Those who fail to learn from history

Are doomed to repeat it.

See also: James Zumbo.

Reeds Exhibitions failed to observe what happened to him in,IIRC, 2007 when he posted on his blog at Outdoor Life the following:


I must be living in a vacuum. The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue. Only once in my life have I ever seen anyone using one of these firearms. I call them "assault" rifles, which may upset some people. Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I'll go so far as to call them "terrorist" rifles. They tell me that some companies are producing assault rifles that are "tackdrivers." Sorry, folks, in my humble opinion, these things have no place in hunting. We don't need to be lumped into the group of people who terrorize the world with them, which is an obvious concern. I've always been comfortable with the statement that hunters don't use assault rifles. We've always been proud of our "sporting firearms." This really has me concerned. As hunters, we don't need the image of walking around the woods carrying one of these weapons. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let's divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the praries [sic] and woods.[2]

The result was, for him, significant and swift: The public outcry was loud. People, sportsmen and hunters, demanded action.  They got it.
 
He lost his job a spokesman for Remington, his Outdoor Channel show was put on hold, and Outdoor life essentially fired him. Other sponsors severed their relationship with him as well. His career was, for all intents and purposed, over. 

Same with Reeds Exhibitions. While there are other shows, of other types that they will promote and manage, they have, for all intents and purposes lost the shooting and outdoors segment of their business. Eastern Sports and Outdoors show is, essentially, history. Likely they will lose the SHOT show because of public outcry.

Political correctness doesn't fly among sportsmen, no matter it be fishing, hunting, trapping, or whatever. We tend to see reality as it is. 


Too bad Reeds doesn't..Yet. Likely neither will our politicians until they start something they won't like.