The SHOT Show may only be a few days long, but its impact is year-round!
When more than 60,000 industry members converge in Las Vegas at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in January for the SHOT Show, millions of people gain the immediate benefit of the greatest show on earth for the shooting, hunting, and outdoor trade. How’s that? You see, the SHOT Show provides NSSF with the majority of its income.
The year 2013 has been a year like no other with record-breaking sales coupled with unprecedented attacks against the shooting and hunting industry. These attacks by headline seeking politicians and their willing accomplices in the media have upped the ante in Washington, D.C. and in an increasing number of states that threatens the very existence of our industry like never before.
NSSF has stood fast as the industry’s trade association in the face of this onslaught, promoting our industry’s lawful position on countless topics such as so called “assault weapons,” high capacity magazines, background checks for private sales, firearms safety in homes, and the shameful failure to put disqualifying mental health records in to the NICS system.
In addition, NSSF invests SHOT Show revenue in customer-recruitment campaigns, such as Families Afield and First Shots. The former has actively remedied legislative barriers preventing family hunting participation, and the latter has offered newcomers the opportunity to learn firearms and firearms ownership fundamentals at member ranges, while actually experiencing the fun of shooting under the careful supervision of qualified instructors. Other NSSF investments of SHOT Show revenue in hunting and the shooting sports’ future come in the form of the Collegiate Shooting Sports Initiative (CSSI). CSSI helps strengthen existing collegiate varsity and club shooting programs, and it aids in the founding of new ones.
NSSF also launched Project ChildSafe, a nationwide initiative to promote firearms responsibility and provide safety education to all gun owners. Since 1998, the program has provided more than 36 million free firearm safety kits that include a gun lock to gun owners in all 50 states and five U.S. territories.
These activities of NSSF are only a sampling of the programs that are funded, in great part, by the revenue generated at the SHOT Show, a four-day event in January that’s success is felt throughout the year by millions of hunters, shooters and firearms owners. Thanks for your continued support of the SHOT Show and NSSF in our continued fight for our industry and to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports.
Chris Dolnack is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @ChrisDolnack.
I will be there……….