Maryland Blogger alliance
The Maryland Blogger Alliance
A Celebration of the Second Amendment
Alan Korwin, author of Supreme Court Gun Cases; Two Centuries of Gun Rights Revealed, and a handful of other well-researched books on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, sends out a newsletter under the nom de plume "The Uninvited Ombudsman." It's worthwhile reading, and Korwin does not limit himself to firearms issues. For example, his latest newsletter notes some chicanery about the rush of fans on to the field that apparently occurred at the recent Super Bowl. (Don't ask me for details; I care not a whit for football.) "Page Nine," as the newsletter is titled, takes the format of summarizing what the mainstream media reported on an issue, then adding what was left out.
Arguably the Super Bowl story might be the most popular piece in the latest edition, but the most interesting one is Alan's observation that the mainstream media failed entirely to cover the annual SHOT (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade) show in Las Vegas. Apparently the rationale is that to say anything about the show would reveal the paucity of all their stereotypes about the firearms industry, gun dealers and gun owners. Alan writes thus (emphasis added):
The lamestream media told you:
Nothing.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Seven hundred thousand square feet of space, tens of thousands of attendees from all over the world, nearly two thousand exhibitors in five halls so big you can't see one end from the other, indoor exhibits built two stories high, mountains of weapons and arsenals of every description -- high powered, rapid fire, extended capacity -- assembled once again at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, and no controversy of any kind was evident.
No lamestream media was evident either, though trade press was abundant. Lamestream media could not cover the event, because it would show the shooting, hunting and outdoor trade (SHOT) industry as a regular business just like any other, which would violate news-media policy.
It's a little smaller than the Consumer Electronics Show, and few items are as big ticket as the Barrett Jackson car auction, but it's a multibillion dollar business with multimillion dollar deals on the floor, and no news coverage, unlike other big-time annual shows.
The most expensive item seen, aside from armored vehicles, helicopters, 18-wheeler self-contained ranges and stores, military miniguns and some of the women, were a set of four matched Perrazi shotguns for $440,000. The Uninvited Ombudsman actually held one in his hands. Carefully. Very carefully. Hey, it's just a shotgun, I'd rather buy a house with that kind of money.
The most unusual exhibit was samples from a find in a Nepal arsenal, remnants of the British East India Trading Company, with 55,000 firearms. They're now all in the U.S. after several years of effort, including piles of original U.S. colonial-era Brown Bess muskets, all available for sale.
http://www.ima-usa.comAmong the most clever new products was Shock Knife, a combat-training tool shaped like a knife with a zapper for an edge. Blackwater Int'l., reviled in the "news" media but saving lives in Iraq and around the world, had a huge booth and recruitment videos on big screens, which switched over to the big game just in time when the beer kegs arrived. Artist Wayne McLoughlin offered to paint your name onto a poster for "America's Cheapest Ammunition -- It Usually Works." In the background, a bear is chewing on the remnants of a hunter's clothes.
Here was American enterprise at its finest, new products of incredibly clever design and advancement, entrepreneurship in unbridled fine array, the buzz and hustle of free markets unlike anywhere else on Earth, and no news media.
All these guns and there's no crime, no death, no controversy. It's just good healthy business, and after incessant media pounding, that was just plain weird.
The picture painted by the media is so perverse, so negative, so deadly and crime ridden, that to see this show with so many fine upstanding people, from business suits to gilley suits, casual dress to corporate uniforms, babes bursting from show costumes to your basic bubbas shopping for their businesses, the disjoint between the publicly promoted image of guns and the reality was hard to reconcile. The bias and distortion of the media shined from a brightly lit pedestal.
The show themes are familiar and pervasive -- law enforcement, personal safety, hunting for food, military protection, convenience in the outdoors, high performance for competitors, gear for everyone, every manufacturer's entire handgun and long gun line out in the open for touchy feely examination, and no media.
That's probably a good thing. Because knowing their sorry ways, they would use this show as a way to make everything look bad. Despite the obvious reality to the contrary, they would immorally make us seem evil instead of righteous, ignoring the fact that guns are why America is still free.
http://www.shotshow.com
Korwin's dispatch neglected to mention that 58,769 people attended this year's show, which is open to the trade (manufacturers, wholesalers, firearms dealers, journalists) only.
I highly recommend Alan's blog, which is available as a RSS feed: http://www.pagenine.org
You will find several interesting articles about the Super Bowl, if that's what floats your boat, and a recent piece in which Korwin coins the word "muzzling" to describe the nasty retaliations against some of us who refuse to limit ourselves to the politically-correct lexicon.
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