The Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point, Kentucky advertises its World Famous, twice-a-year Machine Gun Shoot as "Family Friendly" entertainment. The slogan: "Nothing brings families together like blowing stuff apart...safely."

I won't deny the red-blooded-American joy of firing automatic weapons at exploding targets.

Still I have to ask: What's up with the little kids in Nazi shirts?

I was on site at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot fewer than 20 minutes last Saturday before I passed a shaved-head lad with with a Totenkopf death head on his chest. (The Totenkopf was the symbol of the Nazi SS division that ran death camps like Auschwitz during the Holocaust.)

The shirt looked brand new. I took that to mean the kid or whoever gave it to him bought it from one of the dozen or so permitted vendors who openly sold white supremacist merchandise. This included a wide selection of t-shirts and flags bearing symbols popular with racist skinheads and neo-Nazis. (And no, I'm not counting Confederate battle flags.) Also for sale were the race war fantasy novels Hunter and The Turner Diaries by William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance, a notorious hate group. A Friends of the NRA fundraising booth was located within sight of a stall of swastika flags.

Guns for sale at the machine gun shoot ranged from high-priced fully automatic rifles and handguns equipped with silencers offered by federally licensed gun dealers all the way down to $100 used 9mms for sale in the parking lot. Apart from the official machine gun shoot vendors, festival-goers are permitted to sell firearms on the grounds. This leads to a freewheeling cash-and-carry market.