Sporting Clays With Keystone

Guns and Investment

Guns are so political, and they shouldn’t be. The Second Amendment exists for a reason. Today, it exists probably to protect the First one, but when it was first written, times were different. However, the principles behind it haven’t changed.

Pat Buchanan used to joke that it’s fine to talk about regulating guns. But let’s limit it to the ones that you tow.

One of the things I am going to do when I become Nevada State Treasurer is depoliticize the office. The current occupant has overtly politicized the office. That’s a breach of your fiduciary duty to citizens. The treasurer’s office ought to be the least political office in government, along with the controller. Nevada’s controller, Andy Mathews, has done a great job.

The current treasurer said he “wouldn’t invest in guns”. Any professional investor knows that when you put artificial limits on investing, you get subpar returns. If the class of investment you virtue signaled against didn’t perform, you weren’t smart. You got lucky.

For Nevada, the treasury got lucky that the Fed increased rates aggressively 5.25% in just over a year. Since the Nevada treasury is mostly invested in short-term interest rate futures, Nevada benefited. It took no skillful maneuvering to generate that return. What happens now that the Fed looks like it is in rate-cutting mode?

Running a $12 Billion portfolio and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars should be about return on assets, not virtue signaling.

You need skill in the Treasurer’s seat, not luck.

Keystone is a group of businesspeople here in Nevada that advocates for free market policies. I am a member. A week ago, they had a sporting clay shoot down in Boulder City by Hoover Dam.

It was a very windy day, and anyone who knows anything about shooting knows those kinds of conditions are not ideal. Of course, those of us who had rusty shooting skills were using the wind as an excuse. The wind blew the clays all over the place.

I hit some and missed the most. It was nice to be out with my old Weatherby over-and-under that I pheasant-hunted with when I had bird dogs. I do think the next time I do this, I will purchase a semi-automatic. There is a bruise on my shoulder.

I didn’t grow up hunting or with guns. My father had an old bolt-action Mossberg shotgun, but we didn’t have any ammunition for it. My father was not a big hunter or fisherman.

The first time I met my wife’s parents, they sat me down in their family room, and there was a huge gun case at the end of it. I don’t know if that was meant to intimidate me, or not. I jest. My father-in-law got a good chuckle out of it.

My father-in-law was an avid hunter and fisherman. He was a master shot in all four gauges, which is very hard to do. His sons are great shots as well. Some of them have concealed carry permits. His grandsons are crack shots as well. My one daughter inherited the gene, and she is a pretty good skeet shooter. He was very rigorous about how to handle a gun and how to take care of it.

My mom’s father used to hunt and fish. He taught me a lot about fishing. When I would hunt deer, I’d always give him some sausage, and he loved it.

In America, we need to be very careful about restricting the rights of people to arm themselves. We also need to be cognizant that it’s not just about the purchase and use of firearms. Learning gun safety, maintenance, and proper storage is integral to owning them.

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