Rick Perry: Techno-coyote slayer with the best hair in the West

There is so much wrong with the fact that our (Texas) Gov. Rick Perry shot a coyote while out on a jog in a supposed undeveloped part of Austin.

It’s not that he just shot a coyote. Just as Tela Mange said, people shoot coyotes and snakes all the time. Tela is the main spokesperson for the Texas Department of Public Safety. The DPS, as they are called, includes the highway patrol, Texas Rangers (the police not the baseball team) and the governor’ security detail. I’ve called Tela a number of times when I worked as a reporter, just like many reporters in the state have. She is Aces for a cop flak. That is high praise, for those uninitiated.

Tela gave that response to reporters over whether a report had been filed that Perry discharged his gun. Nope. I’m sure he wasn’t required to. If his security squad had all unloaded on the little critter, I’m sure they would still be filling out paperwork through next year.

Therein lies what bothers me more than a little. Why did Rick Perry decide to play “Dirty Harry” and pull-out his .380 Ruger loaded with hollow-points and guided by laser sights? He supposedly was worried about his little dog. Isn’t it always about their “little dogs” with politicians? Look down through the years: FDR, LBJ, Nixon, Gee Dubya dropping Barney on the Texas State Technical College airport Tarmac.

If Goodhair was really worried about the coyote attacking the dog, after he shot it, for whatever reason, did anyone have the presence of mind to step back and look at the situation? Coyotes don’t go around attacking dogs that are in an entourage with  a bunch of folks running and kicking up dust, that is unless they are nuts or rabid or something. If anyone was really worried about the coyote did they ever think about taking the dead animal in to have it tested for rabies? No. That’s because Perry was likely in the frame of mind of that cartoon buzzards featured on T-shirts. The shirts say: “Patience My Ass. I Want to Kill Something.”

It does no good, here, to get into a moral tussle over whether varmints should be shot. Or whether deer should be shot. Or whether snakes should be shot. Or whether despicable war criminal-type murderers should be shot. Or whether you should eat beef or fish or eat an omelette while watching elephants perform with a cross-dressing trainer in a circus. These issues are all perpetual-motion machines. Right. Right. You’re bloody well right. Or you are wrong.

I never shot a coyote. I shot quite a few armadillos and a few squirrels when I was a kid. I don’t hunt and don’t kill animals anymore. It’s nothing particularly moral as it is aesthetics. If I was hungry, I might kill something. I’ve been hungry enough to do that. I once sat on the roof of my house with a .410 waiting for a squirrel or a bird big enough and not buzzardly enough to eat. Lucky the animals knew I was armed that day and stayed away. It’s just as well. It all worked out for me and for them.

In line with the fact that Perry’s story is rather flimsy is that I wonder where exactly did the coyote-killing take place? Was it in the Austin city limits? And I am not talking about the long-running PBS musical show on TV that features pickers and grinners playing before a false Austin background. Most cities have ordinances against “discharging firearms” within the city limits. If Perry and his security team were in an unincorporated area then the point is moot.

Finally, I don’t know much about using laser sights on handguns. I don’t think we’re talking here about a huge rifle-type scope mounted on top of Perry’s semi-auto. If Perry wanted to increase his ability to kill something, specifically someone, I am sure, from what little I have read in gun magazines and Web sites that laser sights might help. But there is just something a bit  unseemly about the governor of Texas — with its cowboy and frontier background — having to resort to laser-guided weapons to kill a little wild canine. Actually, I think most people I grew up with would call Perry a Candy Ass if he couldn’t use something as simple as a .22 rifle or pistol to shoot a critter such as a coyote.

I don’t mean to belittle my friends who use laser sights. But wouldn’t you want to be thought of as a better shot than someone who needs 21st century hardware to  kill something from many, many centuries before? Give me a break, Goodhair. Big old macho guy, surrounded by a mess of cops and needs a fancy pants techno weapon to kill a coyote that may or may not have been a threat in the first place. What the hell is wrong with you, Rick Perry? What you got on? Your mind?