“The average response time of a 911 call is 23 minutes,” read a metal sign outside a convenience store, next to an image of a revolver. “The response time of a .357 is 1400 feet per second.”
After two weeks on the road, traversing the mostly politically liberal Pacific Northwest, where I’d met activists protesting nuclear weapons and librarians fighting book bans, I had entered Idaho, one of America’s most conservative states, and my gateway to Middle America’s Red Centre.
