Newtown Action Alliance (NAA) will hold a rally outside the headquarters of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), 11 Mile Hill Road, Newtown, on Tuesday, January 20, at 4:15 pm, “to expose the gun industry’s shameful record of selling military-style assault rifles that are routinely used in mass shootings, while at the same time it opposes gun safety laws and policies,” according to the announcement of the event released earlier this week. Organizers are encouraging members of the community to attend.

NAA information stated, “Due to the corporate gun lobby’s influence, Congress failed to take meaningful action after 20 innocent children and six educators were senselessly gunned down with an AR-15 semiautomatic military-style assault rifle, when 154 shots were fired in 5 minutes, on December 14, 2012, in an elementary school in our town.

“The NSSF, headquartered just three miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, is the trade association for the firearms industry with ‘membership of more than 10,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers.’ According to Frontline’s “Inside the ‘Other’ Gun Lobby” article [www.pbs.org, February 19, 2013], the NSSF was the driving force behind rebranding the AR-15-style rifle as a ‘modern sporting rifle’ in 2009…”

On January 20-23, NSSF will be hosting the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT Show) and Conference at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. The SHOT show is the largest trade show of its kind and more than 65,000 industry professionals from 50 states and 100 countries are expected to attend. There will be more than 1,600 firearm industry exhibitors, according to NSSF’s website for the show.