TUCSON ? A week after a gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others here, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a gun show at the Pima County Fairgrounds went forward as planned on Saturday, and the Safeway supermarket where the shooting occurred reopened for business.
At both places, visitors observed a moment of silence in honor of the victims.
At the Safeway, Nancy Ostromencki, 56, said, ?I decided I needed to come here again to start to reclaim normalcy.?
Ms. Ostromencki, a piano teacher who said she was inside the store when the shooting occurred, said her daily routine included buying a Frappuccino and treats for her dog, Bailey, at the supermarket, and ?I can?t let that worm have more control than he?s already had.?
Jared L. Loughner, 22, has been charged in the rampage, in which Ms. Giffords was severely wounded and a federal judge, a 9-year-old girl and four others were killed.
Doctors on Saturday operated on Ms. Giffords to remove her breathing tube and replace it with a tracheotomy tube, officials at University Medical Center said in a statement. Doctors said they also inserted a feeding tube ?to provide nutritional support.?
Doctors said Ms. Giffords was able to breathe on her own but the breathing tube was a precaution. With it removed, doctors said they could evaluate her ability to speak.
The gun show is one of five that is held in Tucson each year by Crossroads of the West, a Utah company. An answering machine greeting for the company on Saturday morning said, ?Yes, the Tucson gun show in Arizona will be on.?
Bob Templeton, the company?s owner, said he and Crossroads of the West?s other leaders considered canceling the Tucson show, which is scheduled to run through Sunday, and even consulted with the fairgrounds operators about whether to do so.
Mr. Templeton said the organizers asked themselves: ? ?Are we being insensitive?? ?
He said they concluded that they were not.
?This really is not about guns,? he said, referring to the shooting. ?It?s about mental illness and a person who had an agenda.?
Mr. Templeton said that none of the roughly 200 exhibitors had canceled, and more than a thousand people had shown up by early Saturday.
Items for sale included ?gun juice,? a type of lubricant; 40-round magazines for AK-47s, at $19.99; and bumper stickers critical of President Obama.
Jerry Mercante, an employee of Defensive Arms and Ammo, which has a small store in Tucson and a large display of handguns at the show, said he had sold more than a dozen weapons in a little more than 90 minutes, including at least one Glock. A Glock 19, the model that was used in last week?s shooting, was on sale at Mr. Mercante?s booth for $489.
Mr. Mercante said sales at his store had edged up this week, just as they have across Arizona since the shooting. ?If you turn on the TV and see gun, gun, gun, people want to buy a gun,? he said.
Still, there were small indications that things were different at the gun show this weekend. A box at the exhibit hall?s entrance solicited donations for a ?Tragedy in Tucson? victims fund. (A sign promoting the National Rifle Association was beside the box.) An American flag flew at half-staff.
At 12:15 p.m., Mr. Templeton asked the crowed to observe a moment of silence and asked for reflection on ?what we might do in the future to mitigate this kind of violence.? He extended condolences to the victims and encouraged people to ?lawfully and thoughtfully continue to exercise your Second Amendment rights.?
Rick Krueger, the first person in line early Saturday, blamed the mental health system for the shooting spree.
?It?s not guns that kill people,? said Mr. Krueger, 58, who added that he worked in the mental health field. ?People kill people.?
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama spoke about the shootings and urged members of Congress to work together as they returned to Washington. He recalled that in the days right after the attack, ?one of the places we saw that sense of community on display was on the floor of Congress.?
?One by one, representatives from all parts of the country and all points of view rose in common cause to honor Gabby and the other victims and to reflect on our shared hopes for this country,? the president said. ?As shrill and discordant as our politics can be at times, it was a moment that reminded us of who we really are ? and how much we depend on one another.?
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in an article on The Washington Post?s Op-Ed page on Sunday, praised the president for the speech he delivered on Wednesday at a memorial service in Tucson.