Snowflakes in Hell

Tomorrow the convention actually starts. All six acres of guns. In the morning, we’ll be making a short trip to the St. Louis Arch, then to the convention. We stopped off at the Renaissance to see if there were any cool people there, and sadly there were not, except for Steven Halbrook, who was busy being cool with other people.

Now we’re back at the hotel, and I think are done for the night.  Bitter is pretty horribly ill, actually, and needs to get some rest.

A lot of gun control groups always try to portray the gun industry as deep pocketed, evil, large corporations.  The truth is that gun makers tend to be small time operations, often even cottage industries.

Here at the NRA convention, we have a live example of that.  I just saw Tom Knapp checking into our Holiday Inn Express downtown.   I guess Benelli can’t afford, or is too cheap, to put him up in the Renaissance across the street :)

My flight in was on an Embraer ERJ 145, which is smaller than your average family sedan.  I’m six feet three inches tall, and weight 235lbs.  I have a difficult time fitting in the seats of a Boeing 737, let alone a tin can with wings.  Pretty soon, if trends continue, it’ll be easier for me to box myself up and FedEX me to my location rather than endure the ever shrinking planes and seating the airline industry is offering.

As I was departing Philly for St. Louis, I noticed there was a Liberty Bell made entirely from Legos in the Philadelphia Airport.  It’s located in the new International Terminal:

I thought that was pretty impressive, so I thought I’d share.  It’s even the actual size.

I made it to St. Louis, and so did my Glock. The check in process was painless. They didn’t even ask to inspect it. I’m guessing the x-ray machine they use can see whether a round is in the chamber, but there was a big cable lock through the magazine well and slide. I thought I heard one TSA agent mention it was a Glock. Another actually came over, saw my NRA shirt, and asked me if I was a member, when I affirmed, he started asking me about good pistols to get started with handgun shooting on. I told him I was a Glock man, but that some people don’t like them, and SIGs are also pretty good.  Either way, I was happy it was such a painless process.   I will not hesitate to travel with a firearm again.