Not to revive an old post, but I want to thank all the guys that came to this class is Jasper, Wisconsin
But seriously, this was a great bunch of guys in Casper WY. It's one of the few states I had not been to and I gotta say, you can learn a lot in a day and a half when you have such fine folks as hosts. My interest in this state is definitely piqued. Mark's Dad is a prominent geologist and proved once and for all that my attention span can go at least two hours. I could have gone until breakfast and then some, learning the history of the world from this guy, not to mention some other intense lessons from his days as a young man serving his country. Thanks for the education, sir.
A couple of quick WY facts as related to me..... hey, anybody want some coal? How about, 22 mines? How about 380 million tons of it shipped in '05?
Let's see, population-wise.... last I knew they were saying NYC had 11 million residents. The whole state of Wyoming has fewer than 600,000!
There is still a lot of wild west flavor left in Wyoming, blended with a big helping of boom-town attitude. Casper proudly sports a big bronze statue of a cowboy on a rearing steed, Colt six-shooter pointed skyward, YEEE-Hah!-- now you don't see many of those "out east", eh! Makes for a local culture that's straight forward and uncomplicated by an OD of political correctness-- the way I think most of us LTW
isti wish the whole country could be.
There's a bit of a problem in WY though, finding a decent shooting range-- short enough for pistol practice. But if 1000 or even 2000 yards is your game, you're in the right state! I'm only joking about the pistol ranges though. WY is a longtime CCW state and there's a fair amount of IDPA and IPSC to be had there. With all that space though, it's no big surprise that WY is home to a disproportionate number of custom rifle smiths and rifle-related manufacturers, not to mention the many hunting lodges (actually I think there were one or two people on my Casper-bound plane that were NOT hunters).
I traveled light since Mark had indicated I could borrow a 1911 for carry and to use in the class. One of the first things he did after picking me up at the airport was to loan me a 1911 that I knew right away would be good to go-- since it had come through Chuck Rogers' shop. Thanks Mark, and thanks Chuck. But what really made this special was that in loaning me this .45, Mark downgraded himself to a 9mm.... now THAT, my friends, is one selfless host! Mark has been doing some work on 1911's himself and I had a chance to check some of that work out. Suffice it to say that at the moment there is a bit of a dearth of pistolsmiths in the state of Wyoming. If Mark should decide to offer his services to the general public, his aptitude for working on the 1911 will go a long way toward filling that gap.
With some really, really bad legislation looming in IL, I know that some of our most storied names in firearms manufacturing are looking at maybe having to quit IL or go out of business (or go to prison, can you believe it!?) . WY is as firearms-friendly as a state gets, and has ways of making a relocation there pretty appealing-- it might be worth checking into. Too bad since IL is truly a rural state with tons of salt-of-the-earth gunowners and sportsmen-- but big city politicos own the state. One might say they "dictate" how things will be.
Short version, Wyoming, good. You guys in Jasper. WI, I'll be there when I get there!
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