Doubling-down on stupid.
-or-
Fear of becoming a target to the leftists.
-or-
Don't want to be the first penguin off the ice floe...
“It’s interesting that Reed would rather cancel the show than just cancel their policy on AR-15s.”
I think this was an ideological decision for them. I looked on their website earlier, and they were bragging about the first conference to train travel agents to handle LBGT special needs.
I also saw a report, later, that they are a subsidiary of a British/Dutch publishing firm, who had been protested against to drop all their “military” shows, and who had promised to do so.
They could have easily avoided this by blaming it on miscommunication or a bad decision by a lower level manager. The fact that they did not shows me that this was instigated by top level management.