While many gun shows planned to be held in Connecticut have been cancelled, the East Coast Fine Arms Show went on as scheduled in Stamford yesterday. Held at the Plaza Conference Center, the show's promoter, Westchester Collectors, explained that it couldn't cancel the show, even though it was being held just 40 miles away from the scene of the Newtown elementary school shooting. Westchester Collectors' Newman Chittenden told the Daily News, "It would be tremendously expensive to me to give up before the show opens after I’ve spent thousands of dollars. I just cannot afford to do that."
The December 14, 2012 shooting left 20 children, ages 6-7, and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary school dead and prompted an immediate debate about gun control policies in the United States. The East Coast Fine Arms Show specializes in antique guns, and one attendee told the Stamford Advocate, "This isn't a traditional gun show that people see on the news. It's old collectibles, nothing that the media is in a frenzy about."
However, there were protesters. One Million Moms For Gun Control member Kara Baeky argued that it was too soon to have a gun show, "The sheer lack of respect for those still grieving was pretty infuriating for us... I realize that it was an antique gun show and many of the guns inside would not even fire, but the fact that the Stamford Plaza Hotel allowed for a gun show to continue only three weeks after Newtown is just not acceptable to us."
Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia accused Westchester Collectors and the hotel to reschedule the event, but they refused; Pavia said, "An event like that seems to be insensitive at this time."
