If you haven’t ever been to a SHOT Show you can’t imagine the size. Some years ago I took the total number of booths and hours the show was open, deducted 25% of the time to adjust for walking, and determined that if visited all of the booths I could spend about 5 minutes or less in each one, and this didn’t take into consideration potty breaks, meals, meetings, and whatever else. Also 25% for walking time is very conservative. What we have here is not an ordinary gun show, but one that encompasses most of the entire firearms and accessory industry.
Now I am sure there were so-called “sporting arms” exhibitors there, but a lot of them would be smaller ones, and if the focus this year was on tactical stuff the reason is they substantially outsold more traditional guns and accessories during the recent past. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.
In all industries markets follows the money, and that is exactly what is happening here. Note for example the difference between product lines being shown by companies such as Smith & Wesson and it’s M&P line, Remington, Ruger, Mossberg, Savage, and many others – from what they’re catalogs showed in past years.
Obviously traditional sporting arms are far from dead, but they are in decline so manufacturers are putting most of their design & development money where they think future returns will be the best. The SHOT Show, which represents what is happening within the industry will always represent best in what’s new according to current trends.
Hopefully no one will mistake my observations as some sort of rant against traditional firearms, as I have always been a firm supporter of “blued steel and fine wood,” but times change, and I bare no malice toward polymer and stainless.
As Ben Franklin said, “If we don’t hang together we will assuredly be hung separately.”
