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Gun Shows Are Hot in Florida
Bucks for the Bang: The election of Barack Obama has been a boon for gun dealers, and with more than 200 gun shows a year, few markets are hotter than Florida.
 Shows attract seniors, parents with kids and the common man. Gun control advocates say the shows offer criminals easy access to weapons. [Photo: Kelly LaDuke] |
Antiques
 Pete Fields [Photo: Aaron Ansarov] |
A Palm Beach Gardens antiques dealer, Fields specialized in what’s known as the “smalls” — small antique items — until eBay devastated his niche. So he began dealing in firearms on the government’s “Curio and Relics” list, which encompasses weapons older than 50 years.
It’s not easy to find such merchandise, so Fields also sells semi-automatic assault rifles from former Eastern Bloc countries. He calls in background checks on buyers for those just as other sellers do. But he says he prefers older weapons. His profit on a new firearm can be only $60, and they’re less interesting to him.
With a significant look, he points out four notches carved in the stock of a century-old semi-automatic rifle. Built to hold a 30-round clip, it was a kind used by prison guards. “It fires just as fast as an AK-47. It came out in 1907,” he says.
| Concealed Weapon / Firearm License Holders (As of Nov. 30, 2008) | ||
| Top Florida Counties | License Holders |  Sig Sauer P226 Elite Cost: About $1,000  Beretta 3032 Tomcat Cost: About $400  Beretta M9 U.S. Marine Corps Cost: About $600 |
| Miami-Dade | 53,570 | |
| Broward | 45,638 | |
| Palm Beach | 36,586 | |
| Hillsborough | 26,632 | |
| Orange | 26,337 | |
| Duval | 23,947 | |
| Pinellas | 22,951 | |
| Lee | 19,180 | |
| Brevard | 17,247 | |
| Volusia | 16,103 | |
| Total Top 10 Counties | 288,191 | |
| Total in Florida | 537,729 | |
