Last month’s high school shooting massacre in Florida is still creating some fall out in California.

A Santa Clara County supervisor wants to put a stop to the long-standing practice of holding gun shows at the county fairgrounds.

In the run-up to these gun shows, one sees billboards and other signs promoting the shows all over town.

and even if there are just a couple of these shows each year, one county supervisor says county property is no place for them, and even if it’s just two shows a year, that’s two too many.

On Monday, the marquee at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds is currently promoting upcoming shows devoted to toys, cats, and beer. But just last month, the fairgrounds hosted a “Code of the West” gun show, sponsored by the California Rifle and Pistol Association.

Such shows have been a fixture there for years.

At similar shows, guns are bought and sold in strict compliance with federal, state, and local laws. But it’s the advertising and promotion of such shows that are driving this latest effort to shut them down in Santa Clara County.

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida high school massacre, the buying and selling of guns, even though legal, is not consistent with promoting the health and well-being of residents, says Supervisor Ken Yeager.

“In advance of the shows, there is a lot of advertising, billboards, and placards on telephone poles. and the morning after the shooting, I saw this, and I thought that county property is not the place for the promotion of guns,” Yeager said. “So, it occurred to me that if we ban the gun shows, they wouldn’t be able to do all of this promotion and selling at the fairgrounds.”

Yeager says his proposed ban would have no impact on the buying and selling of guns at government-sponsored gun buyback programs, which have also been conducted
at the county fairgrounds.

The ban is largely symbolic because there are only two such shows each year at the Fairgrounds, and they bring in about $12,000 a year.

Supervisor Yeager will present his proposal to the full board on Tuesday.

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