After being canceled in December following the passage of Oregon Measure 114, Oregon’s sweeping new gun law, the Wes Knodel Gun Show in Redmond kicked off Saturday.

Hundreds of people browsed a variety of guns and other products at the show, a two day event at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond. It will continue Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year’s show included around 50 vendors selling anything from hunting rifles, pistols, and shotguns, to swords, antique weapons and stun guns.

Kendra Alsterberg, the president of Wes Knodel Gun Shows is the daughter of Wes Knodel, the man who started the organization in 1995, putting on gun shows in Oregon and Washington. Alsterberg cancelled the show in December after she learned Measure 114 would take effect three days before the show was to begin. The law is currently held up in the courts after a judge in Harney County issued a temporary restraining order that argued parts of it are unconstitutional.

The measure would require gun buyers to acquire a permit and pass a background check before any sale or transfer of a gun can happen. It also prohibits the sale and transfer of magazines with more than a 10-round capacity.

The passage of Measure 114 caused a spike in gun sales, which in turn created a background check backlog at Oregon State Police. That made it nearly impossible for gun vendors to sell their wares in a timely fashion. Since then, things have calmed down, making the show possible, Alsterberg said.

“In December, if we would have had a show there would have been no guns in this building because there was no one to process those background checks,” Alsterberg said.

Over on the floor Saturday, Harris Esters of Redmond was browsing the hunting rifles and said he had orders from his wife to trade in her 12 gauge shotgun for a 20 gauge. Esters is originally from Texas and served in the U.S. Navy, stationed in California.

When it comes to dealing with a threat, such as the gunman who killed two people in Bend last summer in a Safeway, Esters believes he has a right, and responsibility to defend himself.

“I truly feel like if you have the right training, you have the right situation, and you have the opportunity to take out one person to save the lives of others, do what you got to do,” Esters said. “If someone is harming the citizens of this country we should be able to handle that situation ourselves. Because not all the time can the police be able to respond.”

Barb Schultz, the owner of Real Safe Gear out of Bend, was selling stun guns, and other non-lethal alternatives to traditional guns.

“It takes a lot of confidence to carry a gun, and I do have a conceal carry and I do have a gun myself, but I don’t carry my gun to Target, and I’m not walking out of Target with my gun drawn, but I do walk out of Target with my stun gun ready,” she said.

Roy Crossman, a vendor at the gun show and a veteran of the Vietnam War, was selling gun parts at the show. Crossman said he doesn’t like Measure 114 and decided to leave the Oregon after its passage, he said, planning to more to somewhere more conservative.

“I am moving out of Oregon in about a year because of it. I’m moving to Idaho,” Crossman said.

Crossman owns several guns, he said, and likes to conceal carry a Ruger LCP chambered in .380. He said if he were in a situation such as the one at the east Bend Safeway, he is unsure what he would do.

“I’d like to think I would do something,” he said. “I’ll be honest, I don’t want to kill anybody…I went through the military and didn’t have to kill anybody and I want it to stay that way.”