Amelang said the show was mostly for Western Americana collectibles, including antique firearms and "cowboy and Indian artifacts, " with only 10 percent of exhibit tables selling modern guns.

CNN: Los Angeles, Washington, take stand on guns

Our economics editor has conducted informal polls each year on the terrace (after the Western barbecue, for which one is invited to dress cowboy-style).

ECONOMIST: A guide to the future

And it was in Bandera that the Great Western Trail began, and with it the cult of the cowboy: 300, 000 head of longhorn cattle, most rustled from Mexico, herded through its broad main street every year in the 1870s and '80s, a last staging post to stock up on liquor and chilli brick before the long, hard ride to Dodge City, Kansas.

BBC: The perfect chilli con carne in the heart of Texas

In Fort Worth, a city serious about its western heritage where Texas Longhorn cattle are still herded through town twice a day for tourists to see, the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame celebrates the lives of past and present influential cowboys.

BBC: Touring the American Southwest in a cowboy��s boots