Gunning it — Utah company boasts nation's largest weapons show

Guns. They cause a multitude of emotions in people — love and hate and, for some, fear. For those who love guns and all things gun-related, not much beats spending an afternoon at a gun show.

Nearly a half million people bought tickets to Crossroads of the West gun shows in Utah and four other Western states last year, more than other gun shows in America. Crossroads, finishing its 31st year in business, is owned by Bob Templeton and his family of Fruit Heights.

Bob and his wife, Lynn, started in the gun show business in 1975 when they owned a Salt Lake gun store, Guns Unlimited. "I started promoting gun shows and they worked out better than the gun store," Bob said.

After deciding to go full time with gun shows, the Templetons opened their first one in a National Guard armory, then a year later had three shows a year in the old Salt Palace. Today, they have 47 shows a year, making Crossroads of the West the largest show operator in the country, he said.

Besides Utah, Crossroads has shows in Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and California, where firearms laws are more restrictive, but the Templetons have managed to survive the tough anti-gun environment. "There's a mandatory 10-day waiting period for guns in California," Templeton said. The 10 days before purchasers can take possession of guns makes it hard for dealers to sell. "Liberals would like California to be the model for the whole country and even go farther than that," he said. With the Democrats controlling Congress, Templeton is worried about the sanctity of the Second Amendment and the peoples' right to keep and bear arms.

One of the ways dealers at guns shows have adapted is by making arrangements with local federally licensed dealers to hold sold guns during the waiting period. However, California's restrictive guns laws make many firearms illegal and the result has been a lot of stores going out of business, he said. "People in the Bay Area, especially, tell me they don't let their neighbors know they have guns."

Whether California, with its draconian laws on firearms, will become the model for the rest of the country remains to be seen, but the firearm industry generally is in a decline as fewer Americans go hunting and fewer children grow up looking forward to the annual hunt. Even in Utah, much of the land that was wide open and provided hunting areas a generation ago is now filled with houses and that means hunters and shooters must travel further.