Gun show to make stop again in Charles City

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

A whole lot of guns, and a little bit of everything else.

“Whether you’re a hunter, a sportsman or a collector, we have everything you need,” said Marv Kraus.

Charles City area hunters, sportsmen and collectors will get a chance to browse, buy or just hang out this weekend at the Floyd County Youth Enrichment Center at the fairgrounds in Charles City.

A gun show hosted by Marv Kraus Promotions will take place Friday through Sunday. The event will run 4 to 9 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

“All the tables are sold out. We’ll have the building packed,” Kraus said. “They will be selling and trading pretty much anything sporting-related or collectible.”

This is the second time Kraus Promotions has held a show in Charles City. The group put on a show here last year, and Kraus hopes there will be “many more to come.”

“If you’d like to get a little annual gun show established in the community, come on by and check it out,” said Kraus, who is from Strawberry Point and currently lives in Elkader.

The event is open to the public, and a large selection of new and used guns and ammunition will be on display. The show will feature handguns, rifles, shotguns, knives and many accessories.

Shop owners from all over the state will set up inventory, and Kraus Promotions covers expenses such as advertising and liability insurance. Most of the dealers will take trades, and all the dealers have had the required federal background checks, he said.

“You can bring in an old shotgun or rifle to trade in if you want to,” Kraus said.

Many of the dealers also offer free appraisals.

About half of the gun dealers setting up at the show travel from show to show, and the rest of the tables are filled with local and regional gun and outdoors dealers. Kraus said that local dealers include Matt Ross at Ross’s Guns & Ammo and Bob Kellogg at BKS Gun & Ammo, both in Charles City, as well as a couple of dealers from the Mason City area.

Kraus said he started the gun shows 28 years ago at the fairgrounds in Waverly, and the shows grew. The group put on 31 shows last year throughout the upper Midwest, and cut back to 25 this year. A show last weekend was in Cornell, Wisconsin, and later this month Kraus Promotions will be in Tomah, Wisconsin.

A permit is necessary to purchase a pistol, and all other local, state and federal laws will apply, he said.