Fear, loathing and firearms: sensory overload inside the NRA's Mall of Death

thegurardian.com ^ | 6/25/2016 | Ben Fountain

[rktman]

At the 145th National Rifle Association annual meetings and exhibits, you could see and purchase replica flintlock muskets like the kind Daniel Boone used, “wardrobe” handguns the size of a cellphone, a carriage-mounted 1883 Gatling gun, historic firearms from the Renaissance down through the latest Surge, bullet-splat jewelry, deep-concealment holsters, triple barrel shotguns, and camo everything – coolers, flasks, four-wheelers, deer blinds, infant-wear and sexy-time lingerie.

Mingling with a crowd striking for its nearly uniform whiteness, I did lapse into a kind of fugue state from time to time, a retail trance brought on by sheer sensory overload, but with all this American ingenuity and weirdness on display, actual boredom was out of the question. Old people and those less old but morbidly obese trundled about on motorized scooters, their baskets filled to the brim with corporate swag

[gundog]

Ol’ Ticklicker. Kind of implies some marksmanship. It’s not very difficult to get within spittin’ range of game.