Susan Combs' Nazi Squad Strikes At Lubbock Gun Show

Officials unnerve some at gun show
By Adam D. Young | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Story last updated at 4/30/2009 - 1:47 am

Attendees and sellers at a weekend gun show got a visit from the tax man that some said was unusual, unexpected and unwanted.

And the show's co-organizer, Don Hill, said the visit from half a dozen representatives of the Texas State Comptroller's Office may have scared off many potential customers and sellers from the Gun and Knife Show Saturday and Sunday at the Panhandle-South Plains Fairgrounds.

Representatives of the Comptroller's Office set up a booth for about an hour Saturday morning at the event, approaching people who came to the fair and asking them if they had a state sales tax permit, said Hill, co-owner of the Texas Gun & Knife Association, which operated the Lubbock gun show and others around the state.

"Everybody who came in with more than one gun was asked if they were planning to sell them," he said explaining how being questioned by government officials could have drawn people away from the show. " ... That might be a back door, Obama anti-gun thing."

Hill, who said he's run the shows throughout the state with his wife, Janice Hill, for 15 years, looked around the commercial exhibit building at what he described as fewer than normal attendees at the semi-annual event. He attributed the lower-than-expected attendance in part to the one-hour comptroller's office visit Saturday morning as the show opened. He said Saturday was the first time comptroller's officials canvassed one of his shows.

But a spokesman for the Texas Comptroller's Office in Austin said canvassing events to make sure vendors have sales tax permits is a common tactic.

Allen Spelce said comptroller's officials often visit businesses, gun shows and other events where sales take place. If a vendor is found without a permit, they are asked to accept one of the permits, which can be issued on the scene at no cost to the individual or business receiving it.

"It's across the board - it's not just gun shows," he said.

R.J. DeSilva with the comptroller's office said individuals or businesses are required to get a sales tax permit if they sell any "tangible personal property" - specifically more than two items a year regardless of value. There are more than 642,000 active sales tax permits in the state.

The state office sometimes responds to individual tips from people reporting that vendors do not have a permit or are not properly collecting taxes, DeSilva said, but he did not comment on specifics about the canvassing at the event in Lubbock.

Alan Walraven, North Texas regional director of the Texas Rifle Association, said he believes the canvassing didn't seem like routine enforcement. He describing comptroller's officials as "rude," "intimidating" and eager to leave in a hurry.

"What they did more than anything else was come in and interfere with the gun show," he said.

Walraven, who manned the National Rifle Association affiliate's booth at the event, said he believes the comptroller's office officials left when Lubbock lawyer Guy Hawkins, who was called to the event when the officials arrived, told them he planned to report the canvassing to the media. Hawkins did not return several Avalanche-Journal phone call requests for an interview.

"They finished awfully quick," Walraven said of the officials. "Why did they only do it for an hour?"

But DeSilva said he doubted the officials from the comptroller's office intended to intimidate people at the event, and explained the canvassing process sometimes takes less or more time than others "depending on the size of the event."