TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Thousands were expected to attend this weekend\u2019s gun show at the Florida State Fairgrounds. When all is said and done, organizers estimate that between 8,000 and 10,000 people will have attended.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Thousands were expected to attend the Tampa gun show at the Florida State Fairgrounds
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The increase in attendance is partly due to changes in Florida’s open carry law and a tax exemption on firearms and accessories
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Firearm instructors stress the importance of safety and proper training for gun owners<\/p>\n
Organizers said the increase in number is partly due to recent changes to Florida\u2019s open carry law as well as the Second Amendment Sales Tax Exemption on firearms, ammunition and accessories that runs through the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a numbers guy. Tax-free is huge because if you\u2019re taxing something for $1000, $2000, $3000, you\u2019re basically saving $100, $200, $300 on just one item. Saving that much money is huge,\u201d Naim Smith said.<\/p>\n
As a gun owner for nearly five years, Smith said it is exciting to see all the new firearms and cool accessories on display, but the foundation of gun ownership is rooted in safety and skill.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the knowledge people have behind the gun,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to learn first … it\u2019s the most important thing. In order to have a gun, you must have training. I think that\u2019s the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Firearm instructor John Helmes couldn\u2019t agree more. With more than 25 years of experience working in law enforcement, Helmes, owner of Bulldog Tactical Group, was tasked with teaching students all the facets of responsible gun ownership.<\/p>\n
\u201cTraining is gonna be very important,\u201d he said. \u201cOne \u2014 to stay familiar with your firearm because when you actually have to use it to defend yourself, you\u2019re not gonna spend any time thinking about it. You\u2019re actually just going to fall back to what your training was, and that\u2019s why we wanna have good quality training because if your training is poor, you\u2019re gonna respond poorly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another part of training, he said, is knowing the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to bear in mind that every year the legislature goes in the session, and they make changes to the laws and if you don\u2019t know … you\u2019re gonna wind up in trouble,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As far as the new open carry law is concerned, Helmes said it\u2019s imperative that gun owners know where they can and cannot carry.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnow where you can and can\u2019t carry. There\u2019s really not a lot of difference between that and the carry laws with concealed weapons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Thousands were expected to attend this weekend\u2019s gun show at the Florida State Fairgrounds. When all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[10090,274,276,115,135,137,136,278],"class_list":["post-10444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-amber-gerard","tag-app-top-stories","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}