Yes, it’s been a while since anyone’s brought up the Great Coyote Controversy of Twenty-Ten, the one where Gov. Rick Perry told a reporter he shot a coyote while out jogging when that coyote was looking to make a puppy a snack.
But you know, when you run for president, all kinds of things come up. Your long-form birth certificate. Your migraines. Your bimbo eruptions. And, well, your jogging with a Ruger. Carol Flake Chapman, one of Vanity Fair’s founding editors, dissects Perry’s story for The Daily Beast – right down to his choice of weapon, and comes up with one conclusion: Seriously?
But first she takes on the premise that he jogs with a gun because he’s afraid of snakes:
Perry told the reporter that he happened to be packing his pistol, loaded with hollow-point bullets, because he’s afraid of snakes, which raises a number of issues. First of all, the incident was supposed to have happened in February, during an unusually cold winter in Austin. It was the eighth-coldest February on record in Austin, and I can tell you it was damned cold that winter, and not the kind of weather when snakes are active.
And, well, she then looks at his choice of ammo for snakes, his choice of gun, and what coyotes do when confronted.
19 comments
You mean someone actually took this story seriously?
Um. That link don’t hunt. At least not for me…?
“…firearm equivalent of a silk purse.”
Ranger Rick has a vivid imagination to match his cute little silk purse.
@jeffrey weiss it didn’t work for me either
Link doesn’t work for me either. But answer me this: how does being a founding editor of Vanity Fair make her a firearms expert?
Working link: http://bit.ly/pzRzKx
The truth is, pretty damn hard to hit anything smaller than a human with a Ruger .380 like Perry was packing. Snake would be an impossible shot.
Everything about the coyote story just confirms my belief that concealed-carriers are total cowards.
Here’s a better link:
http://powerwall.msnbc.msn.com/politics/ranger-rick-and-the-coyote-1701033.story
Not sure what all the fuss is about. He chose a gun that is small enough to run with, but still effective if needed for self-defense, which is what he used it for. He wasn’t out hunting coyote. I’m no Perry fan, but I don;t see anything wrong with his side of this story.
The link mysteriously doubles itself when clicked, which is probably not Bethany’s fault.
As to the Ruger LCP with the integrated CrimsonTrace laser grips (affectionately known by her owners as Elsie Pea), while I myself would prefer her sturdier big brother the LC9, everyone reading this would be astonished to find out just how many people they talked to today had the same gun Perry carries discretely tucked inside a flat, featureless DeSantis Nemesis LCP holster in their front pants pocket or purse.
It’s the new iPhone.
@Former Texan — only the part that implies he killed the coyote with it. Apparently he’d need to be a combination of the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers to pull off a shot like that with that particular weapon. Not impossible but unlikely?
Heh – i’m sorry, I only clicked on this because I thought it said “Rick Perry’s Peyote Adventure.” Back to work.
It is amazing the amount of people who take up for Rick Perry that start out with…..I’m no fan of Rick Perry but…….
Sorry about that – I’ve corrected the link.
A pretty poor dissection. Sorta an Evil Dead quality dissection.
Major points of difference — like the article says, there had already been a recall on the Ruger LCP. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that Perry didn’t send his in for retrofit solving the discharge problem. Without that defect, the long heavy trigger pull makes it plenty safe without a manual safety.
Lots of people jog, and have no problem concealing. They jog with heavier pistols, too — they do it in a fanny pack. The Ruger LCP is small and light enough (less than a pound loaded) that you can carry it in cargo shorts with no problem. The author talks about “unsightly bulges” right before talking about how cold it was. Well, which is it? He must be lying because anyone could see it through his skimpy jogging outfit, or it was so cold me must have been wearing sweats?
As for ammo and snakes, I’m not aware of anyone that makes a pellet load for .380. Pellet loads are generally in .410 shells for loading into .45 revolvers. Sure, that’s the ideal pistol, but you can’t really jog with it (too heavy) and if you are carrying that much, you might as well carry a 20 gauge.
It’s real simple. Perry carried the pistol for two-legged snakes. When a minor predator had the misfortune of getting too close to the apex predator, it paid the price. Perry did what he could with the weapon he had.
And no amount of nit-picking from a partisan ($10,000 rental mansion?) trap shooter will change that. We don’t all buy $5000 Italian shotguns to carry to our shooting club — some of us buy the gun we can for the real threats we face.
Did he leave the dead coyote just lying there? Sounds like an inconsiderate litterer to me.
Yawn. The economy sucks. Hope and change hasn’t worked out. Nice try though.
*points Hillary to the actual subject of the blog post*
@Jack E Jett, I assume you’re referring to me, since I used the phrase _I’m no fan of Rick Perry”. I’m not a fan, I don’t think he’s a true conservative and I won’t vote for him, in the primaries or the general election.
I am, however, a fan of the 2nd amendment and our right to keep and bear arms. Conversely, I’m not a fan of the mixture of fear and mocking that comes up whenever someone admits that they carry a gun. He never claimed that the weapon was for coyote hunting. The article’s claim that most people choose some type of shot shell instead of a standard round is presumptuous. There are a lot of guns on the market for a reason, people like different ones for different reasons.
So I stand by my comment, I’m not a fan of Perry, but his side of this story is plausible.