Heck...I don’t know...it just seems like a rather near-impossible coincidence of mating a dumb ass cop with a dumb ass gun show attendee is all I’m saying.
I’m not so sure about the gun show attendee being a dumb ass.
A CCW holder should automatically assume he can carry in any venue not specifically prohibited by law. I am aware of no obligation to make an exhaustive search for “no loaded weapons allowed” posts, and so they should be prominently displayed if the organizers expect them to be respected.
I have seen MANY prohibition posting that were NOT prominently displayed.
That a cop decided to unsafely dick around with a loaded weapon, once discovered, has very little to do with the owner who surrendered it upon request, in my opinion.
To assess the possibilities, it would be necessary to know how many dumb ass cops there are and how many dumb ass gun show attendees.
Gun show attendance has been incredibly high since the recent shooting, probably double or triple the usual attendance. This means that a great proportion, perhaps as much as half of attendees are new to gun shows and many of those are new to GUNS.
The number of attendees who are not familiar with guns might be up by a factor of ten or more.
At the same time, the number of police officers who must be assigned to check guns at gun shows is probably also up, perhaps by double.
In doubling the number of officers assigned, it just might be that the number of officers being assigned who have not done the job before might be up by a factor of ten or more.
If you multiply the number of people who might ignorantly bring a loaded gun to a gun show by a factor of ten, and you multiply the number of officers that are incompetent to check weapons by a factor of ten, then you just might increase the likelihood of an incident by one hundred or more.
Given the incredibly high number of guns being sold in the last two months, many of them probably to new gun owners, I would predict a pretty large increase in the number of negligent discharges by this population of gun owners.
AR-15s have their own set of unique idiosyncrasies. If a new owner puts a loaded magazine into the rifle, purposely NOT loading a round in the chamber, and then locks the bolt back so that it is easy to inspect the chamber, then they may have set themselves up for a problem.
The AR-15, with the bolt locked back so that the chamber is open, requires just the slightest bump on the stock to release the lock and send the bolt forward.
A new owner unfamiliar with the situation might not realize that he has just chambered a round. If he then removes the magazine and fails to then empty the chamber (remember, he went to some trouble NOT to load the chamber) then he has created the potential for a negligent discharge.
We can further complicate this situation by realizing that there is now an ammo shortage for .223 rifles. This will result in some individuals perhaps trying to make some money by reloading their own .223 and selling at gun shows.
Commercial reloaders are expected to eliminate improperly seated primers from their product. Less experienced individuals might not be so attentive.
If we revisit the scenario above, where a slight bump sends the bolt home, chambering a round, it's not impossible that a round could fire if its primer is not seated.
The several times I have introduced friends to the AR-15, I have always chambered a round and then removed the round to show them how the inertial firing pin behaves in this rifle. There will be a slight dimple where the firing pin hits the newly chambered round. It's a good way of driving home the gun safety rules, including especially that the gun should never be pointed at something (or someone) you don't wish to destroy.