Walmart ceases to sell certain ammunition and hanguns. . . .

which is a good thing for local retailers.

No serious sportsman or shooter buys firearms or ammunition on any sort of routine basis from Walmart.  Indeed, that same statement can be said about a lot of things, when bought by the serious.  I'm sure, for example, that you can buy fishing poles and cameras from Walmart, but a serious fisherman or a serious photographer doesn't buy them there.  Walmart sells most of its items of that type to people who are in a very general market.

By the same token, a person who is expecting any kind of expertise on anything also doesn't buy that thing at Walmart.  If you go into Walmart and ask the clerk behind the cameras the relative difference between Canon DSLR cameras vs. their full frame DSLR camera, you might get an answer, but it would be fairly absurd to rely upon it.  If you go in and see a camera you already knew you wanted to buy, that'd be another matter, but chances are if you are going in to buy something of that nature, you are already going elsewhere.

So too with firearms and ammunition.

I don't recall any serious shooter speaking of buying a firearm or ammunition at Walmart, ever.  Indeed, I've heard complaints from shooters regarding the chain sporting goods stores that somewhat resemble big box stores.  Stocking shotgun slugs might make sense in Michigan, for example, but not in Wyoming, Colorado, or Montana.  But the big box outfits don't know that.

So when a person goes into a Walmart to buy a firearm, they're really risking flying blind on that purchase.  I suppose that Walmart stocks all the common ammunition for hunting and probably people do go there if they couldn't find it elsewhere, but I never hear of people doing that.

There was a time, I'd note, when this was in fact a bit different.  People did buy some basic firearms and ammunition at Sears and Montgomery Wards at one time.  They've long since ceased offering firearms, but they did do that.  Kmart actually used to offer them as well (and still might. . . I haven't been in a Kmart for years).  But when Walmart entered the picture, something about its enormity removed the personal touch that certain types of purchases seem to require.  Indeed, while I'm not surprised that people buy generic things from Walmart, I remain surprised that people buy things like tires from Walmart or Sam's Club.  A person ought to know their tires.

Anyhow, the prime beneficiary of Walmart's decision will be to benefit local retailers, and that's a good thing. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the politics of their decisions, which I'll address in just a moment, but rather economics.  By and large, much smaller retailers have remained strong in this market area anyhow.  Walmart removing itself, albeit slowly, helps those local retailers, and that's a good thing.

The other thing it shows is the density of political thought and the vulnerability of the consumer to huge retailers.  Anyone who knows anything about firearms knows that Walmart is irrelevant in the market. But people who don't know anything about them assume that Walmart must be a major player as its a major player in so many other things.  Here, it doesn't matter whatsoever what Walmart does.  But people applying pressure to Walmart think it does.

The same is true in regard to the earlier decision of Dick's Sporting Goods in regard to selling AR type rifles.  In most markets, I doubt that Dick's is that big of retailer of firearms.  It does sell them, but Dick's is more of a ball and racket type of sporting goods outfit.  But it was vulnerable to the pressure.

And that national retailers are vulnerable to pressure shows a real weakness in the big is beautiful economic model.  Here, a lot of people who know very little about a topic are pressuring retailers on a feel good basis, and these big ones, that sell a lot more to really big markets, are yielding to make themselves look good in those markets. 

Last year Walmart was one of the entities that campaigned locally against a bill that would have imposed taxes on big retailers like itself that are multi state and are calculating the tax into every sale as its easier for them to do that than not.  They'd rather not pay the tax, of course, as those few extra cents go into their own coffers if the state doesn't take them, and they don't have to pay for the extra bookkeeping, etc., that paying it entails. The anti campaign was successful and basically Wyoming simply gave money away to Walmart and its kin as a result.  The bill is back for consideration now.

These two things may not seem to be connected, but they are.  Walmart makes its decisions on what the American public ought to buy and where it will be made and the price it will be sold for its own economic reasons.  It's only vulnerable to pressure from very large markets, but this demonstrates that it is vulnerable.  If the State of California, which is right now getting set to ban the sale of furs in that state, decided tomorrow that eating meat was bad and put pressure on Walmart to cease its sales, it might, and a retailer that is so large and dominant that its driven locals retailers under could in turn deprive people of things they find familiar on a dubious basis, and without any of their own say.  If we're going to put up with that, we ought to at least collect our share of the taxes.

And, for that matter, if Walmart is vulnerable enough to shed sections of its business and thereby accidentally yield them to local retailers, that's not a bad thing.

Friday Farming. Wherein the New York Times shows itself to be economically thick.

The abandoned Hotel Sabine in Port Arthur, Texas, emblem of all that's nifty in urban areas, although Paul Krugman would probably think this was a rural one.

I'm not a huge fan of the New York Times.  Indeed, over time, I've come to see its adopted editorial policy, in which its headlines tend to reflect a political view and its editorials speak of an imagined self importance that the paper and the city that it is located in hasn't had for years and years, as nearly emblematic of the dense way that some large city elites view the entire rest of the country.  When newspapers like the Times cry about a fellow New Yorker they detest as President, they ought to realize that it was views like theirs that helped put him there.

Among the NYT columnist I generally am not impressed with is Paul Krugman.

Krugman was published in the NYT the other day with this editorial:

Getting Real About Rural America

Nobody knows how to reverse the heartland’s decline.

Oh BS.

And among the BS is this concluding statement.

Nor, realistically, can we expect aid to produce a political turnaround. Despite all that aid, in 2017 more than a quarter of East German men cast their ballots for the extreme-right, white nationalist Alternative for Germany. 

I’m sure that some rural readers will be angered by everything I’ve just said, seeing it as typical big-city condescension. But that’s neither my intention nor the point. I’m simply trying to get real. We can’t help rural America without understanding that the role it used to play in our nation is being undermined by powerful economic forces that nobody knows how to stop.

All of this really symbolizes the thick nature of urban analysis combined with the thick nature of American economic thought in general.

Lets start with the second to last paragraph.  Eastern Germany, that part of Germany that used to be the German Democratic Republic (the DDR), the Communist satellite state set up by the Soviet Union shortly after World War Two, isn't generally rural and therefore doesn't provide any sort of useful analogy at all.  Communism itself never figured out how to deal with rural populations and rural people at all, which is why is general approach to rural topics was to industrialize and wipe them out, or simply wipe them out if that approach wasn't successful.

East Germany was an economic backwater, to be sure, but that was due to Communism itself, which did a pretty good job of making almost every region it held sway in, after an initial outburst of forced industrialization, an economic backwater.  Communism, it might be noted, was hostile to rural life.  Indeed, Marx, who thought up his nifty ideas while taking up seating space in British libraries rather than going out and actually working, grew so frustrated with rural people that he declared rural life "idiocy", which probably nicely reflects that in most rural communities some guy who showed up in the library every day and showed no sign of working would probably be asked to go do something else.

Indeed, the rural hallmark of the introduction of Communism in rural Russia was to halt an evolving transfer of the land to the rural residents and terrorize the most successful individual farmers with famine being the predictable result.  Farming in Germany in general was doing well enough throughout the 20th Century prior to 1945 to the extent that the Nazis didn't really touch it that much during their horrific reign as they were somewhat afraid of doing so and rural Germans never embraced the Nazis, unlike their urban fellows.  While Nazi economic policies would have created long term disaster for German farming and real horrors for rural areas, including farmers, for the rest of Europe, had the Allied victory not ended them, the introduction of Communism in the East certainly didn't' create economic bliss of any type.

Not that the approach in the Western world has been a lot better, but analysis like by Krugman are so dense to the economy that they can't be expected to grasp that.

Indeed, that's long been the case with American economic pundits and economists in general.  The United States has long had, and all of the Western World now has, a Corporate Capitalist economy.

That's not a free market economy, even though we think it is.  As a Corporate Capitalist economy we have long had state intervention in favor of business consolation which favors large entities in central locations over small ones that are decentralized.  We don't have to have that sort of economy, we simply do as long ago we determined that this is the economy we wanted as it very much favors the increase and consolidation of wealth and that's what our leadership has always viewed as a desirable thing, irrespective of whether it is or not.

Save for a minority of Millennials who think they have suddenly embraced the rotting stinking corpse of Socialism, there's hardly anyone who will consider anything else or even recognize that anything else exists.  The entire economic world boils down to Capitalism and Socialism, in our narrow minded view, and even economic pundits and economist themselves see it that way. And they all also assume that Capitalism equates with a free market, when in fact an economic system that requires state intervention in order to simply exist must also by implication favor some businesses over others and not really feature a free market.

Simply put, if there's a rural crisis, it's because we planned it that way.

Indeed, an honest look at Krugman's topic would, first of all, ask if there's an actual rural decline, or, rather, a decline in general.  

The better evidence is the latter, and distinctly.

The decaying American rust belt, which isn't rural, and an American urban economic environment so bleak that the darling of the new American left in Congress declares herself to be a Socialist and maintains that Capitalism must be destroyed would suggest that the problem isn't rural at all, but rather simply economic.  Something in the American economy isn't working.

For that matter, yellow vests protests in Europe, which are rural centered, would suggest that something in the Capitalist system everywhere isn't working very well, as we've addressed here before.

Yellow vest protest in France, November 2018.

And if that something has featured a long running population depletion from some, but only some rural areas, it's also featured an economic decline from manufacturing areas and an economic backwater in some of the United State's oldest cities.

While that's gone on, the decay of the intellect and sense in reality in those more benighted classes in cities has lead to a very real and ongoing decay in American and western society in general.  In the 1970s this expressed itself with a desperate effort of those in those cities and in that economic class to stone themselves into numbness, something previously really only a feature of the lives of the desperately poor in urban areas. This has never really abated and now its gone so far that marijuana, the drug of the pre World War Two ethnic and urban underclass has evolved to legality so that the monied middle class may more easily stone itself and escape reality.  In other areas, people who previously were concerned with making do in life have reduced their identity to their sexual appetites and want to be known by them so that they define their existence.  All over in the same class personal standards have declined to where features of former working class life that actually conveyed a message, such as tattoos, have become standard in a desperate effort for identity and people change their appearance in all sorts of ways nearly weekly.

Things are so bleak that the USA Today recently ran this headline:

U.S. deaths from alcohol, drugs and suicide hit highest level since record-keeping began

And the niftiness of our present economic direction was looked at by the Atlantic in an article published under this headline:

IDEAS

Workism Is Making Americans Miserable

For the college-educated elite, work has morphed into a religious identity—promising transcendence and community, but failing to deliver.

FEB 24, 2019

Things don't look good, alright, but Paul, where you live is the epicenter of that.

Indeed, things have become so screwed up that suicide has become a Western World crisis, as we looked at earlier this week.

Fascism, which Paul alludes to, and its identical cousin Communism, don't come out of rural areas either.  Rater, politics in rural areas tends to be defined by a distinct "leave me alone" attitude that the current "validate me and my beliefs" ethos of the urban white middle class simply can't stand.  

About the only thing that Paul got right in his missive is that there has indeed been a long term, indeed very long term, shift of the rural population to urban areas and its technology based.  

And its based in that alone.  Nothing about large cities is otherwise enviable or really a long term draw to anything.  The reason that it happens is economic and political.  It's not, as people like Paul would seem to assume, simply natural.

This has everything to do with a system that encourages consolidation over everything else.  Even while we fret over this, lawmakers do everything to make it easier and easier.  

Legal roadblocks in the form of licensing that at one time partially arrested such things have been removed, thereby shifting the provision of all sorts of services, both professional and otherwise, to city centers and large entities.  Consolidation of retail through the use of the corporate business form, combined with the total decay of local statutory forms on such things as land use and zoning, has operated to wipe out local retail through state fiat.  Funding of transportation systems, which are always taxed based in some fashion, has encouraged and then practically required the movement of everything into the dense city center.  Statutory provisions that would address some of this have failed to pass, as in the example of the the Big Box tax that failed in the Legislature recently, or have gone unused, as in the case of the seemingly dormant Sherman Anti Trust Act.  

It's happened not because we tried so many things and they failed, it's happened as we value money over everything else on earth and believe that buys us happiness, even though the long record has shown this isn't the case.

Indeed, that's been shown to so much be the case, that people who really succeed, and acquire wealth, use that to move to rural areas, albeit often sanitized ones where the realities of rural life, or just reality in general, have been removed.

So, Paul, it's not that we looked for solutions and they failed.  We just didn't look. And now the long existing problems associated with the big cities are being ignored as well.  So soon, indeed now, you'll be able to look much closer to home.

From Chesterton.

So, Paul, I agree.  People, including yourself, should get real about rural America. But that would require getting real about economics in a really large sense itself, which few are willing to do, and which I don't expect the New York Times to do anytime soon.

Still more bills become law. . . but not necessarily with the Governor's signature. The Private School Bill

Counties lost their ability to control zoning regulations as they pertain to private schools last week when Governor Gordon, making what was probably the correct decision from a political perspective, if not necessarily from a philosophical one, chose to let the bill that achieved that pass into law without his signature.

The bill came about when a school sponsored by the Freiss family ran afoul of Teton County zoning. The school is apparently housed on the grounds, or in, a Teton County church and is set to loose its lease.  It set about to build its own structure on its own grounds but Teton County did not approve its petition for an exception to zoning requirements.  A summary of the bill is below:

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

FILE NO. SF0049

ENROLLED ACT NO. 67, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

AN ACT relating to counties; exempting private schools from county zoning authority as specified; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 18‑5‑201 is amended to read:

18‑5‑201.  Authority vested in board of county commissioners; inapplicability of chapter to incorporated cities and towns; mineral resources; private schools.

(a)  To promote the public health, safety, morals and general welfare of the county, each board of county commissioners may regulate and restrict the location and use of buildings and structures and the use, condition of use or occupancy of lands for residence, recreation, agriculture, industry, commerce, public use and other purposes in the unincorporated area of the county. However, nothing in W.S. 18‑5‑201 through 18‑5‑208 shall be construed to contravene any zoning authority of any incorporated city or town. and No zoning resolution or plan shall prevent any use or occupancy reasonably necessary to the extraction or production of the mineral resources in or under any lands subject thereto. No zoning resolution or plan shall regulate and restrict the location and use of buildings and structures and the use, condition of use or occupancy of lands for the use of a private school as defined in W.S. 21‑4‑101(a)(iii) in any manner different from a public school, provided that the private school:

(i)  Is certified by the professional engineer or architect of record for the private school as being substantially similar to school facility commission guidelines for education buildings and siting and is designed to be constructed with appropriate materials, means and methods;

(ii)  Has capacity for fifty (50) students or more; and

(iii)  Is owned and operated by a not for profit entity.

Section 2.  This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

It's difficult not to see this bill in a highly political, and even cynical, way.  Wyoming is big on local control, and that's the official governmental philosophy of the State.  Here, however, the legislature yanked local control from a county in favor of basically no control, or what control there will be being vested in the School Facilities Commission.  A person could see that as a victory for private schools, which is how it likely will be sold, but sooner or later the Federal Government under some future Administration will exercise the same sort of control and we'll be howling.  There's no way to be simultaneously for and against local control.

In the background of this, moreover, its hard not to see this as patronage for the Freiss family of a political sort.  Foster Freiss' backers, including himself, were smarting after his loss and there bill about registration dates for primaries was really caused by the feeling that floods of Wyoming Democrats in a state that hardly has any Democrats crossed over prior to the polls to vote for Freiss.  Added to that has been the long conversion of Teton County from a dirt poor ranching, hunting and skiing Wyoming town to a playground for the mostly Democratic wealthy jet set and the crowed they've attracted, combined with Granolas and Neo-Granolas who are also Democratic.  The Freiss school, which is fundamentally a highly conservative Protestant institution complete with English public school style attire, stands against that.  By funding a special bill for it, the backers could either see themselves as protecting unpopular institutions against local bias or inserting a little of their views back into the county.

Governor Gordon was likely tempted to veto it, but if he had that would have placed him square against the Freiss partisans who preferred Foster Freiss over Governor Gordon.  It was probably wise not to politicize this any more than it already was, so in that context, letting it go was probably the smart thing to do politically for the new Governor.

More bills being signed into law.

Some new bills being signed:
. 

A formal bill signing has been requested for the following bills:
Bill No.	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0156	SEA No. 0075	Medical digital innovation sandbox.
SF0111	SEA No. 0080	Community colleges-bachelor of applied science programs.
HB0148	HEA No. 0094	State offices-contract transparency.
The Governor will sign the following bills at the ceremony but no formal bill signing has been requested.
SF0104	SEA No. 0076	Wyoming chancery court.
SF0131	SEA No. 0081	Spending policy amendments.
HB0279	HEA No. 0119	Pari-mutuel commission-distributions.
HB0308	HEA No. 0125	Modernizing and balancing Wyoming's school funding streams.
The Governor will announce his decision on the following bills:
SF0049	SEA No. 0067	County zoning authority-private schools.
SF0149	SEA No. 0077	Capitol complex oversight.
SF0162	SEA No. 0083	State funded capital construction.
HB0120	HEA No. 0105	Energy production inventory exemption.
HB0251	HEA No. 0117	Coal export terminal litigation.
HB0293	HEA No. 0124	UW student housing.

The one that people are likely following is SF0049, the bill on county zoning and private schools.  The Governor is going to announce his decision on that one, which is curious.  My guess is that if he was going to sign it, he would have scheduled it for a signing.  That either means he's going to let it pass into law or veto it, most likely.  And that's likely true for the other six bills in that category.

More bills becoming law. 2019 Wyoming Legislature.

Another selection of bills have been signed into law by Governor Gordon.

A formal bill signing has been requested for the following bills:
Bill No.	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0109	SEA No. 0061	Educational attainment executive council.
SF0115	SEA No. 0064	Order of protection-tolling during imprisonment.
SF0040	SEA No. 0065	Operation of motorboat while intoxicated.
HB0130	HEA No. 0095	Wyoming Cowboy and Cowgirl Legacy Week.
HB0204	HEA No. 0096	Common college transcript-implementation.
HB0297	HEA No. 0098	K-3 reading assessment and intervention program.
HB0082	HEA No. 0104	Veterans' skilled nursing facility.
HB0180	HEA No. 0106	Mixed martial arts regulation.
HB0212	HEA No. 0107	Alcoholic beverages-business flexibility.
HJ0010	HEJR No. 0003	Medal of Honor cities.
The governor will act upon these bills:
Bill No.	Enrolled Act #	Bill Title
SF0099	SEA No. 0057	Voting systems and ballots.
SF0067	SEA No. 0058	Hospital cost study.
SF0088	SEA No. 0059	Firemen's retirement fund plan b-contribution.
SF0107	SEA No. 0060	Pari-mutuel fee distribution-state fair account.
SF0120	SEA No. 0062	Student expulsion hearing requirements.
SF0142	SEA No. 0063	County regulation of livestock grazing.
SF0047	SEA No. 0066	Controlled substances education and administration.
SF0046	SEA No. 0068	Opioid prescription limits.
HB0143	HEA No. 0097	Presentence investigation reports-judicial discretion.
HB0020	HEA No. 0099	Program evaluation standards.
HB0062	HEA No. 0100	Wyoming Utility Token Act-property amendments.
HB0029	HEA No. 0101	Unclaimed life insurance benefits.
HB0113	HEA No. 0102	Special electric utility agreements.
HB0125	HEA No. 0103	District court filing fees.
HB0243	HEA No. 0108	Driver's licenses.

A really interesting one in this set is the one that designates certain towns and cities as Medal of Honor cities.  It's set out below:

ORIGINAL HOUSE ENGROSSED

JOINT RESOLUTION. HJ0010

ENROLLED JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 3, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

A JOINT RESOLUTION to designate cities and communities in the state of Wyoming as Medal of Honor cities or communities to honor the Medal of Honor recipients connected with the cities or communities.

WHEREAS, the Medal of Honor is our nation's highest award for valor presented to veterans of the Armed Forces of the United States for acting with conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty at the risk of one's life during combat with an enemy of the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Medal of Honor medal is widely respected by the military and public alike; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming has been home to seventeen (17) Medal of Honor recipients from the United States Army, Unites States Navy and United States Marine Corps who served in five (5) wars, from the Civil War to the Vietnam War, over a period of one hundred seven (107) years; and

WHEREAS, seventeen (17) recipients who earned Medals of Honor, were born in, or laid to rest in six (6) cities and three (3) unincorporated areas in the state of Wyoming; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming's Medal of Honor recipients are not presently honored by Medal of Honor markers in their cities or other communities with which they were associated; and

WHEREAS, "Medal of Honor City or Community" markers in public places across Wyoming will preserve the legacy of service and sacrifices of Wyoming's recipients; and

WHEREAS, Wyoming deeply appreciates the service and sacrifice of its Medal of Honor recipients and the positive roles they have played in their communities for more than one hundred (100) years.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING:

Section 1.  The Wyoming legislature hereby designates Casper, Greybull, Cheyenne, Laramie, Powder River, Rock Springs and three (3) unincorporated areas, Platte River, Elkhorn Creek and Bluff Station as "Medal of Honor" cities and communities and encourages the creation of Medal of Honor markers in public places in the designated cities and communities.

Section 2.  That the Secretary of State of Wyoming transmit copies of this resolution to the governing body of each Medal of Honor city or community, the Governor of the State of Wyoming, the Wyoming Veteran's Commission, the Wyoming Association of Municipalities, the Wyoming County Commissioners Association and state organizations of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the House.

Chief Clerk

It's a neat idea, but it contains an error.  Little Powder River isn't an incorporated municipality.  It used to be, but ceased to be quite some time ago.

I'm amazed that there's seventeen Wyomingites associated with the Medal of Honor, but then this notes that it does go back to the Civil War.  At one time the Medal of Honor was the only medal issued by the United States military, and even civilians were eligible early on in some military circumstances.  Peace time awards were in fact common early on, and were particular common in the Navy, where more than one sailor lost his life trying to save drowning individuals.

Well, it's a neat idea.

Another surprising one is one that seeks to restrict counties from restricting livestock grazing.

ORIGINAL SENATE ENGROSSED

FILE NO. SF0142

ENROLLED ACT NO. 63, SENATE

SIXTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

2019 GENERAL SESSION

AN ACT relating to counties; prohibiting counties from eliminating livestock grazing on public or private lands as specified; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 18‑5‑207 is amended to read:

18‑5‑207.  Continuation of existing uses; effect of alteration or addition; future use after discontinuation of nonconforming use.

(a)  A zoning resolution enacted under the provisions of W.S. 18‑5‑201 through 18‑5‑206 shall not prohibit the continuance of the use of any land, building or structure for the purpose for which the land, building or structure is used at the time the resolution is adopted and it is not necessary to secure any certificate permitting such continuance. However, the alteration or addition to any existing building or structure for the purpose of effecting any change in use may be regulated or prohibited by zoning resolution. If a nonconforming use is discontinued any future use of such land, building or structure shall be in conformity with the provisions of the resolution regulating uses in the area in which the land, building or structure is located.

(b)  A county shall not enact a zoning resolution or take any other action that eliminates livestock grazing on any private land or land owned by the county without first complying with the provisions of this article.

Section 2.  This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.

(END)

Speaker of the House			President of the Senate

	Governor
	TIME APPROVED: _________
	DATE APPROVED: _________

I hereby certify that this act originated in the Senate.

Chief Clerk

I'm unaware of any counties acting on grazing in any fashion, but obviously there was a concern that one might.