“Range Day is the Monday prior to the Show’s opening when manufacturers demonstrate their wares,” self-professed “Gun Nut” David E. Petzal writes at fieldandstream.com. “People like me are bussed out to handle the goodies. This year, Range Day sounded like the Battle of Dak To, or perhaps Fallujah, with the distinctive pop-pop-pop of full-auto fire, which was extremely popular amongst all the SEAL wannabes. Indeed, this was symbolic of the whole show, which has now become so heavily militarized that you have to look fairly hard for something designed to kill animals instead of people.” Really? First of all . . .
taking into account all the companies hawking hunting-specific knives, ammo, rifles, shotguns, clothing, gear, cases, trail cameras, vehicles and more, there were hundreds of outdoors-oriented companies representing at SHOT. Not to mention the thousands of ARs on display which, I’m reliably informed, are eminently suitable for hunting.
Speaking of which, what’s the distinction between a gun designed to kill animals and one designed to kill humans? As far as I’m aware, all guns are designed to sling lead downrange. It’s up to the gun owner to choose his or her target. Given that tens of millions of American gun owners don’t target people, methinks Mr. Petzal’s rhetorical flower is wilted. But his anti-gun snark is alive and well and pissing me off.
The forces acting upon the gun industry are Armageddon, for which we are all tooling up, and our Peerless Leader, who has sold more firearms than even Bubba Clinton, and The Horror That Is Hillary, who is lurking in our future like the Wicked Witch of the West. Everyone who makes guns is selling everything they can produce, which stifles the need for innovation and takes the emphasis off firearms that would not be useful during the Latter Days.
To revive an expression I left behind in third grade, does it hurt and have a temperature? I mean seriously Dave, quit your bitching.
Our gun rights are under attack. Accusing the firearms industry of stoking the fires of “Armageddon” thinking plays into the hands of gun control advocates, who ridicule gun owners as paranoid insurrectionists. It’s also an insult to those working to defend our firearms freedom.
And despite conjecture on the lack of fresh blood (so to speak) at the SHOT Show, the hunting industry has never been healthier and there are plenty of new and innovative products for sale, especially in the electronics area.
To his credit, Petzal ends his polemic by undercutting his own arguments. “But enough of my whining.” Copy that.
[h/t LC]