LAS VEGAS — The annual Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show opens today in the Sands Convention Center, a two-level event that might just translate to the worst nightmare of the gun prohibition lobby.
Why? Because this show represents not only a vibrant industry that has remained healthy during the on-going recession, but also represents all that is good about shooting, hunting and the outdoors, bringing it all together under one roof.
During Monday’s crowded single-venue media day shooting event — a change from the past in which there had been multiple, competing events at several different ranges — this column had the opportunity to shoot new handguns and rifles, chat with other writers about new products, and also spoke with a few people about the on-going investigation of Operation Fast and Furious.
Sponsored by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the SHOT Show attracts industry insiders from around the world. It is not unusual to stroll down the miles of aisles and hear people speaking French, German, Spanish, Italian and other languages fluently. One will find plenty of diversity here in terms of people and their interests.
Tonight’s annual State of the Industry dinner will be one of several highlights of this four-day event. There are numerous workshops for retailers and law enforcement, demonstrations, enough guns to give Washington CeaseFire a collective coronary, and more accessories than one can imagine.
Companies big and small, representing everything from freeze-dried food to .50-caliber long-range target rifles, are here. Handguns bearing such honored names as Colt, Browning, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Springfield, Glock, Sig Sauer, Kahr, Beretta and others are spread out over more than 600,000 square feet of floor space. Virtually every kind of sporting rifle and shotgun, tactical firearms and competition guns are on display.
It will hardly be lost on the tens of thousands of people attending this show that during the past few years as gun sales have climbed and gun ownership has expanded, that violent crime rates have generally declined. So much for the dire predictions about more guns equaling more mayhem.
A new publication —The Gun Mag.com — is making its official debut. This monthly magazine, a product of the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation — replaces Gun Week, which ceased publication in December. The Gun Mag.com bears this writer’s byline as senior editor, and promises to be just as probing, insightful and interesting as its predecessor.
SAF is represented here, as is the National Rifle Association. No doubt there will be much talk about gun rights, the 2012 national elections and what they mean for the direction of the nation, and how gun owners could play a key role in the outcome.
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