NRA Shoots Down '07 City
Assault weapons ban in Columbus causes group to pull out its tradeshow
By Rachelle Crum -- Tradeshow Week, 8/1/2005
It was the NRA way or the highway — and Columbus, Ohio, took door No. 2.
On July 18, one week after the Columbus City Council passed an assault weapons ban, the Natl. Rifle Assn. announced that, as a direct result, its 2007 annual show and convention would not be held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center as planned.
However, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said the group would return its 65,000-attendee event, the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits, to Columbus if the ban is lifted.
"The convention is canceled because last week your City Council voted unanimously to revoke the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens in Columbus by banning perfectly legal firearms," LaPierre said, at an NRA press conference in Columbus.
"When the Ohio legislature enacts pre-emption, freedom will be restored to the people of Columbus. And when freedom comes back to Columbus, we will come back to Columbus," he added.
Columbus tourism officials said that, although disappointed, they're already lining up business to replace the NRA.
"We are not going to take the financial shellacking that has been alluded to here," said Paul Astleford, president and CEO of Experience Columbus, the city's convention and visitors bureau. "We've got four other prospects for that same time. We'll do quite well."
The 2007 NRA show was to take place May 11–15 at the SMG-managed GCCC. The 2005 NRA show was held in April in Houston, attracting 60,000 attendees and 450 exhibiting companies to a 110,000 square foot showfloor.
The Columbus ban includes an exemption for collectors who want to display weapons in conjunction with recognized marksmanship competitions. Still, NRA spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs said, "A quarter of our vendors wouldn't have been able to display their products" at the GCCC. Exhibiting companies do not sell fire-arms at the NRA show.
The NRA aimed to create a local and nationwide stir with the announcement, with LaPierre saying that, because of the ordinance, Columbus stands to lose $20 million in economic impact. "The only thing the (Columbus) City Council can expect out of their decision is the gratitude of those businesses in the city we go to instead," he said.
Astleford said the bureau's economic impact estimate for the NRA show was closer to $15 million, less than the NRA's estimate but "no small peanuts" nevertheless. NRA officials declined to speculate on where it might hold its 2007 show instead.
Columbus officials were not interested in changing an ordinance that was set into motion 18 months ago to satisfy national political interests, Astleford said. "The negotiations were all in good faith," he said. "The city has to do what the city thinks is right."
As of press time, the 135th annual NRA show was still scheduled to take place May 19–23, 2006, at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, a city that prohibits concealed weapons. However, Hobbs said, the NRA is supporting a bill to overturn the prohibition that is set to be introduced in the Wisconsin legislature within the next few weeks.
And although Columbus hasn't hosted the NRA show before, the city is a prime location for the group's future shows, Astleford said. "We are a center for their membership." According to the NRA, about 700,000 NRA members live within a day's drive of Columbus and about 200,000 members reside in Ohio.
This fall, the Ohio legislature may take up the issue of preempting the Columbus ordinance, Astleford added, and if it does, the show could take place in the city as early as 2010.
Several other NRA show host cities have found themselves thrust into the spotlight in recent years because of the event. Although local officials said it was nothing but coincidence, Houston changed a policy about concealed weapons on public transportation just three months before the recent NRA event.
NRA officials were not directly involved in a 2003 lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston's bus and light-rail train provider, that led to the authority's compliance with the 1995 Texas Concealed Handgun Bill, which allows licensed owners to carry concealed handguns in most public places. However, the Texas State Rifle Assn. was a key plaintiff in the case.
Some 8,000 demonstrators turned out to protest the 1999 NRA show in Denver, held less than two weeks after the shootings at Columbine High School in nearby Littleton, Colo. To lower its profile in Denver that year, the group took down billboard advertisements in the area, canceled a gun show and scaled back the convention from three days to one.
