I find it funny just how far anti-gun advocates will go to pretend that gun ownership is still just a concern of those rural hicks and that no “legitimate” gun owner actually supports the right to own guns they seek to ban. I came across this tab I still had open from last week when the Eastern Sports & Outdoor Show was cancelled after their largest vendor that sold fishing & hunting gear pulled out, their largest or second largest (it was tough to tell in layout plans) boat display pulled out, and dozens of hunting guides and lodges pulled out. The order, timing, & type of non-gun vendors who withdrew is flat out ignored by local officials when condemning NRA members:
It is also unfortunate that legal gun owners and the many families who have enjoyed a long tradition of hunting in the beautiful rural environment around the region will be deprived of this major event because of a controversy caused by firearms manufacturers who profit from the sale of weapons designed for the mass killing of human beings. …
This kind of conflict within the firearms community is the result of years of polarization between the majority American sportsmen and hunters who exercise their constitutional right to bear arms and at the same time favor reasonable illegal gun controls, and a minority of NRA members who refuse to recognize the very real problem of illegal military style weaponry and the mass havoc such weapons facilitate.
The anti-gun leaders know that dividing our community is the most likely path to success. However, that hasn’t happened at this point with many more people who typically just hunt realize that the guns they use are also being targeted. When presented with this pesky fact (based on the timeline and types of vendors who dropped the ESOS because of the gun ban), these anti-gunners don’t know how to fight it. They know we vote. We’re more likely to vote in off year elections, too. Now their strategy is just to lie about it and pretend that we’re heavily divided – even in contexts where the evidence clearly contradicts them.