Tag: SHOT Show

When gunmakers and dealers gather this week in Las Vegas for the industry’s largest annual conference, they will be grappling with slumping sales and a shift in politics that many didn’t envision two years ago when gun-friendly Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress took office. Instead, fueled by the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the federal government banned bump stocks and newly in-charge U.S. House Democrats introduced legislation that would require background checks for virtually every firearm sale, regardless of whether it’s from a gun dealer or a private sale. Even without Democrats’ gains in November’s midterm elections, the industry was facing a so-called “Trump slump,” a plummet in sales that happens amid gun rights-friendly administrations. Background checks were at an all-time high in 2016, President Barack Obama’s last full year in office, numbering more than 27.5 million; since then, background checks have been at about 25 million each year. You didn’t have President Obama to put up in PowerPoint and say ‘He’s the best gun salesman, look what he’s doing to our country,'” he said. “You can’t deny it.” Robert J. Spitzer, chairman of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland and a longtime watcher of gun issues, said that not only have shifting politics made it difficult for the gun industry to gain ground but high-profile mass shootings — like the Las Vegas shooting that happened just miles from where the SHOT Show will be held and the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting — also cast a pall. This year’s show will again allow reporters from mainstream media to attend. Joe Bartozzi, the new president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the industry isn’t disturbed by the drop in gun sales or the shift in federal politics. But other industry priorities, such as reciprocity between states for carrying certain concealed firearms and a measure that would ease restrictions on purchasing suppressors that help muffle the sound when a gun is fired, failed to gain traction. The hope is that increasing the number of public ranges will encourage more people to become hunters.