YES! SHOT Has Done Passed!

And we done survived again!

As usual, my time on the SHOT floor was limited to minutes, not hours. The list of people I wanted to see and didn't get to is long and varied…so first off, my apologies. The 2-hour DRTV Live Stream chewed up a huge part of each day. It did, however, go great…better than Marshal's and my best expectations!

Marshal is putting up each specific segment on DRTV, so check them out. There are a couple of "must watches" — Chris Cox from the NRA-ILA and I explaining Election 2016; the great Ivan Carter on his new series, CARTER'S WAR and the realities of hunting and conversation in Africa, the OUTDOOR WIRE's Jim Shepherd and I on current trends and future predictions, Gabe Suarez on the emerging threat and the implications for self defense, plus some pretty amazing products. I'll get you a complete list of links when I catch up with Marshal.

I'll be going through SHOT in detail over the next few weeks, but I wanted to take a moment to comment on National Review Online's petulant anti-Trump issue they spewed out just abut the time Trump was appearing at out Outdoor Sportsmen Awards. All these "real" conservatives, stamped their little feet, spat their binkies on the floor and whined dismally that Donald Trump isn't "Our Sort, Muffy."

These are the same ass-clowns who labored mightily and produced both John McCain and Mitt Romney as candidates, guaranteeing us instead 8 years of Barack Obama. McCain alone has done almost as much damage to America as Barack Obama. And Mitt Romney, supporter of antigun laws and socialized medicine but billed as a fighter, refused to fight. Mainstream Republicans could  have chosen better candidates from AMERICAN IDOL rejects. Or choosing at random from any average Friends of the NRA dinner.

The Boys in the Beltway wanted Chris Christie as their champion. I pointed out to them more than a year ago that Gov. Christie, as the governor of the most antigun state in the union and who himself originally ran on an anti-assault weapon platform, had as much chance of bringing out the gun vote as Michael Bloomberg, not to mention the fact that Christie's fawning embrace of BHo after Super Storm Sandy went a long way to guaranteeing BHo's re-election (and the poor storm victims BHo and Christie vowed to help never got jack-crap). Their response to me was, in essence, "Suck it up, buttercup. You'll support this jackass the same way you ultimately supported the other 2 jackasses we shoved down your throat in the last 2 election cycles."

Choice number 2, waiting in the wings, was Jeb Bush, who anyone with one eye and half a grain of sense knew had about as much chance as getting elected as Ice Cube. America — me in particular — is sick to death of political dynasties. We don't want another Bush, another Clinton, another Kennedy, another smug, overeducated rich bastard who thinks he or she knows whats best for us poor benighted  peons who wouldn't know a polo pony from a zebra.

It's no secret that my choice was Gov. Rick Perry who would have been a fine President and who had both the grace and the honor to step aside when it was obvious he couldn't win. I would prefer to see Ted Cruz as the nominee, but, and let me make this perfectly clear, as the Clown-In-Chief presently says, I WILL UNCONDITIONALLY SUPPORT DONALD TRUMP IF HE IS THE NOMINEE.

Today Glenn Beck, a man I respect, said he would vote for Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, before he would vote for Trump. Think about that. The Children's Crusade at NRO has done everything but announce they will be staying home on Election Day, stamping their tiny little feet and holding their breath, if Trump is nominated, because Trump is not a member of their cozy little club. Neither was Reagan until he was good and dead.

Here's my take, which you are free to take or leave. The mainstream Republicans and many of what we might call the "social issue conservatives" never actually gave a damn about the Second Amendment and certainly could care less about it today.. Come election time, they spout the necessary words to get the "crazy aunts and uncles in the closet" — that would be us — to the polls, but underneath the words is sheer contempt for our commitment to personal responsibility, our willingness to defend ourselves and those in our care and the very core concept of being armed every day without fail. After all, they live in places where neither they nor any of the other elites they know carry a gun every day, so the very process seems quaint, and distant, like Margaret Mead pondering adolescent Samoan women. Owwwwwwww, I went to the SHOT Show and saw the natives, and it was fun and a little scary…

I saw Donald Trump at SHOT…I didn't see any other Presidential contender (Rick Perry was there, BTW, but, of course, he is one of us).

I have read Donald Trump's statement on the Second Amendment, and I could have written it. I have heard his criticism of gun free zones and the fact that he has a CCW. Here's what I know that you guys don't. Yes, I've seen his earlier statements about assault weapons, etc. But at the NRA Show last year I talked to his son, Don Jr., who told me that yes, his father had views that Don Jr. and Erik didn't agree with. So the sons sat their father down and talked guns, the Second Amendment, the importance of sport hunting, etc. Trump has said repeatedly that his most trusted advisors are his children. It makes perfect sense to me that Don Jr. and Erik, committed hunters and shooters, had a profound effect on their father's views.

Don Jr. and Erik struck me as 2 guys I'd like to spend some time with around a campfire, sipping gin and tonics and talking about a day in the bush.

Is Trump a blowhard and a bully? Most certainly, but so was Teddy Roosevelt, whom we revere. And Trump is the only candidate to spit in the face of political correctness, the disease that is methodically destroying everything we hold dear and will, if not checked, be the death of this Republic.

I said this when I was talking with Chris Cox...this election, at least for us, comes down to a simple, single point — the masks are off. The Democrats, all the Democrats, have essentially called for door-to-door confiscation of firearms and the destruction of our industry and our culture and the destruction of the Second Amendment.

If you choose to stay home on election day…because the candidate isn't "pure" enough for you…because the candidate doesn't check off the carefully constructed boxes created by a bunch smug elitists inside the Beltway…because you just don't like the wave of his hair or the "cut of his jib"…YOU ARE VOTING FOR THE CONFISCATION YOUR GUNS AND THE END OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT.

Oka, that's about enough of a political rant for today.