Gun Show Sells Instructions On How To Make A Bomb
Want step-by-step instructions on how to build a bomb?
You could have found them at the Washington Arms Collectors’ gun show at the Puyallup Fair Grounds last weekend.
Explosives manuals and antigovernment publications were among the items for sale. Some gun enthusiasts say everyone has a right to such information.
“We’re not just for the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms). We like all the amendments, and that includes the First Amendment, the one guaranteeing the right to free speech,” said Bruce Turner, the legislative chairman of the Washington Arms Collectors, which has rented space monthly at the fairgrounds since 1987.
But members of the Western Washington Fair’s board of directors aren’t pleased.
“It is not against the law to belong to a militia but they will have to take that stuff out of there or we will cancel the contract,” Frank Franich, president of the fair’s board, said Wednesday.
Franich said he’s worried the monthly gun show “has developed into something more than what it was originally when people just went there to trade or sell old guns.”
Among materials for sale at one booth were books on sniper training, how to manufacture incendiary devices, how to rig booby traps, and one publication titled “The Handy Dandy Super Duper Book on How to Shoot the Neighbor’s Cat Without Getting Caught.”
“This all sounds kind of frightful to me,” said fair board member Walter Webber. “I wasn’t aware of it, and now we’re definitely going to have to look at this. I think this is the first time they (the Arms Collectors) have allowed this.”
Also for sale were “target practice decals” of Attorney General Janet Reno, along with numerous publications about the “Jewish Conspiracy,” the imminent United Nations takeover of the United States, and the New World Order.
One publication, a $12.95, 126-page manual titled “Home Workshop Explosives,” covered nitroglycerin, nitroglycol, cylonite and ammonium nitrate. Federal officials believe ammonium nitrate was used in the Oklahoma City bombing three weeks ago.
Such publications are “garbage and we don’t want it there,” Franich said.
The gun show’s sponsors said they were concerned about the kind of materials the booth offered, but said it would be difficult to restrict since much of the material is available in libraries.
“We’ve had a member complain about having that stuff on the tables, and this has been a concern with the board. There’s been a lot of heated discussions over whether to allow it,” Turner said.
Turner said he did not know how long such materials had been presented at the fairgrounds.
The Western Washington Fair is a private, for-profit corporation, according to Pierce County Assessor Barbara Gelman. It charges the Arms Collectors group about $2,500 each day it uses the fairgrounds.
About 2,000 people attend the gun show one weekend each month.