Angry outcry was quick in coming, and has not let up, in
response to Reed Exhibitions' announcement yesterday that exhibitors would not
be permitted to show or sell tactical rifles at this year's Eastern Sports and
Outdoor Show in Harrisburg,
A large Elk stares down visitors as they walk through a previous Eastern Sports and Outdoors Show at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg. CHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News
In the 24 hours since Reed posted the announcement on the show website and began answering media questions, more than 350 Facebook users had posted their responses to the show's page.
The vast majority were strongly opposed to Reed's decision to exclude tactical rifles like the popular AR-15 replica of the military's M-16.
Many vowed that they would not attend the show and encouraged others to do the same, such as "My fiancé and I were just about to buy tickets this weekend when we heard of your decision. You will not be receiving our business now, and we would encourage others not to attend."
General calls of "boycott" were common, as they were on the popular HuntingPA message boards, where several discussion threads had attracted almost universally negative reaction from a few hundred hunters and shooters.
The primary discussion thread there was titled, "Don't waste your money on Sports Show."
Getting their message to the show organizers was a priority for some, such as "Bluetick" on those message boards, who wrote, "Reed needs to stand with sportsmen – hunters and shooters – instead of bowing down to the political pressure of the anti-gunners. Let'em know they fouled up!"
PennLive.com also drew its share of reaction.
There backstrapfever posted one of the few non-boycott responses"
"The only thing you boycott people are hurting is the 'small guys' that paid the money to have a space at the show. I know I am still going, I have an AR, never hunted with it, just something fun to shoot. I love to hunt, mostly with my bow. I can honestly say I have never gone to the outdoor show to look at ARs or AKs. I have a friend of mine who just started an outdoor business and has pretty much spend his last penny to get a booth at the show to get his name out there and sell some merchandise, I guess the only thing you guys are boycotting is him. I'm pretty sure the show isn't going to take that big of a hit from a few people saying, 'Dangit we can't go look at some AR-15s."
Some, like petepiper, tied the show's decision into the larger national debate: "You're either on our side of this thing or you're on the other side. This is what Obama and his brown shirts want to do.
"You folks that think this is about one gun and some magazines, etc. are not understanding what they want to do. Next time it will be 10 rounds are too many, lets (sic) make it 5. Then your semi-auto pistol, then 5 rounds for those, then.......and then.....and then, and we keep giving up on our Constitutional rights one little bit at a time."
Email boxes also started to fill with anger over Reed's decision.
Greg Levengood, a long-time gun-rights and deer hunting advocate in Pennsylvania, added a new criticism, noting that "Reed Exhibition's corporate headquaters happens to be in located in the U.K., where they have no concept whatsoever of 'the right to keep and bear arms,' and is why we whupped them in the Revolution."