the ny ammo guys).

Then the mill took off in the midst of all this long ago,, which creates an obvious value prop thing. Why is anyone going to go to a gun show when the mill has better prices service and selection than any gun show in this region? It then becomes a fait d'accompli of sorts. We replaced a shitty gun show with a mall that was open most weekends. 🤣
 
drgrant said:
@Grendizer138 I wonder where Homeless Jeff Spicoli is going to end up? 🤣
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All he needs are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and he’ll be fine.

Between “Homeless Jeff Spicoli” making it to the drgrant lexicon and my Mill flyer being reposted, this thread is one of my proudest moments
 
drgrant said:
I get that but this particular promoter basically accelerated all of that in between the ratting and all the other bullshit like jacking the table prices and then also only giving preferred locations at the show to her pets and so on. Eventually it got to a point where even the pets left. (Like the ny ammo guys).

Then the mill took off in the midst of all this long ago,, which creates an obvious value prop thing. Why is anyone going to go to a gun show when the mill has better prices service and selection than any gun show in this region? It then becomes a fait d'accompli of sorts. We replaced a shitty gun show with a mall that was open most weekends. 🤣
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I think the question that remains is, greedy awful very not good promoters aside, back when gun shows were good, was there something about the gun show itself that makes it better than the Mill? Off the bat I'm thinking the gun show has the benefit of being able to draw in non-gun people and maybe start to turn them into gun people whereas the Mill almost sounds like a gentleman's club where women poledance with bandoliers covering their breasts and wear paracord g-strings.
 
T-Unit said:
I think the question that remains is, greedy awful very not good promoters aside, back when gun shows were good, was there something about the gun show itself that makes it better than the Mill? Off the bat I'm thinking the gun show has the benefit of being able to draw in non-gun people and maybe start to turn them into gun people whereas the Mill almost sounds like a gentleman's club where women poledance with bandoliers covering their breasts and wear paracord g-strings.
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If those shows didn't suck so much a lot of mill dealers would gladly have gone to the shows. But the shows had started to fail even back before 2013.
 
I went to one Big E show about 15-20 years ago, a few CT shows which were dismal, shows in FL, TX, and OK, and even the latter three states were somewhat sad affairs in their own way. The gun shows evolved into 'guns and other stuff shows' and the pricing was out of control. It's as if they barely hung on by impulse buying and when that gave out, there was nobody left to support them. My favorite was AR Pmags Gen 2's for $20/ea or 5 for $100. This was about six months ago. Pricing like that would make Cabela's blush.
 
Sandy Hookmaster (2013) changed everything. After that the average new gun owner the LCD became nippleheads. The shit dealers and promoter smelled blood in the water and they went full cosby mode, while forgetting that people like us... the average NES guy or lady... the enthusiasts... we literally bouy the industry. When our rights aren't being threatened directly... we're still buying shit. They forgot that crucial part. For shops of any consequence these regulars, these people prevent your revenue stream from bottoming out.
 
T-Unit said:
If it were 20 years ago and the Mill existed then, do you think gun shows would still have fallen out of favor for the Mill?
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It did exist. But it was very incognito back then.

I still think MA gun shows would have failed though. The promoter is a massive useless c***. Eventually Karma caught up with her.
 
mu2bdriver said:
I went to one Big E show about 15-20 years ago, a few CT shows which were dismal, shows in FL, TX, and OK, and even the latter three states were somewhat sad affairs in their own way. The gun shows evolved into 'guns and other stuff shows' and the pricing was out of control. It's as if they barely hung on by impulse buying and when that gave out, there was nobody left to support them. My favorite was AR Pmags Gen 2's for $20/ea or 5 for $100. This was about six months ago. Pricing like that would make Cabela's blush.
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IMO, two things have killed gun shows and I'm talking in general, not just Mass. It was the combloc milsurp stuff like SKS, Toks, Maks, AKs, etc. that use to be $100 and pulled out of crates, stupid cheap ammo, etc. drying up. Now those insane deals are gone and nothing has replaced them, the SKS are all $500 and up now with ammo that isn't near as cheap as it once was.

The other factor is the lack of private sellers. When gun shows are mostly just FFL's putting the cheapest guns in inventory on a table, the Charter Arms, the Savage Crapxis, Taurus El Cheapo, there's nothing different or interesting or exciting. When private sellers get a table, you have no idea what they're gonna pull out of the closet. Could be a murder weapon from 1904, who knows?
 
T-Unit said:
IMO, two things have killed gun shows and I'm talking in general, not just Mass. It was the combloc milsurp stuff like SKS, Toks, Maks, AKs, etc. that use to be $100 and pulled out of crates, stupid cheap ammo, etc. drying up. Now those insane deals are gone and nothing has replaced them, the SKS are all $500 and up now with ammo that isn't near as cheap as it once was.

The other factor is the lack of private sellers. When gun shows are mostly just FFL's putting the cheapest guns in inventory on a table, the Charter Arms, the Savage Crapxis, Taurus El Cheapo, there's nothing different or interesting or exciting. When private sellers get a table, you have no idea what they're gonna pull out of the closet. Could be a murder weapon from 1904, who knows?
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Ahhh, the good old days of walking around the Manchester or Concord shows when you could buy a full crate of Mosins for $500 or a single Mosin for $75, a bandoleer of 8mm was a couple bucks and a plethora of guns at every table.
 
T-Unit said:
IMO, two things have killed gun shows and I'm talking in general, not just Mass. It was the combloc milsurp stuff like SKS, Toks, Maks, AKs, etc. that use to be $100 and pulled out of crates, stupid cheap ammo, etc. drying up. Now those insane deals are gone and nothing has replaced them, the SKS are all $500 and up now with ammo that isn't near as cheap as it once was.
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That's all 110% sandy hook bullshit. The industry fundamentally transformed by 2013. The new NPC gun owners became retards vs people who invested themselves mentally before buying guns.

The other factor is the lack of private sellers. When gun shows are mostly just FFL's putting the cheapest guns in inventory on a table, the Charter Arms, the Savage Crapxis, Taurus El Cheapo, there's nothing different or interesting or exciting. When private sellers get a table, you have no idea what they're gonna pull out of the closet. Could be a murder weapon from 1904, who knows?
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In mass this was never a thing and was irrelevant
 
Rockrivr1 said:
Ahhh, the good old days of walking around the Manchester or Concord shows when you could buy a full crate of Mosins for $500 or a single Mosin for $75, a bandoleer of 8mm was a couple bucks and a plethora of guns at every table.
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I now remember you've been around a hot minute. You and @FalArAk know exactly what I'm talking about. Those werw the days youd bring a rolling foldable dolly to gun shows because you knew you were going to leave with some cases of ammo, a gun or more...
 
drgrant said:
I now remember you've been around a hot minute. You and @FalArAk know exactly what I'm talking about. Those werw the days youd bring a rolling foldable dolly to gun shows because you knew you were going to leave with some cases of ammo, a gun or more...
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I think after Sandy Hook and the tarded up panic buying sprees was the beginning of the end in terms of buying guns for me.. Shit is so affected by politics, hoarders and genuine a**h***s, just got to be too much. People on here were whipping each other into a frenzy in terms of buying things, they were then complaining about high prices not realizing they were a force in driving the prices higher by panic buying just about anything.

Now I have like 10 guns lol
 
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