By DEON HAMPTON World Staff Writer
4/6/2008
A gun was accidentally fired during the Wanenmacher's Tulsa Arms Show at Expo Square on Friday after a vendor allowed a patron to pull its trigger, police said.
No one was injured in the incident.
Tulsa County Sheriff's Capt. Bill Bass said the accidental weapons discharge occurred at 6:30 p.m. after a gun dealer allowed a potential buyer to hoist a .40 caliber handgun from a display table.
The bullet hit the ceiling, Bass said.
Joe Wanenmacher, the gun show's manager, said the handgun was improperly tied to a plastic strip, which would have rendered the gun unable to fire, and that the gun dealer and potential buyer were supposed to double-check that the gun was unloaded.
Wanenmacher said the gun dealer was expelled from the show for at least one year.
"This is (yet) another case when the exhibitor didn't follow the safety rules," Wanenmacher said.
He said more than 7,000 exhibitors are registered for the show.
In 2006, two men suffered minor injuries during a Wanenmacher show at Expo Square after a vendor was examining a double-barreled .410-gauge shotgun that was thought to be loaded with a snap cap.
A snap cap is a nonlive round that allows the handler to dry-fire the weapon without damaging the firing pin or the firing pin holes.
However, when the vendor pulled the trigger, the shotgun fired a blast through his display case.
The pellets ricocheted off the floor and struck the two men who were standing nearby.
In 2000, a 10 mm pistol discharged as a man was unholstering it at a Wanenmacher show. The bullet struck the person next to him in the leg.
In 1994, a similar accident happened at the Tulsa Gun and Knife Show, when a vendor accidentally fired a .45-caliber pistol. Investigators said the bullet ricocheted off the floor and struck two men in the feet.
