My bro Russ Lary reports from the SHOT Show that there’s some pretty high-tech stuff on display, including a security system that links through your AR15/M4 rifle. Seems that if you turn the rifle’s safety/selector switch to “Fire,” it triggers a signal to lock your gates, etc. “A kid saw a guy get killed by a drive-through bomber, and came up with this concept,” Russ relays. “The inventor’s feeling was that if a system like this had been in place, it might have kept the vehicle from getting through the gates as soon as the first guard who saw him flipped the safety switch on his rifle.
We are, indeed, in the 21st Century…
One of our blog readers asked about carrying guns at the SHOT Show. Russ relates the story of a brother cop attending the Show who pulled up at the adjacent host hotel, the Palazzo. It seems that as soon as his car came to a stop, an attendant asked, “Sir, do you have any guns in the car?” The cop identified himself and stated that he was carrying an off-duty pistol. He was promptly escorted into the adjacent SHOT Show security center, where his pistol was put in a locker to which he was given the key. Apparently, the host hotel does not even allow off-duty cops to have guns on the premises.
(Guess where one old blog writer will NOT be spending his money the next time he’s in Las Vegas…)
At Backwoods Home’s request, Russ has kept his ear to the ground to hear the industry buzz on the current media push for a ban on high capacity magazines. His sense of it, after talking with lots of industry folks (including some who make up to 100-round magazines), is that they don’t really think the proposed new legislation is going to fly. After all, it didn’t work the LAST time it was in effect for ten years…
Dan Baum, whose name you’ve seen in this blog before, is a credentialed liberal, but had this to say on the Huffington Post on this topic:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-baum/after-tucson-stricter-gun_b_811696.html
It ain’t about “conservative or liberal.” It’s about common sense, dammit.
“Seems that if you turn the rifle’s safety/selector switch to “Fire,” it triggers a signal to lock your gates, etc”
Because there’s no possible chance that when the bullets start flying, you’d need to leave…
Seems even if one has the liberal credentials, the other liberals will hear none of his actual sense.
I say fine, them self-destructing will actually do us some good. I’m glad to see not ALL liberals are fools, but the comments section there definitely does not help me think that most of them are rational. Personally, I think men like Dan are the exception, not the rule, on the left side of the aisle.
“…combat air crahes by repealing gravity.”
Mas, you sure this guy is a liberal…uh, progressive… hell whatever THEY wanna be called now?
Looks like S&W is debuting thetir version of the Taurus Judge at the Shot Show. (!!!???)
Tell Charlie IrishCop says hey if you see him there. 🙂
The unfortunate part of the gun debate is that so much of it centers on whose set of statistics you decide matches your preconceived opinions about whether guns are just dangerous or useful.
I’ve seen it all. I never dreamed that one of the most lucid arguments against more gun control would be in the huff&puff post!
Now if we could just get liberals to hate high taxes?
And if the guy next to you switches from Fire to Safe?
“After all, it didn’t work the LAST time it was in effect for ten years…”
Ah, but now, they just corrected all the astrological signs for three thousand years of drift and polar precession. Maybe it’ll work now!
(Hey, it’s about as valid a rationale as any other. …Hey, look, a comet!)
Thanks Mas for answering my question. To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about the host hotel. I was actually wondering what the SHOT show’s position was on CCW because this is one instance where I could at least understand a no CCW policy. All it would take would be someone with a loaded gun to try a new holster or something, maybe a loaded gun inadvertently trades places with a inert gun etc.
Ever since that shooting at a gun show you mentioned in the LFI Safety video has had me thinking twice about some gun shows.
But none of the above matters if the host won’t even respect an off-duty officer’s right to carry…
All these “miraculous and wonderful” guns make me laugh. I go back to Warren Buffet and his classic concept…don’t make the safety shaver, just make the blades…cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching….just let me have a percent of the ammo business please….
cops are citizens, no more no less. I hate to disagree but they shouldn’t have any more right to carry than any other citizen. We all have the God given right to carry.
WE SHOULD all carry or not show up.
I saw some of the greasy haired, ear gauge wearing dirt bags providing “security” at SHOT.
Sorry, I wouldn’t trust them with a penny, let alone my life.
“One of our blog readers asked about carrying guns at the SHOT Show. Russ relates the story of a brother cop attending the Show who pulled up at the adjacent host hotel, the Palazzo. It seems that as soon as his car came to a stop, an attendant asked, “Sir, do you have any guns in the car?” The cop identified himself and stated that he was carrying an off-duty pistol. He was promptly escorted into the adjacent SHOT Show security center, where his pistol was put in a locker to which he was given the key. Apparently, the host hotel does not even allow off-duty cops to have guns on the premises.”
so what happens when the dishonest person lies and says they do not have any guns?
they get to walk right into an unarmed hotel right?
(i am assuming the SHOT show probably has metal detectors at the entrances much like any gun show does – but the hotel is then a supposedly gun free zone?)
I’m surprised and disappointed that the SHOT show representatives made a deal with such a hotel and allowed this to happen.
@Rob Leahy- I fully agree with you there. I hope one day we’ll see a citizen’s equivalent of the LEOSA act that allows national carry. In my opinion the only place CCW has a valid reason to be restricted is in prisons due to the high risk of a prisoner snatching a firearm. As we seen Gun Free Zones usually mean Criminal Safe Zones.
In most places today, the mere thought of a gun in the hands of a citizen sends a lot of people into hysterics. So if places like the Palazzo Hotel are going to deprive attendants of their right to defend themselves, maybe they could at least cut sworn law enforcement some slack so there are a least a few armed individuals.
Slightly off-topic, but most of the gun-shows I’ve been to I don’t recall ever going through a metal detector. If I did go through a metal detector, it’s never caught my pocket knife and before my CCW, I’ve always had a knife on me.
As a Las Vegas resident and SHOT Show attendee I can state with some certainty that most of the Las Vegas Properties have a “No Firearms” policy. The big thing is that the unless they know you are carrying, there won’t be an issue. The worst that usually happens is that if your concealed weapon is “made” they will ask you to leave the property, which is their right. My assumption is that the Palazzo (sister property of the Venetian and both affiliated with the Sands Convention Center) just made the “are there any weapons” question standard procedure because of the SHOT Show. In more normal situations, I have never heard of any hotel asking “are you carrying any weapons?”
No metal detectors wands or TSA type pat downs at the doors. Nobody asked me, but I stayed off the strip. Saw plenty of folks with “tactical” folding and sheath knives…
Note to self; Palazzo Hotel is OFF my list of places to stay in Vegas.
Hmmm…just wondering…do you think that the hotels being a bit worried about folks walking in the doors with guns just might be do to the fact that they handle MILLIONS of dollars in cash every day since they all have gaming rooms? Ya know just a thought….This is where I really start to drift apart from the “guns” anywhere crowd. Logic should apply.
“Long Island Mike Says:
January 22nd, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Hmmm…just wondering…do you think that the hotels being a bit worried about folks walking in the doors with guns just might be do to the fact that they handle MILLIONS of dollars in cash every day since they all have gaming rooms? Ya know just a thought….This is where I really start to drift apart from the “guns” anywhere crowd. Logic should apply.”
but isn’t that the point? the honest people will disarm and legally obey the law/rule/regulations – where the criminal is going to carry anyway if they so desire and break whatever laws/commit whatever crimes they choose as they disregard the laws to begin with.
i do see both sides… but the problem being that usually the honest hard working type has something to lose – which is what the fear based legal system is based on – so they willingly (or grudgingly) follow/abide or obey laws/rules/regulations.
the person with nothing to lose will disregard any and all laws/rules/regulations/signs etc…
so ultimately how is disarming the honest citizen making anybody safer?
@Long Island Mike:
My first guess would be that the no guns policy steams from the large crowds of people and alcohol. Kind of like bars and restaurants that serve alcohol are sometimes no firearms. A bit of a volatile mix that could possibly result in a lawsuit against the establishment and let’s be honest, it usually boils down to liability. Nothing sends big organizations running like the word liability.
This is just my guess but I imagine they’re far less concerned about their money because it’s probably insured. Someone making off with 100k is a lot less costly than a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a hotel that allowed a firearm to be present and in the hands of someone with a few too many drinks. Not to mention there’s a chance of recovering stolen money from a criminal but not a settlement.
It’s true; there was not a single metal detector or wand being used at SHOT either this year or last (AFAIK). Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to find such things anywhere on the Strip, except at the elevator entrance to the Stratosphere tower! It’s a weird thing; you’re asked to put your metal belongings in a cup and walk through a detector. The rent-a-cops don’t even examine the cup’s contents, which is nice as I had a blade and OC in there!
As for Mas’ tale of the off-duty officer, well, he should’ve taken to heart the last part of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Some things are better left unsaid.
TXCOMT