According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), more than 53,000 members of the gun industry attended the recent Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) show in Las Vegas, where 2,744 exhibitors — companies that manufacture and sell firearms, ammunition, and related accessories — showed off their new products to wholesalers, dealers, gun media outlets.
A few gun industry “celebrities” also attended the 2026 SHOT Show, including a host of guntubers, Donald Trump Jr., and Kyle Rittenhouse. On the first day of the show, Rittenhouse tweeted a photo of himself with a belt-fed minigun, one of the many military weapons on display, with the caption “Thinking of taking this to Minneapolis,” a reference to the city’s upheaval after an ICE agent killed Renee Good on January 7.
Over the years, “tactical” products like assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and silencers have become common sights at the annual SHOT Show, reflecting the gun industry’s choice to flood the civilian market with military-style products that endanger public safety. That trend has only intensified under President Trump, whose administration has chipped away at federal gun laws and reduced industry oversight. As predicted, the results of those efforts were on full display at the 2026 SHOT Show.
deadly innovations on display
Dozens of companies introduced new assault weapons at this year’s SHOT Show. For example, FN debuted an updated version of the SCAR rifle that the company originally designed for special operations personnel before offering commercial models, Palmetto State Armory launched several new AR-15s and AK-47s, and Ruger showed off new Harrier AR-15s built at the former Anderson Manufacturing facility in Hebron, Kentucky.
Many exhibitors introduced new short-barreled rifles and shotguns to capitalize on Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which eliminated the $200 taxes required to make or purchase such firearms that had been in place since 1934, when Congress enacted the National Firearms Act (NFA) to regulate Tommy guns, sawed-off shotguns, and other easily concealed guns. One exhibitor, B&T USA, went a step further by introducing a compact short-barreled rifle called the “Just in Case” that can be deployed from a briefcase in seconds.
Several SHOT Show exhibitors also launched new short-barreled firearms equipped with arm braces that look and can function like shoulder stocks. Last July, the Trump administration stopped enforcing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) rule which clarified that such firearms were indeed short-barreled rifles, requiring NFA registration.
Another exhibitor, KAK Industry, introduced a water-cooled, belt-fed AR-15 upper receiver reminiscent of early machine guns. Paired with another modification like a bump stock, binary trigger, or forced-reset trigger (FRT) — another device legalized by the Trump administration — a person with such an AR-15 could fire dozens of rounds in seconds without needing to pause to reload or let the gun’s barrel cool.
AN “Extremely Suppressor-Centric” SHOT Show
Other standout items from SHOT include .22-caliber Tommy guns, shotguns that can fold to fit inside a backpack, a new frame for the Ruger RXM that makes the pistol even easier to conceal on one’s person, adapters that extend Glock magazines so they can hold up to 50 rounds of ammunition, and “Gummy Guns” so people can “Pew Pew & Chew Chew.”
But silencers, or sound suppressors, appeared to be the focus of the show. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” also eliminated the $200 tax required to acquire silencers, which, as one gun writer noted, “significantly boosted this segment of the industry and made the SHOT Show…extremely suppressor-centric. The number of companies getting into silencer manufacturing and the amount of suppressors and related products released at SHOT is unprecedented.”
Bergara, Canik, Diamondback, Hi-Point, Palmetto State Armory, and Lyman Products are just a few of the companies that launched their first silencers at the 2026 SHOT Show, adding to the growing list of models introduced by companies already operating in this space. A gun writer noted that every manufacturer is offering silencers now, “and there’s a full-on race to the bottom to see how cheaply they can be sold.”