My buddy on the sheriff’s department, Sgt. Boyd Wheelright, told me last time he dropped by for coffee, that we have 13 registered machine guns in the county, two of them heavy (.50 caliber), and about 800 registered assault rifles. All told, this county's 13,000 residents own an estimated 10,000 firearms. Even the Amish here are well-armed and make no qualms about it. If you have no felonies in your past, you can get a concealed-carry permit here in about 4 hours. Nowhere I've been does the adage "a well-armed society is a polite society" ring true like it does here. Oh, and other than a couple of suicides, we've had zero gun-related violence in this county for more than three years. The left is loath to acknowledge things like that.
Anyway, I like to drive about 15 miles south of my place to where the open range of the San Juan National Forest starts. You can go down there in the foothills and set up an impromptu shooting range anywhere you want and nobody is going to bother you. It's beautiful down there; lots of wild horses, pronghorn, and elk. Living here has turned my thinking around on some issues I've entertained for years. I hadn't hunted since I was sixteen. I went out and bagged a pronghorn last year, and felt good about it. My neighbor is a USDA butcher who dressed and wrapped it for me. Next year an elk I hope.
Wild horses on the open range, San Juan National Forest:
