He rose the next morning, drove off, and found a place to eat. At noon he headed

to the gun show he had seen advertised on the billboard.

 

In some states gun shows had one big loophole. Private sellers didn’t have to do

background checks. Only licensed ones did.

 

Despite political moves to close this hole, some sellers did not abide by the

rules. Which was perfectly fine with Rogers.

 

Though things were changing, he could probably buy a weapon on the Internet

without a background check, only he didn’t have a computer, an email address, a

credit card, or a physical address for them to ship the gun to.

 

He walked into the rambling tent that had been erected on the site and saw that

dozens of dealers had set up small booths inside. The place was already packed,

and he spent an hour simply walking around and observing. Most people didn’t

observe. They were too absorbed in themselves. Thus they missed nearly all that

was actually instructive.

 

He could see that most people here were licensed dealers.

 

Buyers were producing ID and filling out the background check forms that would

be run through the FBI’s NCIC database. The process took about ten minutes.

There were a few private dealers, but they were selling shotguns and long guns