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View From The Home Front
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by CJ Songer -- March, 2005
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SHOT Show Follies
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Why in the world would anyone go to the SHOT Show? I mean, seriously -- it's a bunch of people, a bunch of guns -- where's the joy in that? And we're talking about ten MILES of floor space, aisles and aisles of it -- do you have any idea how much your feet would hurt after walking all that?!
I do. I went. Again. Some people are purely gluttons for punishment.
The SHOT Show is the National Shooting Sports Foundation's baby. SHOT stands for Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade show, and it's a massive trade convention which NSSF has been hosting in various venues (mostly in Las Vegas but also in other years in New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Orlando, and St. Louis) since 1979. Each year, NSSF invites all of the firearms manufacturers and related product-makers to come and display their wares. This year, their 27th, there were over 1700 exhibiting companies. To make the exhibitors easier to find, the huge halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center were divided into strategically-grouped category areas. There was a Firearms and Ammunition area, another one for Outdoor Wear, General Shooting and Hunting, Archery, Law Enforcement, and a New Products section, where over 500 products were featured. Paintball? Yes, indeed, paintball's a very popular sport, and they had a special section all their own this year, with 25 or more companies holding court (they seemed to have a lot of foot traffic through there, too...)
What I find most interesting about SHOT (well, aside from all the hardware on display) is the variety of people who attend. It's convivial. It's uplifting. It's a joy to see so many interested faces. Conservative estimates put the 2005 SHOT Show attendance at more than 37,000. I normally stay as far away from crowds as possible because I'm a shy and retiring person, but in this case, oh, my gosh, it was heartwarming to see so many friends. (That's one of the reasons, actually, that you end up logging so many miles on the convention floor -- every time you turn a corner, there's a familiar face, so you just naturally fall into step and conversation, and by the time you've caught up, you're a good half-mile from the booth you were originally intending to visit. You've got to backtrack then, of course, with a few side trips to interesting booths along the way, and there, by golly, is ANOTHER person calling your name! NSSF can tell you it's only ten miles of aisles, but they definitely aren't taking into account the Friend Factor.)
I found a couple of things there in particular that I want. (I'll spare you the full list, although my husband will be getting it in triplicate, with insurance copies, of course, sent to Santa.) One is the IES Interactive Training System. I'm no good at video games, gave up the struggle to master them without much of a fight back in the days when my then-six-year-old loved to challenge me to play Sonic with him, chortling all the way. There's just something inherently wrong to me about frantically jabbing buttons, trying to make a hedgehog bash his head against the ceiling (or clouds) so he'll dislodge showers of golden rings to win. I mean, who thinks UP these things?! Give me a rack of steel plates, though, and a realistic-feeling laser gun and I'm willing to play all day. IES has other training scenarios, too -- find out more about them by checking their website at www.ies-usa.com. If you're one of the many who prefer | ||||||||||||||