You could walk around last week’s Great American Outdoor Show, held in the massive Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex and Expo Center, and carry your firearms anywhere among the 650,000 square feet of displays.
You could handle just about every personal weapon known to man.
You could test-fire them, too, at an indoor range.
Yet, the one thing you couldn’t do was buy a gun and take it home.
All of which was fine for most of the nearly quarter-million outdoor enthusiasts who packed the complex to see more than 1,100 elaborate exhibits and hundreds of outdoor-related seminars, all of it sponsored by the National Rifle Association.
The world’s largest gun and outdoor-commerce show drops $80 million into the local economy, employs more than 8,000 people, and attracts enthusiasts from 47 states.
It is held in one of the NRA’s most concentrated membership areas, where 900,000 of its card-carriers live within a 300-mile radius.
Once inside the doors (the line wrapped around the main complex building for what seemed forever), folks attended training sessions, examined or tried out handguns and other firearms, signed up for tactical training sessions, African safaris, and hunting expeditions in Alaska, Montana and New Mexico, or gawked at a mounted 28-point buck shot by a Marylander.
The annual event once was called the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show. In 2013, following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., its organizers decided to bar the display of semi-automatic firearms; that provoked gun dealers and an array of other exhibitors to boycott it, eventually forcing the show to be canceled.
(Photo: Frank Craig)
The NRA revived it in 2014, renamed it the Great American Outdoor Show, banned the sale of firearms on the premises (it does allow dealers to accept orders), and wisely turned the show’s central theme into a celebration of outdoor traditions treasured by millions of Americans.
That decision reflects a series of calculations by the nation’s largest gun organization to reinforce its position in the hearts and minds of American consumers — and, ultimately, voters — to support candidates who support the Second Amendment.
Despite its somewhat rocky early relationship with last year’s Republican nominee, no other major political group spent more money than did the NRA to elect Donald J. Trump as President of the United States.
The NRA’s pitch helped to win over some of the GOP’s most reliable voters, dependable donors and elected officials. who all, at times, considered abandoning the nominee because his brash campaign style chilled their enthusiasm.
The sweet spot for those voters? Who would appoint the next Supreme Court nominee.
Why? The protection of the Second Amendment.
NRA ads not only targeted rural residents and values-voters, for whom gun ownership is part of a daily culture, but also voters with whom the NRA has struggled in the past — millennials and women.
Some of its ads cast Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton as an elitist who benefited from armed government protection while she plotted to deny Second Amendment rights to regular folks.
Even the reluctant came around fairly quickly in the face of the NRA campaign.
“It’s all rather simple,” explained Jennifer Blake of Richmond Dale, Ohio, a town of about 400, whose decision came down to which presidential candidate would choose the right person for the Supreme Court.
“Honestly, it was stressful thinking about it,” the 35-year-old competitive shooter said in one of the outdoor show’s exhibit halls. “The Second Amendment was my driving point.”
She is not alone.
Polling conducted for the NRA by OnMessage Inc. after the November election showed that 47 percent of all voters in the battleground states of Florida, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Pennsylvania said that the next Supreme Court nomination was “extremely important” in determining their vote for president.
The survey consisted of 5,100 voters from those eight states who participated in the 2016 presidential election
By a twelve-point margin, voters concerned about the next Supreme Court justice broke for Trump, according to the polling data. What’s more, by an eighteen-point margin, these same voters support the “goals and objectives of the NRA.”
No question, then, that the Supreme Court played a significant role in this election. Equally clear is that a sizable majority of court-voters were Second Amendment supporters.
For many Republicans, holding the majority on the Court outweighs the value of holding the majority in both chambers of Congress, or perhaps even the presidency.
Mo Shaw initially supported U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for president. Shaw, 48, a Sharonville, Ohio, native, is conservative, Jewish, a former rodeo cowboy and, for the past 20 years, a successful farrier — a specialist in trimming and shoeing horse hooves.
“The decision was everything,” said Shaw, who described himself as a swing voter. His wife and 20-year-old daughter, Tory, also voted for Trump.
“We knew as a family (that) the Second Amendment was one justice away from being legislated away,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held open the court seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia from last February, when Scalia died, until the clock ran out on Barack Obama’s presidency. Ten days ago, President Trump announced — to the delight of Second Amendment enthusiasts — the nomination of a constitutional-originalist judge, Neil Gorsuch, to replace Scalia.
Gorsuch’s judicial philosophy is the same that led Scalia to write his celebrated opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to possess firearms for legal purposes, such as self-defense.
“Gorsuch has made clear that he understands the importance of the right to keep and bear arms, and Trump has made it clear that he is solid on his choices for Supreme Court,” said Shaw.
The NRA’s campaign gamble was risky, expensive and, to some observers, astonishing, as historic voting results rolled in on election night. Not only did the NRA succeed in down-ballot races, thanks to its keen understanding of the importance of telegraphing sharp messages to voters, but its multibillion-dollar bet on Trump paid off as well.
The taxidermists’ exhibits at the Great American Outdoor Show are nothing short of stunning; so are the leaping canines, the archery displays, the wild-game chef demonstrations, and, of course, the infamously delicious Dairymen’s Association milkshakes, whose sales this year benefited the Dauphin County 4-H club.
And if you wanted to place an order for a gun, well, there was one for every taste, it seemed: small pistols and large, pink ones too; AR-15 rifles, AK-47s, and beautifully designed displays of firearms from classic American brands such as Smith & Wesson.
“The NRA did a good job of educating people and motivating them to get out and vote. The seeming threat to our Second Amendment rights was weighing on everyone’s mind,” said Shaw.
“But, you know, the fight to preserve those rights never seems to be over. There is always going to be some controversy, because it has become the ultimate wedge issue in American politics.”
