American gun culture lives and kicks in the battleground state of Pennsylvania

An unassuming yellow roadside sign with the words “Gun Show – This Weekend” and an arrow below is the only sign pointing to this month’s gun show in Quarryville.

Deep in rural Pennsylvania, the Solanco Fairgrounds, home to the fair, can be reached via PA272 from Lancaster, a road often blocked by local horse-drawn carriages. Amisha strictly religious local group that rejects most forms of modernization, causing traffic jams.

In the parking lot, large pickup trucks line up and fairgoers crowd through the narrow door that provides access to the venue.

The Quarryville Gun Show is organized by Eagle showswhich is responsible for over fifty fairs annually in some sixteen cities in Pennsylvania alone.

An entry ticket costs just $8 (€7.35), vendors who want to sell guns or gun-related equipment pay $50 for a table, making Quarryville the cheapest place; other locations charge up to $110 for a meal.

On his website, Eagle shows says he wants visitors to “enjoy your Second Amendment rights” at the shows, where “virtue, freedom and independence will be on full display” and which are “the perfect place to pick up your next gun Fire”.

The show doesn’t like the curious. “Unauthorized recording or photography” is “prohibited” and “offenders will be expelled.”

But inside, the atmosphere is friendly. A massive man with a beard and piercing eyes sells tickets and gives visitors a stamp on the back of their hand as proof of entry. A handwritten menu advertises hamburgers and cokes for a few dollars.

Groups of gun enthusiasts compare guns and swap stories. Each table has its own specialization: “ammunition” with bullets of all sizes is promoted. Others have handguns ranging from classic Colt ’45s and Ruger 375s to smaller Berettas in neat rows. Average price: $450 (€413).

A man sells antique Japanese rifles and proudly displays a gun, an imitation of a Nazi Luger pistol, with insignia of the Imperial Japanese Army. “Very rare in this form,” he says.

At another, the “master craftsman David Kline” table sells handmade knives. “Inspired by Japanese ingenuity, razor sharp,” he boasts.

The large table with dozens of semi-automatic rifles gets most of the attention.

Old Don sells old shotguns. He frequents gun shows. He also sells scopes, small hunting knives and an old manual for Remington rifles.

“I was on a US army base in West Germany in 1984 – the best time of my life,” he says.

But he is skeptical about America’s future, he says. He does not want to say which candidate from the US presidential election – Kamala Harris or Donald Trump – he favors. But he is clearly critical of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“We are a country of immigrants. Why stop immigrants? If you ask any of the people here to go back to their roots, they will find that they come from somewhere else. Except for Native Americans. They are the real Americans. We should give them the land back.”

But his remarks strike a chord in the staunchly pro-Trump atmosphere prevailing at the arms fair. The walls are marked with “Trump-Vance 2024” posters, referring to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate “JD” Vance.

There is no mention of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris or her running mate Tim Walz to be found at the Quarryville gun show.

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A booth displays a poster asking to sign the “Second Amendment Petition” to “protect free speech and the right to bear arms.”

According to a pro-Trump campaigner sitting next to the table, a muscular man in his thirties wearing a “know your roots” T-shirt, Space-X and Tesla multi-billionaire Elon Musk is behind the initiative.

“For every petition signed, we get $47 from Elon,” he says happily. “He’s a visionary. In two centuries, there will be statues of him on Mars.”

Pressure groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America called on Congress to “vote down every bill, every treaty, every resolution, and every amendment that would violate Second Amendment freedom as guaranteed in our Bill of Rights”.

According to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICE) Pennsylvanians collectively bought 841,523 guns in 2023, making the state fourth nationally behind Texas, Florida and California.

The good news is that in terms of gun ownership per capita, Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth most populous state, ranks 21st, with “only” 859 gun purchases per 10,000 people in 2023. Leading this lists are located in Montana, Wyoming. and Alaska, with about 1,500 guns per 10,000 residents each.

In fact, nationally, gun sales declined in 2023. The FBI report shows that about 16.7 million firearms were sold in the U.S. last year, the report said, 4 percent less than in 2022.

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Gun purchases in Pennsylvania are down 7 percent in 2023, according to the report.

However, one consultative published in July by the US surgeon general, declared gun violence a “national health crisis” and suggested initiatives to prevent gun deaths. According to the report, the rate of gun deaths “reached a nearly three-decade high in 2021.”

Pennsylvania’s gun crowd doesn’t seem to mind his anti-gun rhetoric.

“It’s still not easy to buy a gun here,” Don says. A little disappointed: “involves a lot of paperwork”.