CowboyShooting

I recently made a quick trip to Wyoming. My husband and I wanted to see if the Equality State could provide a suitable homestead for the Tipton clan. My California friends anticipated trouble. “Watch out,” they warned. “Everyone in Wyoming has a gun.” My real estate agent did. The single mom of two packs a GLOCK 9mm. I’m not sure why that surprised me. It shouldn’t have. Why wouldn’t a real estate agent carry a gun? What’s not to love about a 9mm handgun? That said, when I first brought-up the subject of guns to my pistol-packing real estate agent . . .

She took it entirely the wrong way. “Since you’re from California,” she said, her back bristling. “you need to know that everyone is armed in Wyoming. If you don’t like guns, maybe this isn’t the right state for you.” I told her that I was from Colorado, I cherish my gun rights and I love my guns. That settled that.

As we toured some potential residences, my agent told us that Cowboy State developers are adding built-in fire-proof safes and “safe rooms” (with gun storage) into their new home. How do urban transplants from New York and California take that news, I wondered. “I tell them the safe’s for important documents.” And the safe room? “Wine storage.”

So she does sell homes to pro-gun control or at least gun-averse buyers. Can’t say I blame her. You’ve got to feed your family. Besides, there’s little chance a sudden influx of left-leaning anti-gun immigrants will tip Wyoming’s political balance. I’m not saying it’s impossible. Just that the newcomers would have to overcome Wyoming’s deep, cultural pro-gun bias. Did I say bias? I meant to say love.

A love me and mine may one day share with these kindred spirits. We shall see . . .

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

120 COMMENTS

  2. Want to go on record as the first 9mm hater. Use what suits you best, but I’m a ten mil guy, and I will not apologize for that.

    • Good for you, dude. Thanks for opening up the caliber wars in a comment section for an article that has absolutely nothing to do with the relative merits of different calibers.

    • Hey, I’m not a racist! I carry a Berretta 92A1, a Wilson Combat .45 ACP, and Sig sauer 10mm….not all at once. 🙂

      It is, after all, all about shot placement.

      • Is that Sig available in the Equinox finish? My next two handguns are going to be a Super Redhawk and a CZ 97, but after that, I want another 10mm, and that finish might be the deal breaker.

        • I guess I have to keep an eye on that development. I was leaning toward the long slide Glock, but there’s just something about a hammer-fired DA. And I love the Equinox finish.

        • The model I have is a SA. I like it because I use the same muscle memory as my 1911 in disengaging the lock.

          I also really like the Glocks. I carried a Glock 30 for a long time. I still carry it when I CC. I was also thinking about buying the long slide Glock 10mm at some point. But the all steel construction and the greater accuracy of the 1911 and of the Sig platforms is just really appealing.

      • How could you tell?

        I actually have a .454 Casull Super Red Hawk that I bought many moons ago. 7″ barrel. I take it with me when I go out to the woods.

        But the idea of using it for a self-defense weapon in town where I would not only kill the bad guy with one shot but two or three other people down range after the bullet over penetrated, ummm, just didn’t seem like a good idea.

        • My brother’s father in law is big on hunting black bear, and he wants to take me to the field when I buy that Redhawk. At the same time, yeah, it’s too much for a lot of applications. So’s the 10, but that was a compromise, and then I just came to love it.

    • Nobody needs more than .9mm to fire two blasts through a door, into the air, off the balcony, to hunt.

      Or something like that.

        • My brother shoots rabbits from his balcony. He has moved from a Ruger 10/22 to an airpistol, so as not to alarm the neighbors, one of whom is a Police detective. We have a few too many rabbits around here (NZ).

    • Good grief. I like 10mm too. Not really a good choice as a defense gun against two-legged a-holes. In Wyoming? Maybe depending on your specific concerns.

      • Not true achmed. The beauty of 10mm is that you can buy ammo with the equivalent ballistics of a .40 cal. to ammo suitable for thick skinned wild animals.

        10mm pistols are issued to the Netherland Rangers to defend against polar bears.

        Just fine tune your ammo for your circumstances of whether dealing with two legged or four legged predators. And whether in urban or rural environments.

        • Netherland Rangers

          I’m going to guess you meant the Danes in Greenland (especially since I know they carry G20s for this purpose), since the Netherlands hasn’t got any possessions that far north.

      • Well, I pocket carry a 46 cm (18.1 in) 45 Caliber Type 94 cannon salvaged from the IJN Yamato. Anything else is kid’s play… and, yes, I AM happy to see you when I’m packing it!

  3. As often as real estate agents find themselves alone in an empty house with a strange man, the question really is, why wouldn’t they carry a gun?

    • Or two….I would guess her 9MM Glock is Off body carry. Some thing small on body like a NAA .22 magnum for extra peace of mind would be better I think.

    • “As often as real estate agents find themselves alone in an empty house with a strange man, the question really is, why wouldn’t they carry a gun?”

      This.

      There have been real estate agents assaulted – raped here in the Tampa area recently.

    • Definitely this. My wife is a realtor and has already had a few scares. One was finding an unlicensed pot grow operation, another was entering a supposedly vacant property and finding a meth lab in the basement with still-sleeping armed occupants upstairs.

      Funny thing is that the cops couldn’t be bothered with either.

      Unfortunately while she likes guns and wants to carry, I think she isn’t vigilant enough to keep constant control of a weapon. It would wind up in a purse not on-body and with grabby kids ages 6-3-0 I don’t want to end up with a dead kid getting the bloody shirt treatment by MDA. She carries pepper spray instead.

      I have gone with her to a few meetings where things were questionable esp after the meth lab incident.

  6. I have already started planting the idea in my wife’s head; Montana or Wyoming. It’s all just a matter of time for Illinois to crumble under its Chicago’s combine.

    • It may crumble tomorrow Greg if the dumbocrats don’t agree with Rauner. Pretty sure this billionaire is trying for 1 term and quite similar to Scott Walker without presidential ambition…but I’m just aiming for Indiana a mile away-Wyoming is way too cold and remote…

      • NW corner of Indiana is a poor representation of the rest of the state. Indiana really is not all bad if you stay away from Indy-Marion county and the Gary Hammond area. Weather is unstable though, as it is today.

    • Substitute Seattle for Chicago and add Idaho to possible relocation States, and that is me.
      357Sig.

  7. There have been a fair number of Relators who have been murdered during or after open houses. If I were a relator (especially a young female one), I’d sure as heck carry a piece.

    • For Pete’s sake.

      It’s “realtor.” There’s no such thing as a “relator,” no matter how many illiterate idiots insist on pronouncing the word that way.

      • Actually, it’s “REALTOR®”, since it’s trademarked. I guess they can pronounce their own word their own way.

        • But the more important question, Jonathan, is how did you make that R with a circle around it? For the life of me I cannot figure out how to make “registered trademark” symbol. For that matter I cannot figure out how to make the superscript TM designation, either. For the love of all that is good and decent, please share!

        • Uncommon-sense: with num-lock on hold alt and type 0174 on the numeric key pad ®.
          ™ is alt 0153
          © is alt 0169

          • They are already-defined characters but they must be accessed in that way, uncommon_sense. However, if you can’t remember them, Windows has a character map that will let you access them to copy and paste. It’s in the Accessories folder of Win7. Click the Start button, open the Accessories folder and then the System Tools folder. the Character Map should be at the top of the list. For Win8, you can access it through the Apps menu or search for “Character Map.”

      • We’re real-a-tors ‘cuz we sells real-a-state for a re-al-ity company 🙂

        And yes all agents should be trained and carry whenever legal if possible.

      • Actually, there is such a thing as a “relator”. It is the person in whose name an application for a writ of mandamus is filed. Betcha Ralph knew that, but he was too polite to say so…

        • Fair enough, you got me there. One comment, one question:

          1) It sure as heck isn’t a real estate broker, so the main thrust of my comment still stands.

          2) Is “relator” in this sense pronounced “reel-uh-tor” (like the illiterates mangle “realtor”) or “rell-a-tor”?

  8. “Besides, there’s little chance a sudden influx of left-leaning anti-gun immigrants will tip Wyoming’s political balance.”

    I hope you’re right. But look what happened to Colorado. And Washington. And Oregon. And New Hampshire. And is in the processes of happening to North Carolina. They’re making a run at it in Texas, too. Proggies are like cancer.

  9. Having lived there and served as an LEO there, I would move back in a heartbeat. Sadly, the significant other of some 34 years would not. Something about the cold, I guess.

    I would encourage the move. Funny thing – for all the guns, there was not a lot of the dreaded “gun violence” I saw, in one of the larger towns, with a lot of money from coal and oil work. For the time being (3 more years), I am stuck in one of the most gun violent cities in the U.S., with some of the most restrictive gun laws. Fancy that.

  10. Based on her last two posts, Ms. Tipton seems to me to be becoming a magnet for rather unusual gun-related dialogue.

    • So I’m not the only one who thinks her articles read like “matter o fact” click bait posts on FB?

    • +1 for “unusual gun-related dialogue”. You described what I was thinking. I enjoy her posts. And looking fwd to more.

    • Well, she’s carrying a gun and she is not an OFWG. That makes her noteworthy for a lot of folks out there. Especially a lot of sexist progressive types who would never confront a guy but who feel happy enough to lecture a woman on her failure to live up to the progressive ideal.

  11. I go to Wyoming, near Medicine Bow, every year to hunt the pronghorn and trout fish. Best brown trout fishing ever. And rainbow the size of samon.
    But JDub hates the cold. Hates it with a passion. Wyoming is 11 months of Winter and Rodeo Week.

  12. This brings to mind an idea I had for a TTAG piece – I’ve seen many rankings of state for “gun friendliness” but they were about 95% focused on the laws. What about the overall (and admittedly harder to quantify) feeling of “gun culture” of each state? And how much they can diverge? (or Not?) Notwithstanding some recent improvements, Texas, I think has a perception among the general public as “the most gun friendly state” perhaps because it’s their *culture* of firearms rather than law.

    • Re Texas, I think you are on to something–outside of a few blue-state-wannabe aberrational locations like Austin and parts of Houston.

    • I can tell you that I live in the 14th largest metro area in the United States and have open carried everyday for nearly a year without a single negative comment or incident. I doubt you could say that about many large cities in any state.

    • The intangibles are tricky. That includes things like being able to have a decent gun-related conversation with strangers or neighbors, should the topic come up. I’d put on that same list the degree of (non)freak-out if someone should catch an inadvertent glimpse of your concealed sidearm.

      Overall, I’d rank Texas near the top on these admittedly difficult to estimate measures.

      • Hahaha. Yer exactly right. As a Kentuckian who’s lived in both Texas and Wyoming, I can attest to the fact that neither even comes close to Kaintuck as a “gun culture.” Kentucky is the only place I ever lived where people regularly open carry in a variety of locations and NOBODY ever gives a second glance. The flea markets on Saturdays are full of people carrying and the rows of rifles and handguns for sale on any given weekend will outpace your average Bass Pro. Add to that that Kentuckians STILL grow up in the outdoors and Wyo looks like a joke. And people in Kentucky can shoot their rifles and handguns, too, which makes all the difference. Texans own them, and spend a lot of time polishing them, and that’s about it. The other real deal is West By God Virginia. Every other day of the week in Kaintuck there are rifles going off in the woods and neighborhoods all around me.

  13. Why is it that progressives leave their communist hell holes and move to more constitutionally oriented states and then immediatley begin to vote for the same stupid s–t that they just left from? Insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

    • Well, if they weren’t mentally lacking, they wouldn’t be progressives in the first place. Kind of like that lady in, yes, Austin, who was complaining about how she voted for every park, library, and city improvement that came down the pike, so why were the city fathers raising her taxes so high she couldn’t afford to live there to enjoy the fruits of her votes? They really are that stupid.

    • Because (in their mind) it’s never the policies’ fault that those places are so messed up. It’s raaaaacist “white flight” or the rich people taking their stolen money away or some other dang thing, so these places can’t afford to properly fund all those social programs and infrastructure.

      Progressivism apparently can work (or so they think), but only if it can be imposed on everyone and people are not allowed to leave. Which, oddly, reminds me of what the Soviets tried to do.

    • They move to the red areas of the country because the blue areas are becoming hell holes. The problem is that these dweebs do not understand a simple concept of cause-and-effect. They do not comprehend that the reason the blue area they came from sucked is because of the predominant ideology made it that way.

  14. To all the good folks of Wyoming:

    There are people of the gun in both New Yorkistan and Kaliforniastan.

    • Indeed there are.

      But the agent’s reaction tells you something about the percentage she encounters in her job that aren’t.

      • That said, when I first brought-up the subject of guns to my pistol-packing real estate agent . . .She took it entirely the wrong way. “Since you’re from California,” she said, her back bristling. “you need to know that everyone is armed in Wyoming. If you don’t like guns, maybe this isn’t the right state for you.”
        I can see why; until proven otherwise people from libtard areas are a bunch of Communists that just want to be condescending and ruin your state. A lot of people from the Left Coasts are nauseating.

      • Indeed.

        And all you need to see evidence of this is the voting patterns of Jackson Hole vs. the rest of the state.

  16. You love the freedom to be able to use a tool to protect yourself. 2A supporters are freedom lovers. Statist do not feel the love.

  17. I once visited Wyoming during midwinter. Immediately after, I went to Alaska to get warm.

    • I drove through Wyoming coming home from a trip to the Grand Tetons (in September). I’ll never forget the MASSIVE snow fences along the highway. I also remember it being the most geographically monotonous state I’d ever driven through. Every mile of highway looked the same.

      Lots of freedom and liberty in Wyoming. Great people. And some oil. Sadly, not much else.

    • As a kid I lived in southeast Wyoming, just outside of Cheyenne. There’s a good reason for those massive snow fences.

      However, I would go back if I could figure out a way to earn a living there. My Significant Other, OTOH, would have none of it.

  18. Speaking of things controversial, is it true that there is a gun problem here in Wyoming?

    No, it’s not a problem, everybody has ’em.

  19. If you want to see undiluted liberal culture shock rent “Did You Hear About the Morgans?”
    That noted anti-gun twat Sarah Jessica Horseface freaked out almost constantly at the open display of guns in WY. Her shooting lesson is a hoot I won’t ruin it for you.

  20. Hate to say this but I’ll miss the gun culture in Georgia. Open carry even in airports up to TSA. And if you forget just head back to your car and put it away. Carry on public transport and Government buildings without security checkpoints (courthouses off limits).

    Moving back to the Gunshine State. Could be worse. Now, if the only had OC….

    • “Moving back to the Gunshine State. Could be worse. Now, if the only had OC….”

      We’re working on it.

      • I keep telling ya, carry a fishing pole in your vehicle. if one of florida’s finest stops you while oc, tell him you’re on your way to go fishing. florida statute 790.25 2-h. oc while going to, coming from, or engaged in hunting fishing, camping. carry a copy of it in my wallet

        • You’re really taking a chance with that… Even if you’re standing at the lake with your line in the water, you’ve got a strong chance of one of “Floriduh’s Finest” just blasting you because gun. Tho, the particular area makes a difference. Some parts of Floriduh aren’t that bad. Some of the bad parts would surprise you if you don’t know the history… While others are obviously bad.

          Up here in “South Georgia” as we call it, it’s not so bad, tho the particular county I live in, Suwannee, is uncharacteristicly leftist for the rest of the region. A bit further down the west coast, Citrus/Hernando/Levy/Sumter/Marion, they’re a blend of good-ol-boys + extreme RINO. You think you’re OK being a generally rural area, but any of them hear you mention the word gun and you’ll be pushing up daisies before you finish the sentence. They’re very much believers in “kill all the witnesses, then you can say anything you want to the media.” Most of their stories are “shot a drug dealer” when it was not a drug dealer at all. Just one of us rabble who dared to think he had rights of any kind at all… Nobody cares or asks questions when “it was a drug dealer.” In Citrus, the Sheriff actually hunts people for sport and isn’t even bashful about it. I was one of the hunted for a while. That’s why I don’t live there anymore.

          Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee… These are the obvious places. Miami-Dade and Orlando/Orange County are places you’re like to be told your CCW isn’t any good and arrested, killed, sprinkle some crack on you for being an OFWG.

          Floriduh is a lot worse when it comes to Corrupt Judiciary and Cops than most people realize. They get away with it, and they successfully cover up most of what they do, so it doesn’t get a lot of press. Besides, anyone who dared to report the truth wouldn’t live long…

  21. I would advise anyone thinking of living in Wyoming to visit the state mid winter. One important word: WIND.
    Wyoming wind is relentless and it literally drives people crazy.

    • The Eastern Prairie of Colorado gets a lot of wind. Lots and lots of it.

      To imitate something I read on TTAG a number of months ago:

      Chicago, the Windy City? Go jump in the lake. your wind is stupid.

      Nevertheless, when it’s more-than-usually windy, we say “It’s Wyoming out!”

      • You aren’t joking…

        We own an old decommissioned AT&T tower outside of Limon, built in the cold war for continuance of government.

        We use it for ham radio, but the wind has gotten so fierce out there that it’s bent steel masts and sheared bolts.

    • And the wind is the worst in the “triangle” between Cheyenne, Casper and Laramie. Wind speeds of up to 70MPH in the winter are common enough to make driving difficult.

      In the winter, the stretch of I-80 from Sinclair to west of Wamsutter is not for the faint of heart. Four wheel drive and chains are often not optional.

      For those who don’t understand what wind speeds like this will do, here’s an example: I was once driving south on I-25, south of Wheatland. The wind was about 55, gusting to 70 MPH, on the leading edge of a winter storm. I was trying to make it down into Colorado before the snow came in. I was driving a F-350 (one ton) diesel pickup, loaded with about 1200 lbs of machines and tooling, at about 70MPH into a 70MPH wind. Gross weight of the truck was probably just under 10,000 lbs.

      The front end of the truck became light enough from the air being rammed under the truck that I lost steering authority and had to back it down to 45 MPH on an interstate to regain control.

      Another example of Wyoming wind in the winter:

      Driving westward on I-80, in the same diesel pickup, into a 60MPH wind at 5F above, with heavy snow. I had been on the road already for five hours, chugging southwest in the state, having come down WY-220 from Casper to Rawlins through the wide, open valley north of Rawlins.

      Slogging up the hill to Wamsutter out of Rawlins, I watched the engine temperature gauge drop like a rock. Then the engine nearly stopped, as the diesel fuel gelled up the filter. The wind was hard enough to pack my radiator with unmelted snow. As soon as I could, I pulled over and added more anti-gel to the fuel to keep the engine running. The temperature gauge didn’t come off the lower limit until after I reached Green River.

      • Steve in Co, and Dyspeptic
        I know all about Colorado’s eastern plain winds, being a native. They can be incredibly violent and with huge differences in gusts. That being said, in my opinion and after spending a lot of time in Wyoming there is nothing like the sustained winds that is almost constant for weeks up there. Everyone in Wyoming is careful opening there doors or they will break the hinges and have to drive home like that. My cousin lives in Douglas and has had two pickup doors yanked out of his hands. He stated that he was even holding hard to the handle.
        I know what you mean about gas mileage. Driving an unloaded f-250 with a 460 into headwinds like you described dyspeptic I got 6 MPG! It was like I had my trailer towing high mountain passes. Unbelievable. I will say though that sometimes you get lucky and can double your mileage if you got a tailwind.
        Once when we were calling coyotes it was -31 the sun was shining and there was sustained 40mph winds. In Colorado when it gets that cold the wind usually stops. (We actually called a coyote in on that set before we went in and warmed up. It was surreal)

        • Maybe that’s where Colorado went wrong. For ages, people stayed away because they thought this place was like living on the Greenland icecap. Unfortunately we bragged too much about 300 days of sunshine per year (for tourists) and people started checking it out in person. Now we are infested with Californians–the bad kind. It’s not quite a terminal infestation (the laws we had rammed down our throats are more sound than fury so far) but we hare having to fight back.

          If we had just had Wyoming’s climate they’d stay away.

        • Steve so true. Our state has gained 2.5 million people since 1993. More than doubled it. It’s a far cry from what it once was. Probably why so many of us are moving to Wyoming.

        • Those 460’s would allow you to pass anything on the road except the gas pump.

          God, what thirsty engines those were. As bad as they were in a pickup, you should have seen them in a New Holland 1075 bale wagon. It seemed like every other load up to the hay stack, a guy was dumping 50 gallons of gas into the wretched things…

        • Dyspeptic,
          No doubt about the gas mileage. The best I have ever gotten was 15 actually in Wyoming in a tail wind. 😀 It does have good power, I put a banks performance kit which paid for itself many times over. 460’s were born out of old 1/4 mile warriors. I know someone that is turning out 800hp on pump gas. Race car of course but lots of fun.
          That being said it’s power cant compare to modern diesels for trucks unless you want to spend a bundle. Still, I think about getting a supercharger and surprising some fellows. The damn thing is dead reliable but forget putting it in a tractor. I can only imagine how quick that fuel went.

  22. So, this is how we make an R with a circle around it, eh Mr. Bond ® ?????

    And this ™ is apparently how we make a trademark designation?????

  23. Seeing as how we live in Wyoming, I’ll offer a few tidbits of experience on the subject:

    1. The winters range from stiff to brutal. There’s a reason why this is the least populated state in the nation, and that reason is the winters. When we have snowstorms, it is damn rare that we have any idea of how many inches of snow fell. Why? Because it’s almost never coming down in a nice, calm manner that allows the snow to be measured. There’s almost always a wind of 20 to 60 MPH behind the snow (no, I’m not exaggerating on the 60 MPH), and the snow falls in a manner of “there’s not a flake of snow around the mailbox, but there’s a drift 12 feet deep in front of your garage” most of the time.

    Many marriages have failed as a result of a couple moving into Wyoming from elsewhere. About halfway through the first or second winter, the woman gets pissed off and leaves.

    My wife hates the heat. Absolutely hates being hot and sticky. If it were 10F and snowing all the time, I’m sure she’d be pretty pleased, so she’s a statistically rare woman. If I wanted to end my marriage, all I’d have to do is move us to Austin, TX. Wyoming or Alaska? She’s happy, especially in autumn. Many other women think my wife is lying, and that I’m a horrible husband who intimidates her to staying in Wyoming. There are many women born elsewhere who really don’t like this place. I’m deadly serious about this.

    2. Real estate prices range from “why is this so cheap?” to “holy crap, WTF are they smoking?” The reason why is that there is no reporting of real estate closing transaction prices in this state. Realtors know on listed properties what the closing sale price was, but you, the buyer, do not. If you see a place you like, but it is sporting an absurdly high price, shoot the seller an offer. Make it a low offer, but a clean offer. You never know – you might just get lucky. Many natives often do. You can always increase an offer until the sellers bite, but if you offered too much… you ain’t getting that money back.

    While we’re on the subject of homes, NB this: heating homes in Wyoming takes money. Older homes here aren’t well insulated and often have older windows that lose a lot of heat. In some towns, people didn’t much care. Why? Because even without modern insulation and triple-pane windows, it is cheap to heat your home… as long as you’re using coal. There are a lot of homes on the eastern side of the state that are heated with coal. For those of you who might come from regions without big heating bills, or with only oil/natural gas/electric, know this: coal is super cheap heat, but it is also dirty and laborious. I heat my shop with coal. It’s a filthy thing, but I smile when I load up the coal furnace with a hundred+ pounds of sub-bituminous coal, because I know that somewhere, I’m plugging up Al Gore Jr.’s lower chakra.

    3. Taxation in this state is based on ad valorem and sales taxes. Much of the revenue for the state budget comes from mineral severance taxation, which is to say that the taxes are paid by coal mining. With the “war on coal” being waged by the shrub-snuggling bunny humpers and the Obama administration, we might have to institute a business or personal (or both) income tax in the future to pay for the state government.

    4. The state pays entirely too much for the public school system for what they get out of it. The Dakotas have far more efficient use of their taxpayer dollars on education than we do.

    5. There are, in fact, plenty of busybody broads in this state, sticking their pointed blue snouts into things which don’t concern them. In other states, their pet issue is guns. In this state, it is booze. In Colorado, Wyoming and Montana, you will run lips first into the remains of one of the most pernicious group of busybody broads in US history, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and their advocacy against “demon drink.” The laws that are on the books having to do with booze are some of the most idiotic things you will see in this state.

    There’s also no CCW on school grounds or any college campus, mostly as a result of hyperventilation by women and the public sector employees at colleges.

    6. The politicians in this state claim they want to diversify the economy away from mining, cows and plows. But they don’t know jack about how to do it, and in some cities, their zoning in onerous and obstructive to opening a small business. Before you buy a property, investigate the zoning, CC&R’s or deed restrictions placed on the property. Some residential properties here in Wyoming allow for no business activity whatsoever, even professional businesses like a CPA or software company.

    Know the story about how Apple and HP were founded in garages in Palo Alto? That wouldn’t have happened in lots of communities and areas of Wyoming.

    7. If you’re used to lots of paid government employees waiting on you hand and foot, you might want to look elsewhere. eg, Most all fire departments are volunteer, even the paid departments are very lean, there are few services for seniors, etc. Don’t bother calling 911 to get your cat out of a tree, in other words. If someone called our department to get a cat out of a tree, I think our reaction would be to fire up the chainsaw off one of the wildland trucks and call it good.

    If you have a medical emergency, and you’re used to the level of care afforded by being near a Level-1 trauma center, I’ve got news for you: The nearest L-1 trauma center is in Denver. We have no hospitals in the entire state that are L-1, only a couple of L-2’s. Billings, MT is L-2. If you’re in a car accident in Wyoming, the local ambulance services and volunteer FD EMT’s are authorized to call out a life flight helo to the scene, but those flights are sometimes grounded by weather and even when they can fly, your price for evac to a hospital is going to start at $50K and go skyward quickly. In other words, the level of medical care you have come to expect in many major US urban areas doesn’t exist here, won’t ever exist here, and the first responders to your home or car accident might well be a bunch of guys who rescue people in their spare time, not as their primary gig. When you’re being cut out of your car because you can into a cow or an elk on the road at night, don’t get all huffy when you learn that the local FD chief sells used cars by day, and the captains are retired forest rangers.

    One of the ways we maintain a state budget without an income tax is that we offer less – a lot less – in government services. If you need government services, you will want to investigate what you need before moving.

    • One other thing I forgot, but which is a very important point:

      Our cost of health insurance in Wyoming since Obamacare took hold is incredibly high. We’re the second or third highest cost state for health insurance in the nation. If you’re self employed, get ready to bend over.

      If there is something that might drive us out of the state, it is the cost of health insurance.

      • Obamacare hasn’t yet hit the majority of the un-washed masses.

        When it starts to hit in 2016 it’s going to get very interesting.

        The cheapest ‘bronze’ plan for me has a $5,000 deductible.

        Folks living paycheck-to-paycheck are going to have a very ugly reality shock.

        Those in Washington who fed them that turd have no idea of what they’re in for.

    • DG,

      I literally have tears in my eyes as I write this – I HAVE to thank you for “shrub-snuggling bunny-humpers”! Priceless, simply priceless! THANK you, DG!

    • The WV of my youth was a coal powered state. People had coal heat and even coal stoves in the kitchen. A lot of people had coal seams right on their property and the only cost was the labor.

      It’s dirty, it’s nasty, but when it’s free….

      • Here in WY, many coal mines will fill the pickups of their employees for nothing. Absolutely nothing.

        They’ll just drive over to the employee’s pickup with a front loader out of the lump or pea coal pile and dump in a ton or so, “tell the wife we said ‘hi'” and you’re on your way home.

        Some mines will allow you on-site if you get your MSHA card and wear a helmet and steel toe boots, and then will sell coal to the public in the same manner, for about $30/ton. Pea coal, hauled into town and sold by a distributor, runs about $65/ton, oiled and bagged. Lump coal is about $80 to $90/ton.

        There is no other fuel that comes remotely close in cost to coal here. Natural gas is pretty cheap, but coal is fantastically cheap.

        • I’ve actually seen people walking the rail road right of way with bags and baskets. The hopper cars were always dropping coal and people knew a good thing when they saw it.

    • Thanks for the rundown on Wyoming. I hate the cold. I’ve lived in it, I’ve fought in it, and I still hate it. I’m the guy that takes a nap in his truck with the windows rolled up in the Texas summer, cause I love the heat.
      So Wyoming is out for me to live or buy property, but I will continue to come up there every October for the best, and frankly easiest and cheapest, pronghorn hunting anywhere. I drive up each year, 26 hours, and I’d do it just for the views and the trout, if I didn’t draw a tag.

  24. Dyspeptic Gunsmith isn’t exaggerating about the wind. If Wyoming was looking for a date, it would have “must love wind” in its personal profile. I’ve never seen an interstate highway,( I-80) closed because of….wind….OK, very high winds. They have permanent gates in place to close off the road. Wow! Have you checked out Utah?

  25. I used to think there was no way I could deal with Wyoming because COLD! Holy crap it gets cold there.

    But February I took a trip up to Michigan… I’m stubborn though. I was wearing jeans, t-shirt, and flip-flops. Everyone else was bundled up, but I didn’t see what the big deal was… I’d never seen snow before in my life, and often declare that anything below 80 degrees is just stupid. It was WAY below freezing (single digits, approaching zero as I headed back south), but I was fine while all the Yankees were acting like the sky was falling, and had been falling for a while.

    Maybe it really is all about not being a pussy? I don’t think I’m a badass, but others have described me as such. Maybe it’s true? Maybe I’m just awesome? Maybe awesome people just don’t have that much trouble with the weather? Is there a difference between being a badass and merely not being a pussy? Or is it just a matter of perspective?

    Maybe I’ll visit Wyoming in the Summer, lols.

  26. This has nothing to do with Wyoming, but I know the three guys in the photo. They aren’t from Wyoming but from a SASS affiliate cowboy action shooting club in Rhode Island called the Lincoln County Lawmen.
    Happy Trails is in front, One-Ear Pete on the right and Hezekiah Hipshot is in the background.
    I shot a bunch of matches with them back in the day.
    How funny to see a picture of three people I know on TTAG when I opened it up this morning.

  27. How do urban transplants from New York and California take that news, I wondered. “I tell them the safe’s for important documents.” And the safe room? “Wine storage.”

    There should BE no urban transplants from socialist states. She should say anything she can to discourage them, and convince them to go back where they came from.

  28. Had that REA said such to me I would’ve very calmly (& OH so unctuously) informed her that her prejudiced assumption about the attitude of Californians toward the 2A had just cost her a sale, bid her good day, then quietly left W/O slamming the door. Encountered that kind of ignorance regularly in the South & grew exceedingly weary of telling them that we’re manifestly NOT all, 1) Leftists, 2) Homosexuals, 3) Dope dealers/dopers, 4) Hell’s Angels, 5) Hot rodders/drag racers, 6) Surfers, 7) In/acquainted w/ movie/TV stars or people in those occupations. It’s really amazing how SO many allegedly level-headed & informed people can have a reflexive hatred of people they’ve usually never even met, but then that’s how bigotry works isn’t it.

    There’s a lesson there for all of us.

  29. Old Ben/30June15@09:39
    teebonicus/01July15@20:32,

    You both hit it dead center, let California’s transition from the easygoing/live & let live place it once was into the People’s Democratic Republic of California/P.D.R.C. be a warning to others about the dangers of arrogance & complacency. When the Eastern Leftists came out here we didn’t see them as much of a threat & they threw around a LOT of money, now the only way we know we’ll be free of them will be after the state implodes & if they’re exceedingly fortunate the best they’ll get is the Mussolini/Ceausescu treatment. Scoff if you will, but if necessary Californians can be quite inventively horrible w/o batting an eye nor losing a bit of sleep over it.

Comments are closed.