Technically, the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show and Conference known as the SHOT Show is not a gun show at all. It is an annual trade show that is owned and operated by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, or NSSF, which describes itself on its website as “the trade association for America’s firearms industry.” The first SHOT Show was held in St. Louis, Missouri in 1979; there were approximately 5,600 attendees, 5,200 square feet of floor space, and 290 exhibitors. This year, the event was held at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada; there were over 67,000 attendees, 630,000 square feet of floor space, and 1,600 exhibitors. According to the NSSF, firearms and ammunition are a $6 billion-a-year industry that supports nearly 250,000 jobs. The SHOT Show is only open to those who work in the shooting, hunting, and outdoor trades. It is not open to the public.
Ted Nugent pulls a knife
If you asked me before I interviewed Ted Nugent in a meeting room at this year’s SHOT Show in January if I thought during said interview he would pull out a knife and start waving it around in the air between us, I would have said, “No.” And certainly, if I thought he would, I wouldn’t have thought that he would do so within the first three to five minutes. I was sitting next to him, he was sitting next to me, and his wife, Shemane, a strikingly beautiful blonde, was sitting on the other side of the table and watching us with her big blue eyes as if she was the one who was truly in charge. Over the next half hour, after he put away his knife, Nugent ranted about guns (pro) and the Second Amendment (for), and compared the Obama administration to Nazi Germany many times. But when he pulled out the knife in those first few minutes to make some kind of a point to me, a journalist, I didn’t feel particularly threatened by him. This, I concluded, is how a 65-year-old fading rock star tries to stay relevant.
You shoot like a girl
Several days before I met Ted and his knife, I got on a bus that took me out to a shooting range in Boulder City, Nevada. The NSSF calls this event Media Day at the Range. It’s an opportunity for journalists covering the SHOT Show to shoot some of the firearms about which they may be writing. Out in the middle of nowhere, I was reminded of that scene in “Casino” wherein Ace and Nicky meet in the desert, and Ace isn’t so sure he’s going to come back alive. I could tell you about the airgun I shot, or the shotgun I shot, or the rifles I shot, but the highlight of the day for me was shooting the Colt CRX-16. It is a big black gun. It does not come in pink. The guy who works for Colt who handed it to me said, “It’s very easy to shoot,” and he was not lying. It is hard to describe what it is like to shoot what some people call an “assault rifle,” but the word I wrote in my notebook after I gave the gun back to the man who had handed it to me was invincible.
I am woman, hear my firepower
Several hundred people showed up at the “Marketing to Women” panel discussion. The panelists included Julie Golob, a champion competitive shooter, Linda Powell, the director of media relations for firearms manufacturer O.F. Mossberg & Sons, and Suzi Huntington, a former police officer turned American COP Magazine editor. The session began with some helpful advice for retailers in the audience who wanted to make their gun stores more appealing to women. After all, women are the fastest growing demographic in the gun business. “Please clean your restroom,” one of the female panelists related. As far as product, “All women are not alike, and we do not all like pink,” the no-nonsense Powell informed anyone present who thought all women long for Barbie pink guns. “Women are the key,” proclaimed Kate Krueger, the host of “Talking Guns with Kate Krueger.” She explained, “They bring in the next generation. That’s our longevity.”
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