"Everyone now wants an AR-15": Florida celebrates its big gun show three days after the Parkland school killings

[OyaYansa]

Just four days have passed since Nikolas Cruz shot 17 people in a school in Parkland, Florida, and the state is already celebrating one of the great weapons events of the year.
Here the arms trade does not stop.
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This is the Florida Gun Show (the weapons show in Florida), which is celebrated this weekend in Miami and that its promoters promote with ambitious advertising claims.
"They will enjoy a huge display of firearms, ammunition, chargers, knives and much more," promises visitors to the event website.
For weeks, large billboards on the show dot the extensive road network of Miami-Dade County.

The fair takes place in a large building in Miami, just an hour's drive from the Stoneman Douglas School, which has just been the site of one of the worst massacres in the recent history of the United States.
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The taxi driver who brings me says he can not believe what he's seeing.
"Are you really going to do a gun show today, after what happened? What madness!" He exclaims.

Next to the access door a black and white folio offers a clarification.
"We want to recognize the city of Parkland, especially the students and professors of the school who were killed without meaning, and we do not pretend to be disrespectful or sensitive with this event planned for such a long time," the article reads.
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Children do not pay
The letter also recommends that attendees tolerate those who may speak against and adds: "We have demanded and imposed a strong security."
But arriving an hour before the official opening, BBC Mundo accesses the site where hundreds of weapons are stored before the start of the exhibition without going through the security control, which will be activated later.

At nine o'clock open the ticket offices and the fair begins to boil.
Admission costs US $ 13. Children under 12 years old do not pay.
Inside, a huge sample of firearms of different type and caliber, telescopic sights, camouflage clothing, knives, machetes, and a long list of combat accessories for the enjoyment of lead lovers.
The Second Amendment of the Constitution recognizes the right of Americans to carry arms, for many one of the hallmarks of the country and one of the reasons why they sell so much.

Among the numerous clientele that clusters around the more than 600 sales counters there are some blacks and Hispanics, but white males predominate.
Some walk around the room accompanied by children. The least there are are women.
Matter of debate
Bill attends one of the stalls next to his wife and is clear about his point of view in the debate on weapons, reopened by the latest school massacre.
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"What happened in Parkland is a tragedy, but the solution is not to prohibit weapons, but decent citizens can defend ourselves with it from guys like Nikolas Cruz," he tells BBC Mundo.

Bill likes Donald Trump. He proudly displayed a support shirt. "Some people do not like him because he is not a politician or a publicist, but he is getting things," he says.
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The issue of weapons is a matter of bitter political debate in the United States.
The Democrats promoted measures to restrict the sale, but the Republican Party always frustrated them.
And if in the time of Barack Obama they asserted their majority in Congress, now that with Donald Trump they also control the Executive, the resistance is double.
That, however, does not prevent many from continuing to campaign in favor of greater controls on arms sales.
In fact, while in this part of Florida the arms fair was being held, in another part of the state dozens of victims and relatives demanded stricter laws for their sale.
 

But the anger over the Parkland killings at the moment has only improved sales.
The AR-15
Not far from Bill's position is that of Pawn & Gun Shop, the business of Domingo Martin, son of Cubans born in Miami.
He explains that the cheapest thing he can offer me is a 22-gauge Jimenez pistol, which would cost me $ 119.
But the most demanded lately is the rifle AR-15, manufactured by Colt, the rifle used by Cruz in his bloody run for the secondary school from which he had been expelled.
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"People demand a lot because they fear that after what happened, their sale will be prohibited," he explains.
"You can legally buy those over 18, but I demand that they have 21," he tells BBC Mundo.
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The AR-15 is an old acquaintance of the American public.
In its history also it emphasizes that it was the weapon with which Adam Lanza killed in 2012 to 20 children in the school Sandy Hook, in Connecticut, and the one that James Holmes used that same year when it broke into a cinema of Colorado during a projection of Batman leaving a trail of 12 corpses and dozens of wounded.

For those attending the fair, however, the problem is not in weapons, but in criminals with psychiatric problems that misuse them.
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It is the thesis defended by President Donald Trump when he referred to the tragedy of Parkland, and which Chris, a young university student who runs the South Florida fair, endorses.
"On the subject of mental health, the government could do more than what it is doing," he tells BBC Mundo.
Kill or die
Among those who wield and examine weapons for sale is Marco, a Colombian immigrant.
He has two rifles and a pistol at home. That is his contribution to the incalculable American domestic arsenal.

Marco says that his thing began with his love of sports shooting.
But, he adds, "in the United States there are a lot of crazy guns, so if I ever have a son I'll teach him how to shoot so he can defend himself."
According to him, "in this country, fleeing is not an option".
According to the account of the organization "Gun Violence Archive", more than 1,900 people have already died from gunshot wounds only so far this year in the United States.
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Marco prefers that his son be one of those who kill one of those who die.
Assistant to the Florida Gun Show Author's rights of the imageAFP
Image caption
For many Americans, the right to own weapons is a sacred right.
In addition, for many of the participants in this exhibition, weapons are also much more than fire-breathing machines, they are the quintessence of the national spirit.
And any restriction would be an unbearable mutilation of that sacred good.
This is explained to me by the person in charge of the position of an armory chain called Shoot Straight Florida who prefers not to give his name, while playing with a Smith & Wesson 5.56, one of the competitors of the AR-15.
"This is a free country and we do not want to have police watching everywhere, we Americans have to be able to defend ourselves to remain a democracy and not end up like Russia," he tells BBC World.
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Many of the defenders of that right to bear arms are also accustomed to point out that the vast majority of their holders in the USA. They use them responsibly.
A matter of freedom
It is towards noon when the weapons show lives its rush hour.
Sellers and buyers close deals at the frenetic pace that characterizes the accelerated US economy in recent years.

Some experts even fear that it overheats, as it happens to machine guns when they are fired more than necessary.
That's not something that worries anyone here.
In a corner between cartridge belts, knives and Beretta pistols, I find a trio of veterans of the Cuban exile who comment heatedly on current affairs.
They have many years and very little faith in the press. They see me as a potential source of "false news".
Only the BBC credential seems to mitigate somewhat its suspicion.
One of them is Pedro Hernández, who introduces himself as a retired officer of the Miami Police Department.
"Now you can not talk about the issue of weapons because emotions are very close to the skin," he says.
Then he unfolds his theory about the true reasons for the alarm raised by the last scab at a school.

"Communists are everywhere and want to start by ending our freedom to use weapons and then destroy all others," he says.
Neither Pedro nor many of the millions of Trump voters in Republican Florida are willing to allow even that first step to be taken.