Just Like The Real Thing

Normally at this time, I’d be either hanging out with my friends and family in Arizona after a week of frantic mayhem in Las Vegas during SHOT Show, or I’d be chilling out at home, apologizing to my feet for what I put them through the previous week.

But SHOT Show was cancelled this year, so no trip to Vegas. No networking. No time spent carousing over overpriced drinks in swanky bars (or in my case, no $8 Makers Mark and Elvis impersonators at Ellis Island. I don’t do “swanky” well).

However, Force Center, my local range, decided to step up and through a SHOT Show for the firearms industry in Florida, and I must say, they knocked it out of the park. The Firearms Industry Range ExpoFirearms Industry Range Expo (FIRE) was very well attended, with at least 700 people showing up over three days, and the selection of vendors was actually pretty good, with everyone from Sccy Firearms to Knights Armament in attendance. There were vendor booths set up in the shooting bays, and unlike SHOT, where you really have to know someone who knows someone to get to range day, the firing line was open to all attendees.

Not bad.

However, the best thing about SHOT was never the trade show, and it wasn’t even getting to shoot the newest guns out there at range day. Rather, it was networking and meeting new friends before, during and after each day’s events. That’s why I was so happy to find out that Ballistic AdvantageBallistic Advantage threw a post-FIRE Expo party at a local pub.

You can’t go home again. But you can drive through the old neighborhood from time to time.