As we lock and load for yet another trip to yet another SHOT Show, we're discussing the slow but seismic shifts that we've seen across the firearm world; everything from ATF pressure, legal wins for firearm freedoms, the emerging Citizen Defense Industry, and just last week, a major leadership shakeup for the NRA.
Last year was our best SHOT Show ever in terms of overall unity and practical conversations, and it introduced some new tools and suppliers for folks in the industry.
As we prepare to engage in pivotal conversations at the upcoming show, we want your input on who we should be talking to.
As we lock and load for yet another trip to yet another SHOT Show, we're discussing the slow but seismic shifts that we've seen across the firearm world; everything from ATF pressure, legal wins for firearm freedoms, the emerging Citizen Defense Industry, and just last week, a major leadership shakeup for the NRA.
Last year was our best SHOT Show ever in terms of overall unity and practical conversations, and it introduced some new tools and suppliers for folks in the industry.
As we prepare to engage in pivotal conversations at the upcoming show, we want your input on who we should be talking to.
Well, it's a new year, which means, of course, that it's time for us to go to Shot Show again. Music Plays Welcome to another episode of T-Rex Talk, and today we're going to be talking about our preparations to go to Shot Show. There's been a bunch of stuff that has happened since the last Shot Show, and there's a bunch of stuff that's happened just recently, this week, that is probably going to have an effect. One of those things is the resignation of Wayne LaPierre. For years and years and years, wayne has run the NRA with an iron fist controlling the people on the board and all of the people who are basically involved, and I think he's really mismanaged the company and eroded a lot of trust and misused a lot of funds, and so him stepping down is kind of a big deal, which I don't know how much it's going to affect what actually happens at Shot Show, but it's going to be a big part of a lot of the conversations, and a lot of that is because of some stuff that happened last year.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to last year's Shot Show. We didn't make a video. I actually shot a couple of interviews with people and some video on the floor, but most of the conversations that I had were sort of private conversations and the other conversations that I had ended up being private conversations because of microphone failure. And then I met to do a recap of the Shot Show conversations on the podcast and somehow it just never happened. But last year's Shot Show was, in my opinion, the best Shot Show that I have ever been to, and the reasons for that are many. Number one it had been a nice long break since I was at Shot Show last, so I enjoyed seeing people again, as opposed to being annoyed that I was in Las Vegas once more. Over the years that I have been going to Shot Show, I've gotten to know enough people that the Shot Show experience is connecting with associates and friends as opposed to just looking for cool gadgets on a gigantic, multi-acre exhibition hall.
Speaker 1:And last year we saw a pretty distinct trend. Over the years Shot Show has gotten more tactical Now, right off the bat. That doesn't sound necessarily positive, because tactical is a very silly marketing word that doesn't actually mean anything. But one of the things that T-Rex wants to do is to build out a citizen's defense industry, not a military industrial complex, but to take a lot of the companies that make firearms and firearms accessories and other martial things and make them more available to citizens, to equip the citizenry for greater defensive capacity, and the increasing tactical flavor of Shot Show, I think, demonstrates that this is happening. Almost every booth has body armor and helmets and nods on the mannequins, even for companies that didn't really have anything to do with armor, helmets or nods, and that is a very cool thing that these things are becoming normalized, that you want your product to be associated with this tactical marketing trend. In a lot of cases it's kind of meaningless, but the fact that it is more normal and that there is this very distinct trend of more and more companies wanting to market their products with very explicit descriptions of self-defense and home defense and imagery that involves night vision and body armor is a plus. Overall, it is a really significant shift from just hunting and plinking and toys and stuff like that, and while there's probably plenty of companies that are just kind of jumping on the bandwagon and using tacticalness as an empty marketing fad and just following everybody else, there are a number of companies that are being more deliberate about these particular words and these particular ideas and practical fighting tools for civilians in a much more principled way and that is a tremendous thing. The citizens defense industry is coalescing. It's impossible to say who is doing the most work because it is a distributed effort and you can see it playing out in the way that booths decorate a shot show. So that is a pretty cool thing.
Speaker 1:There was also more unity last year at Shacho than I have ever seen before and I want to thank the Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco, firearms and Explosives for that. If you remember, last year, the week before Shacho was when the ATF dropped their new rule regarding pistol braces. The ban of pistol braces was announced one week before Shacho and I think that was probably a very deliberate move on somebody's part to try to I don't know be a skunk at the garden party, just kind of spoil everybody's Shacho experience, make everybody scurry around and pull all the braces off of their display guns and just put a sort of a monkey wrench in the whole works. And to some extent that happened. But it also sort of backfired on the ATF in that everybody at Shacho had a common enemy. There was a lot less gossip and backbiting at this particular Shacho about other people.
Speaker 1:At Shacho there was a much more deliberate conversation about Second Amendment freedoms and legal advocacy. Interestingly enough, the common enemy had a booth down on the first floor. The ATF and the FBI have booths side by side and a bunch of people came up to ask pointed and difficult questions about the pistol brace rule, to the point that the people working the ATF booth did not want to hear any more about it Actually felt kind of sorry for those guys. I gotta. I gotta wonder, like what do you have to do to annoy the director or acting director of the ATF to get assigned to run the ATF booth at Shacho? I'm not sure it has to be. It has to be pretty bad. But the upshot of it was that I had a lot more substantial conversations about Second Amendment stuff and firearm freedoms and actual practical action with more companies than I ever have before at Shacho.
Speaker 1:It became pretty clear to everybody in that moment that the Biden administration, the DOJ, the ATF, the gun control lobby in general was really going after everybody all at once. They weren't just picking on forced reset triggers or going after Polymer 80. This was a very wide swath attack and we had gotten a couple of post-Bruin legal wins under our belt and a whole bunch of people were ready to get serious about this thing, so that was really encouraging as well. So that kind of brings us up to today. We've had an entire year since the last Shacho of relatively depressed economic activity. That has probably hurt a number of different companies at Shacho, but significant focus when it comes to specific things that the firearm industry wants to accomplish.
Speaker 1:That isn't universal. I'm sure that there are large companies who are very much focused on DOD contracts and small companies that are very much focused on some specific things that they may be dealing with, but overall the firearm industry in general is more unified when it comes to legal advocacy, lobbying, pushing for firearm freedoms than they ever have been in the past. And I would say a lot more on the same page when it comes to being very bold about talking about firearms as fighting implements and specifically for civilian ownership, for personal defense, for home defense and even for public defense. And again going outside of firearms to body armor, night vision and a lot of other accessories which have had no real place in the firearm hobby space five or ten years ago. And now, with Wayne LaPierre's announcement last week that he is stepping down from running the NRA, I think that there is going to be a lot of conversation about what this looks like and ultimately the NRA kind of doesn't matter. Wayne, stepping down may be too little, too late. It may not have a lot of direct effect on the NRA specifically. The same board is still there. The same lack of trust still exists. The number of people who are members and who are donors has shrunk significantly. So it may be that the NRA continues to not really be a major player on the field of fighting for firearm freedoms, but the conversation around the NRA and who does what next at Shot Show is going to be very interesting. After the last year that we've had, I think it's going to be a lot of productive conversations that result in a lot of good stuff getting done. So overall, I got to say that I am encouraged and looking forwards to Shot Show in a couple of weeks. Even though I really don't like traveling I hate Vegas and trade shows are not super fun this has the potential to be a really practical and effective group of people. So I am yeah, I'm excited about it Now.
Speaker 1:Years ago, I looked at Shot Show merely as a place where I would learn about the announcements of cool new gadgets, and you may be the same way. When I wasn't attending Shot Show, I would just check out the various news sites soldier systems, the firearm blog, et cetera to see what new stuff had been announced. And that was about as far as I thought about it, believe it or not, when I go to Shot Show today, I am curious about gadgets. Of course always will be, but that's a lot less of the reason to go. I am really eager to spend time with the people that I've gotten to know over the last few years, figure out how they're doing, what things we can be doing together, get a better grasp on the industry, figure out what some of our political strategies ought to be, and then, of course, there's a lot of T-Rex business stuff to do.
Speaker 1:Another really cool addition to Shot Show last year was the supplier showcase. There's a whole extra day and a whole extra floor of exhibitors who are suppliers. They're not traditionally companies that have come to Shot Show. The way that Shot Show used to work, by the way, is pretty much a pre-Internet model. All of the gun manufacturers and gun accessory manufacturers and hunting accessory manufacturers, etc. Anybody who sold stuff to gun stores so that those gun stores could sell it directly to consumers would come to Shot Show and they would have all of that stuff there to demo. All of the gun store owners would show up at Shot Show and they would actually organize most of their purchasing for the year. They would see the new products, place orders for the old products, meet the sales reps, talk to new companies that they might want to deal with, bring on new products, etc.
Speaker 1:Now that the internet exists, shot Show is pretty full of YouTube and Instagram influencers and there's a bunch of companies who have different business models than the old ones. T-rex Arms is the perfect example. We do a lot of online retail work and basically no brick and mortar stuff at the moment. So when we go to Shot Show we are buyers, kind of like those old brick and mortar gun companies were, but we already have a bunch of relationships with a bunch of the vendors who are there. We already have seen a lot of the stuff that they've announced on the internet and so, yeah, it's a little different than the good old traveling salesman days, but the supplier showcase is different.
Speaker 1:The supplier showcase exists so that manufacturing companies injection molding companies, spring makers, metal machine shops, 3d printing bureaus, people like that can demonstrate their capabilities to the companies at Shot Show who are also manufacturers, assemblers or product designers. So I really enjoy getting to spend some time with the folks on the supplier showcase floor last year. It kind of changes the way that Shot Show works. It has become more of a full service trade show. The reasons to go to Shot Show are more than just buying new product for your brick and mortar gun store. At Shot Show you will meet a whole bunch of different people that do a whole bunch of different jobs in the gun industry, and now with the supplier showcase you will find new textile companies, new sewing companies, people who can build products for you, people who can solve technical problems all kinds of really fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1:Now I will admit that we didn't actually generate any specifically cool new leads at the supplier showcase last year, but there's a reason for that and the reason is that we have been in the past. T-rex Arms is 10 years old now. We have in the past few years been going to a lot of other manufacturing trade shows, like the Design to Parts show and various other things. So we've already been seeking out injection molding companies and spring manufacturers and various raw material companies, and so we kind of already had found a number of people and our goal has been to specifically locate folks local to Tennessee, as local to where we are as possible, so we didn't meet anybody new at the supplier showcase that we immediately started doing business with. However, a large number of our existing suppliers and vendors and OEM type people that we have been working with in the past were at the SHOT supplier showcase. So if you are a small young business that is developing products or wants to expand into new areas, shot Show is no longer just a place where you meet the buyers at different gun stores. You can also meet some of these other companies that support the firearm industry and the citizens defense industry, as it is hopefully becoming in a whole bunch of different ways. So that is really fun as well. Looking forward to spending some more time at the supplier showcase and again, a lot of the folks who are there are people that we know and have done some work within the past, so that just makes it more fun.
Speaker 1:Now you know I love that manufacturing side of things. The technology of making stuff is extremely cool, but a lot of the conversations that I have and some of the ones that I find the most interesting and the most intriguing are business conversations. Business conversations that are actually extremely boring. The only reason that they're not boring is because, well, we've been involved in business for a little while now. But the way that customers are spending money is interesting, and it's not just interesting because you know T-Rex is trying to get customer money too, because you know we're a company and we're filthy capitalists and all. But it shows the kind of trends that we are really interested in. From a cultural perspective. Things like a wide and rapid adoption of body armor over the last three years has fascinating connotations to the future, not just to the T-Rex Arms product lineup, the 3D printer and additive manufacturing.
Speaker 1:Folks at the Supplier Showcase are going to be talking to us about some trends that have massive implications for the world that my kids grow up in, not just how we prototype new holster bits for next year, and I'm really looking forward to touching base with gun owners of America and a bunch of other of the advocacy groups. Some of the larger firearm manufacturers have legal compliance guys who have a whole different perspective on some of these ATF rulings and DOJ interactions, and then even smaller companies like Polymer80. Polymer80 has been fighting the ATF directly with lawsuits, along with SB Tactical. I don't think SB Tactical is going to be a shot show this year, but these guys are directly on the front lines as small manufacturing companies and they work off and hand in hand with specific legal advocacy groups or litigators and it's really interesting to have conversations with people about their perspective on the way that the current legal fights are going and the stuff that they see coming down the pike. So that's going to be interesting and I'm also going to swing by the NRA booth because I'm really curious to Just kind of see what the mood is like.
Speaker 1:Speaking of the NRA, one of the most fascinating things that I have seen is Twitter this week. If you're listening to this podcast, you are a pretty extreme Second Amendment advocate. I'm pretty sure, and you're probably aware, that the NRA is not really your friend. The NRA has done very, very little to secure firearm freedoms in the past and it has done an awful lot to muddy the waters and confuse things, and it hasn't really been super helpful recently. However, the left-wing media and the large gun control groups, specifically the Bloomberg Associates, and various elected officials, still see the NRA as the gigantic boogeyman, the 800-pound gorilla in the firearm freedom space. They constantly talk about the incredible power of the NRA. That must be diminished, the fact that the NRA is this gigantic lobby who bribes all the lawmakers and has essentially enslaved every Republican legislator to do its bidding, when in fact, the opposite is kind of true. Michael Bloomberg outspends the NRA on a regular basis just you know himself, and the NRA has spent less and less and less money in lobbying and donated less and less money to specific candidates. As time has gone on, they've gotten less relevant and done far less, thanks largely to Wayne Lopier. Again, I believe he's been mismanaging the company and mismanaging the funds, and so the fact that he is now out is actually the only hope that the NRA has of regaining some of their relevance and some of their efficacy.
Speaker 1:However, the people who are the gladdest to see Wayne Lopier go on Twitter are every town people, mom's demand action people, various liberal Democrats who are proclaiming this as a tremendous victory. This is the end of the NRA as a tremendous force for firearm freedom, when in fact, the opposite is true. There are also many of them claiming that they have done this thing. I've seen people claim that Joe Biden is the one who dethroned Wayne Lopier. Mom's demand action claimed the credit. A bunch of people have said that they personally are the ones that kicked him out of his spot, when in fact, no, it actually has nothing to do with all of the attention that they've given him in the past. It has nothing to do with media criticism. It has nothing to do with shrill voices on Twitter. He's actually stepped down because the mismanagement of the funds has gotten to the point where criminal charges could be pending.
Speaker 1:The politics inside of the NRA board are incredibly murky and opaque and complicated, but Wayne has spent so much of the NRA's money defending the NRA against other lawsuits, which are completely unnecessary, that, yeah, his position was completely untenable and, to be honest, there's not much left. I just don't know that the NRA is going to come back as some kind of force for good with all of the position and funding and membership that they have lost, and there's also an argument to be made that they have never been a substantial force for good. When you look back over the long, long history of the NRA, you can see some victories, you can see some good argumentation, but you can also see lots and lots of compromise. They've always been the largest and most mainstream and most middle of the road of all of the firearm freedom organizations and they have really been left behind in a bunch of different ways. It's not just cultural, it's not just that the young people are going with firearm policy coalition or various other groups. It's that they're not really capable of doing the things that win now. They're still fighting 1990s battles with 1980s tactics. They're not using the Bruin decision to force really extreme legal cases. They're not doing some of the cultural stuff. They're not actually acting like victory is possible and that's just not inspiring.
Speaker 1:It's part of the reason that the younger generation is not interested in becoming an NRA lifetime member or even an annual one. That's not all that the NRA has done. They have done an awful lot of education over the years and published and reviewed and have a number of magazines that have good, solid information in them, but they've never really capitalized on the kind of rigorous, either legal scholarship or technical firearm scholarship that would really hold them up as a leader in this space. They've been coasting for a long time. They've burned a huge amount of goodwill, they've burned a ton of money and for some reason they are still this gigantic boogeyman for the left. So hopefully the NRA sticks around, continues to be that sort of lightning rod and other people do the work.
Speaker 1:Obviously, we have no idea what the long-term future of the NRA will be, but I can guarantee that there will be a number of fascinating conversations about them in Las Vegas during SHOT Show in a couple of weeks, and my plan is not to record a ton of podcasts while I am there, but I do want to organize a bunch of interviews for later. I've probably said this before, hopefully privately, but I'm saying it publicly now. Publicly, I am announcing that I'm going to try to organize more interviews with people in the gun industry and I want you to email me at team at trex-armscom to give me a couple of recommendations Anyone that you want to hear from or hear a conversation with someone who's in the gun industry or, better yet, someone in the citizens defense industry, which is continuing to develop.