The “Free State” Governors Panel at the SHOT Show

I refer to them as the "Free State" governors. Our country is very quickly turning into a tale of two cities, or a tale of two states. In half of the country, you'll face more mandates and more restrictions against your freedoms across the board. In the other half of the country, you'll get to live more free.

The easiest way to describe this is to look at red states versus blue states. The red states with Republican governors feel more like America, while the blue states are- well- suffering from the blues.

This is now abundantly clear in post-COVID America with masks and other restrictions still dividing this country. But put the masks, vaccine mandates, and other issues aside for a moment and you can see it clearly in the economic data. The red states, the Free States with Republican Governors, are performing far better than the blue states. Imagine how much worse Joe Biden's economic numbers would be if the Red State governors weren't propping up nearly half of the country?

Here's some of the takeaways I gathered from the governors' panel at the 2022 SHOT Show in Vegas.

First, the nonsense we see taking place across America right now was already foreshadowed giving the nonsense taking place against guns and gun rights prior to COVID-19 and "woke" cultural jihadists. It was either one of the governors, or Larry Keane with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who said it best- woke culture came after the gun industry long before it has now come after the rest of corporate America.

Thankfully, these Free State governors and states are leading the charge to make their states firearm friendly and 2nd Amendment friendly- Montana included.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) was clearly the rock star at the SHOT Show, but all 6 of the governors present were impressive on the gun rights front.  Montana's Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R-MT) was also present in the audience for the governors' panel at the SHOT Show. He is one of the best (if not THE best) AG's in the country right now.

I liked how Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) talked about how he grew up and hunter's safety was taught in the schools. Gov. Noem followed up and said that is exactly what South Dakota is now looking to do- put hunter's safety back in the schools for all of the kids to benefit from. She also talked about how South Dakota is now working to pay for your federal background check when you buy a gun. That is spot on if you ask me- charging extra fees for people to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights is like charging people a poll tax when they go to the polls to vote.

Alaska's Governor was also interesting. I got a kick out of his track suit- he was like Vince Vaughn in the movie Old School. He made a very good point about companies looking to leave the hostile State of California. He says for gun companies that want to ship their guns overseas, Alaska is actually closer to Australia than California is.

Wyoming's governor has also leveraged previous SHOT Shows to lure a popular gun manufacturer to Sheridan, Wyoming.

There were a number of other great points made by each of the governors. Check out Gabriella Hoffman's writeup posted here at Townhall.com.

“I think one of the key reasons we’re here is to show support for the entire industry,” explained Governor Ricketts of Nebraska. “And when you have a big show like this in Las Vegas, it demonstrates how much Americans are willing to support their Second Amendment rights.”

She also posted video from the event which you can see below.

The audio is a little hard to hear, but you can see a video of the governors' panel discussion at the SHOT Show here: