NRA just helped deal a one-two economic punch to anti-gunners today. We’re talking millions of dollars worth of a punch.
In case you’ve forgotten the story, Reed Exhibitions sponsored the Eastern Sport & Outdoor Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania every year and managed to generate upwards of $74 million in the local economy and in support of the non-profits that raise money and sign up memberships at the ESOS every year. However, Reed banned the display of modern sporting rifles and the backlash of their attack on our community cost them so many vendors and customer refund requests that they had to “postpone” the show. Obviously, the show has never been rescheduled and it was handled so poorly by Reed that lawmakers asked that they never be allowed to host the show again.
All of that meant that Harrisburg-area tourism groups and Farm Show complex organizers went shopping for a new host to a sporting show for the region. What do you know? NRA happens to host a smaller scale show just 70 miles down the road in Maryland right around the same time of year.
It was announced today that NRA has been selected as the vendor to run a much larger scale Great American Outdoor Show in Harrisburg during the traditional time of the Eastern Sport & Outdoor Show. Maryland, after pushing extreme gun legislation, now loses the economic impact of that show and Pennsylvania gets a new vendor for the sportsmen’s show that doesn’t hate hunters & shooters. To top it off, Reed forever loses the multi-million dollar show they once hosted. Anti-gunners lose and a pro-gun state wins.
Oh delicious. An antigun corporation loses out on a revenue source and an anti-gun state gets punched squarely in the cock by the NRA.
So. Is anyone at Reed losing their job over this? Any apologies? Mea culpa?
this just fills me with warm fuzzys all over.
Oh so delicious!
And Lexis Nexis just called today asking me to reconsider my office’s contract with West Publishing for very expensive online legal search capabilities. They are offering a fantastic price (plus four months for free to get us to sign an annual contract (they know once a switch is made its tough to get the business back).
I’m inclined to play with them some more this year, and then unleash again the “I won’t do business with Reed Publishing” line. Let them take that back to the powers that be.
But, the question then becomes . . . is Reuters (which owns Thompson West publishing) any better?
Finally, some Good News.
The ultimate honest polling booth is the free market. Which is why many governments try to corrupt that in order to preserve the corruption of elections.
Normally I wouldn’t go so far for a show, since there are others nearby–but I just might make the trip out there for it out of solidarity.
They have a lot going for them. I look forward to the show being very successful.
Fantastic news! Everyone who played a part in this by boycotting the event will forever have my thanks and business.
Forgot to add…..now Reed needs to lose the SHOT Show in Las Vegas.
On one hand, this is positive for us in some ways.
However, remember that it does not affect them in the same way. They are happy to kick “merchants of death” out of their states. The left wing utopia is Detroit, or Chicago, or any other decaying urban core area. Sure, everyone is in a shoddy section 8 house on EBT and sending kids to cruddy dropout factory schools, but at least everyone is equal and its fair.
I don’t have the delusion that the hard core folks really care, deep down, about keeping dollars in their states. Sure, NY likes having Remington — but if it came down to it, they wouldn’t shed too many tears if big green shuttered its doors.
As an aside, Maryland residents buy their booze out of state now too, since they increased the excise tax +9% last year.