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Humm...the person who was complaining about all the alleged "personal attacks" going on decides to attack me personally by deriding my upbringing finishing by suggesting I need psychological help...what a stunning surprise. It doesn't bother me that you hold a different opinion...it bothers me that a person is willing to hold such a resolute and unshakable opinion that is based on carefully chosen "facts" (at the exclusion of others) and filling in the blanks with innuendo and assertions...it's intellectually dishonest and yes, that bothers me.

So what? That's my opinion. Why does that bother you so much? Did daddy not come to your baseball games when you were a kid? Is that where this insecurity comes from that you can't handle people having a different opinion than yours? If my opinion is such an affront to you because it challenges yours then you need to talk to a shrink and figure out why that is.

That sounds nice, but unless you are suggesting armed revolution, it doesn't really mean anything. Our political process, i.e. voting, is how things are changed in this country. I think a more appropriate suggestion would be for people to stopping whining, pull their head out of their a$$, and becoming politically active. The far left does it so much better than we do, which is one of the reasons we are in this situation. I think Plato said it best, "One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

If it's more than one, it's them. If it's a group of like minded individuals (like thugs), it's them. I refuse to let Sharpton and his ilk to take ownership of such a useful word. Sharpton and the other race baiters are also them.

Yup! Set to the rhythm of Katrina and The Waves song "Walking On Sunshine" I'm walking on eggshells , wooah I'm walking on eggshells, woooah I'm walking on eggshells, woooah and don't it feel good!! Hey , alright now and dont it feel good!! hey yeh NO! It DON'T feel good. Some people have thin skin, and they need to get over it, not the ones telling the truth. The truth hurts as they say.

You win a free Trayvon T shirt and a liftime supply of skittles

I think it's time for the people of this country to stop expecting to vote for someone to fix it and start pulling their heads out of the sand and start fixing this country themselves.

It should be a small issue.

Still LMAO at this one. "I'll be back faster than you can say furious."

That man is shameless.

If Obama gets re-elected, we'll get both ends.

They've been scrappin' for days. They need skittles. Everybody knows that just holding a bag of skittles will make you non-confrontational. My apologies for calling them they. They are individuals.

We are only going to get there in incremental moves, little by little. It's not going to happen overnight. Going in the right direction is hard and takes time. Going in the wrong direction is easy and can be done much more quickly. It's a matter of incrementally voting in the lesser of two evils each time until we move to a good place, even if it's at a snails pace. Now every few elections we may get someone who is a solid strong conservative who can leap us ahead a few squares a little faster, but for the most part the lefties and the Republican establishment are going to slow us down by tossing out milquetoast choices like McCain and Romney. That is until enough people wake up and get involved and get the momentum going a little faster in the right direction a'la TEA Party style. I am personally hoping for a brokered convention where the conservative voice of the American people can put the pressure on to bring forth a solid conservative and dodge a milquetoast disaster.

Told us what? 100% assured: 4 more years of obama will be the SOS (worse, because in term 2, he has nothing to lose anymore). Only 99.999% assured: the GOP loser will be just as bad. But there is a chance things could improve...! Of course, there is a chance the GOP guy could make things worse, somehow. Start another expensive war, or do another bailout, or something else stupid. Romney could even sign off on gun control or obamacare or something goofy. With any luck he will pick someone with some sense for the SC, but even there, since he is anti-gun, he cannot be trusted. He will likely pick "moderates" who cannot be trusted on any topic. Ugg.

There's no Grand Jury because they may rule the wrong way. She needs to bypass that little deal, and continue the witch hunt

So it's not a fact (and I agree that it isn't) that Zimmerman complied with the operators request but you see no disconnect in your assumption that Zimmerman was "pursuing" Martin??? You seem very willing to accept any bit of information that implies wrongdoing on the part of Zimmerman and very slow at best to accept anything that might exonerate him. However, I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise - that's been true of your assessment since the beginning.

It looks like a good concept, but I think a good AR10 style rifle would do about the same job with a faster rate of fire.

That isn't a possible answer...everybody is going to get one end or the other.

Oh we know, we just think we are "smarter" than the reality of truth. Wisdom has been traded for random "knowledge". The reason? two fold: 1. "knowledge" is easy to quantify, measure, and teach. 2. We have traded "truth/knowledge" for relativism and so the connection between facts and the ability to connect those in a consistent world life view is completely negated. It's kinda like we have come to value have the puzzle pieces more than we value the box top picture. Liberal education has fostered this by only measuring info retention and devaluing the ability to create. At the turn of the century we were far less "educated" and yet nearly every major technological advance happened (in the US) during that time. Since then the creative edge (creating) has been relegated to improving existing technology. How many guys at NASA these days could build another Apollo rocket with a slide rule?

There are different schools of thought on bipods. I've never liked shooting with one. They use them exclusively in the Magpul Precision Rifle video. Those guys aren't having accuracy problems. One of the first things Hodnett covers is "loading" your bipod. As you're setting up for a shot, lean into the bipod a little and put some forward tension on it. I've never done that, but will try it next time I strap one on a rifle. I certainly can't argue with the results on the video. They are making some serious shots.

That reminds me of when my son bought his house, there was an outlet in one of the bedrooms that would intermittently not work. We plugged a light in to the outlet and started troubleshooting it. After checking and retwisting the splices and connections and making sure everything looked good, it all worked fine. Then it stopped again. After scratching our heads for a while, the light came back on. That's when I realized that his wife was doing laundry on the other side of the house. I shouted for her to turn on the light in the laundry room, and what do you know, the light came on in the bedroom! Someone had tapped into the laundry room circuit to power the bedroom outlet, but they tapped into a switched leg.

It was a disappointing surprise to see such a level headed man respond to the trouble in Florida by indicating a gun's culpability. Obviously if the guy had been carrying a rake on his patrol and had killed the teenager with that instead, nobody would say that the heart of the problem was the rake. The argument doesn't make any more sense when you substitute one object for another. It's just another version of the same old nonsensical liberal mantra. Guns don't magically go off on their own. They don't kill people simply because they lack a trigger lock. And they certainly don't cast a spell of aggressiveness over an otherwise normal person. If a man picks up a firearm and suddenly feels the need to involve himself in an aggressive confrontation, he accomplished the entire psychological process in his head. The gun was not a part of it. Furthermore, as I understand the structure of our Government, a state can't pass a law in contravention of the federal constitution. A local police department's orders only have legal weight because of the authority of the state, meaning that policemen, also, cannot make unconstitutional rules (such as forbidding watchmen from legally carrying handguns). Therefore I fail to understand how participation in a neighborhood watch program somehow nullifies a citizen's constitutional rights, such as the right to bear arms. If that is legally possible, what other constitutional rights does it secretly render moot? Can soldiers now be quartered in my house without my permission because I am a member of a neighborhood watch? The gun-free neighborhood watch argument just doesn't hold water.

So what. My father was a WW2 vet, as a matter of fact he was in the 101st and fought from the battle of the buldge all the way through Germany and awarded a purple heart. I was an Army infantryman and a working class man all my adult life and have a tech school degree but i'm not a rich Hollywood celebrity. Cosby has no more insight than anyone else because of who he is. Enjoy their movies and TV shows but stop idolizing these people, they're no better than you or I.

Either way, the motor's got a rod knockin'. You can keep pouring all the STP in you want, sooner or later it's going to spin a bearing.

Good grief folks! A guy can't make any contribution to this thread without everyone going nuts and getting their panties in a wad. Go ahead and believe what you want about the law. If you don't want to listen to a guy who worked as a LEO in the very state this event took place, investigated several felony cases of battery, and trained new cops on the law, that's fine. We shall see what the grand jury says and that will be that. However, I assure you that in most places in this country, if you shoot someone just because they are punching you in the face, you are likely to be charged with manslaughter. Massad Ayoob runs down these sorts of scenarios all the time, and gun owners choose to ignore the reality of the law because they disagree with it in principle. If you want to take that gamble, have at it. If you want to consider my general comments about bias, prejudice, and racism as a personal affront, was not my intent, nor was it meant specifically as a criticism against anyone in particular. People are making blanket statements about race, wondering why others are getting wound up over it, then get wound up over my comments pointing out the problems associated with blanket statements and where they come from. If folks want to keep talking about "them" and how "they" are bad people because "they are all" the same, then enjoy the discussion. Just don't be surprised when nothing changes in this world when it comes to race relations. These comments are not any different than the ones made about whites by Sharpton or Jackson. It's simply inaccurate and nonconstructive to stereotype people in society.

Damn! This thread looks like it's going to top out over 1000 posts. And this is a relatively small issue. It's a good thing we're not trying to achieve world peace here or something. No one posting on this thread, as far as I know, is an eye-witness to the confrontation, nor a resident of the gated community in Sanford, Florida. Therefore, we are all getting any information we have through first-, second-, third- and fourth-hand reports, mostly through a clearly biased (one way or another) and flawed media. Talk about a dark, murky and distorted lens. Be damned glad you are not a Sanford, Florida-based police officer, investigator, district attorney, elected public official, grand juror, juror, or judge involved in this case. What a stinking mess. Everyone is bringing their own background, biases, opinions and point of view to this, and that includes me. Lord only knows how this is all going to sort out.

I thought it was quite well written indeed. Also, links in most every paragraph were quite effective for additional clarification and nuance while keeping the basic essay lean and pithy. My terse take: science, statistics, and common sense sans political correctness. - OS

Strongly disagree with you, there, ETP. When a "kid" is strong enough to get you on the ground, sit on top of you, and punch you in the face repeatedly, I can most definitely see that fear for one's life or of debilitating injury is reasonable. It doesn't matter if it's rare for people to die from it. When you're being attacked, you're not calculating odds. Statistical probabilities are not the point. The point is that you are getting your ass kicked. You might not know your attacker's strength, or his fighting skill, or how old he is, or his level of rage, or his reasons for beating you, or if he has a weapon, or if he'll be able to take your weapon, or if he's got friends who are coming to join in. As a LEO, you were trained to fight. You were given a number of non-lethal (pepper spray, taser) and less lethal (baton) options to improve your odds in a fight. You were given a radio which, with a single press of a big button, would connect you to someone who would summon aid far faster and in far greater numbers than would come for any regular citizen. Zimmerman did not have that spectrum of options. He had fist, foot, tooth and claw, which were proving ineffective. And he had a gun, which was overwhelmingly effective. He was receiving head injuries which could have led to a loss of consciousness, which could have then led to him having his firearm taken from him. I agree. Conversely, however, if one would indict Zimmerman simply because he didn't get beaten enough, they have no respect for the inviolability of one's person. The correct reason to return a No Bill is if it is reasonable to believe Zimmerman was attacked, brought to ground, and battered further. The correct reason to indict Zimmerman would be if there were reason to believe he initiated the physical altercation. Due to the lack of grievous harm to his face, you have indicted Zimmerman. So do you believe that deadly force can only be used in the face of grievous harm, or after it? As you've said, Tennessee and Florida law say that you may use deadly force when *you* are in reasonable fear of your life or serious injury. They don't say you have to actually allow yourself to be harmed. According to the available evidence, I believe it reasonable to think Zimmerman was in fear of his life or serious injury. The lesson he's learning is not that deadly force can only be used in the face of grievous harm. The lessons are (A) life is not fair, and ( deadly force used against a member of a protected class will get you into a world of hurt, whether it was justified or not.

Its time we start letting businesses know that if they choose to make decisions to ban the lawful carry of firearms by lawful citizens that our money will be spent elsewhere. I'll NEVER give a dime to any business with such a sign. Sheeple.

If a white criminal commits a crime against a black victim, he's committed a hate crime. Result- Increased penality If a black criminal commits a crime against a black victim, he's a victim of his environment. Result- Minimum penality.

You have a 2 x 4. One end is on fire, and the other has a handful of 16 penny nails driven thru it. Which end do you stick up your butt?

I have more holsters than I have shoes. I have fewer holsters than my wife has shoes.

And there it is. Straight from the playbook. If you are loosing the discussion, simply accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being racist.

Thanks for the info Slasher! Range USA does have the edge though with the date night special haha. It's hard to find that much stiff for your money anywhere else. It has also got my wife more into guns. Anyway's back to the thread.

Romney is simply the white Obama. I'll take him over Obama, but I think we've still got a chance for better choices than him. Come to think of it...if Zimmerman is a white-hispanic, then Obama is a white-black Obama.

The two happiest days of a boat owners life: The day you buy it and the day you sell it. Unless your a bass fisherman, I've found that to be the truth.