Vendor who displayed loaded gun in Fort Worth shooting banned from future events

Kaley Johnson
·2 min read

The vendor who displayed the loaded gun that resulted in a woman being shot in the foot at a Fort Worth gun show will not be allowed to participate in future gun shows, according to the city of Fort Worth.

On Saturday, an attendee at a gun show at the Will Rogers Memorial Center picked up a gun that was on display at a vendor’s booth. The person pointed it at the ground while pulling the trigger. A bullet was in the chamber and it ricocheted off the floor and hit a woman in the foot.

According to gun show rules and policies put in place by producers, guns at the show cannot be loaded, according to a statement put out by the city. The Original Fort Worth Gun Show, which ran on Saturday and Sunday, is produced by Premier Gun Shows. Premier Gun Shows did not respond to requests to comment.

All guns are supposed to be inspected and unloaded at the show. In this case, according to the city, the vendor did not follow those protocols. The statement did not identify the vendor, and a city spokeswoman said she did not know who the vendor was.

“Staff will work with the show organizer to determine what changes are needed to make sure this type of incident doesn’t happen in the future,” the city said in a statement said.

The woman was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. The person who shot the gun initially ran from the gun show, police said. The person returned later and was interviewed by the Fort Worth police department.

In 2019, a man was hit in the neck with an arrow at another Fort Worth gun show produced by Premier Gun Shows, according to a lawsuit filed in Tarrant County in February. The man was attending a show at the Fort Worth Convention Center on April 28, 2019, when a man working at a booth began to demonstrate a crossbow-like weapon. The crossbow went off and the arrow hit the man in the neck, the lawsuit says.

The man survived, but had serious injuries, according to the ongoing lawsuit, which accuses Premiere Gun Shows, the booth vendor and the employee who fired the bow of negligence. Premier Gun Shows denied the allegations of negligence in an answering motion to the lawsuit.