This was the scene today as tens of thousands descended upon the Las Vegas Sands Convention Center to attend the 2011 SHOT Show. Overall, we felt that attendance was strong, everyone seemed upbeat, but true new product development, particularly for full firearms seemed lower that last year. Lots of incremental improvements but not a lot of new truly firearms from the big boys. We attribute this to a sluggish economy last year, accompanied by the burst of the assault weapons bubble which may have made industry a bit gun shy to invest in new products.
However, everybody else is knee deep in it. Look for lots of cool new products over the next few days.