The 2010 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show has come and gone and the event owner/sponsor, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), has been quick to declare it a huge success. They announced an overall attendance figure of just over 58,000 people, including exhibitors, dealers and media representatives. That's a bunch of people and second in pure numbers only to the Show in Las Vegas in 2008. Clearly a lot was happening and those of us from Officer.com who attended will be reporting on the interesting things we saw or did.

In my column last month I said that a top priority for me was to talk with the various ammunition manufacturers to try and get a handle on what is happening with the current ammunition supply, particularly as it relates to law enforcement needs. I'll tell you up front, the ammo people don't want to talk about it. Well, not on the record anyway. I spoke with a number of people, both from companies involved and others who at least think they know some of the details of the situation. All of the companies have their prepared statements, which, when distilled down to simple English, all say the same thing: We are producing ammunition as fast as we can. Beyond that, they seem unwilling to publicly discuss details of their production policies, capacities or future plans. Most will say that they are publicly traded companies and therefore have an obligation to make sure they don't divulge any secrets, while continuing to provide an appropriate return on their shareholder's investments, of course. And, shareholders are happy. After all, the ammo business is booming and they are selling all they can make. Who wouldn't like to have that kind of business?

Beyond the business-speak, however, I did have some interesting conversations that I can at least paraphrase in such a manner that individual companies, or their representatives, won't get burned for taking a few minutes to discuss the Great Ammunition Shortage with me. As a result, don't look for direct quotes from identified sources here.