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Appearance of empathy is more important than actual empathy in our society.

Me, in Nam, Mar. 1967, with my NIB M16 w/ M203 grenade launcher attached underneath.

More like this.

I saw a video similar to this year's ago, but this one is much better. I had the first gen. M16 in 'Nam, 1967. There was no 3 shot burst then. You could empty a 20 rd. mag in a heartbeat. Wasted ammo. I rarely used it. Ammo was hard to come by, you did not want to run out in a firefight. Full auto had a tendency to climb up & to the right. You could fire semi & stay on target better. Not necessarily the good old days.

Yes, in medical science it's call a "vector." Most diseases are transmitted by contaminating a surface with the virus, someone else touching that surface, and then they either rub their eyes or pick their nose which causes the virus to penetrate the mucosa to enter the body. I place more of an emphasis on sanitizing my hands as I leave a public building or entering my car over a mask. I DO wear a mask out of respect for the businesses that require it. Early reports of virus spread directly through the air were questionable because they did NOT know the incubation period of the virus. In other words, you may think that you are quarantined on a ship, but that doesn't mean that you didn't already have it, and it's just been cooking away in your DNA until ready to break-out. To put it bluntly, this virus caught the medical profession off guard, and they were scrambling to crap answers for the public. Unfortunately, it became politicized in the process to induce panic. I speculate that after pervert Joe takes office it'll suddenly not be such a big deal, and he'll push the vaccine as if were his accomplishment.

All the dumbazzes stumbling around WalMart staring at their phones while wearing masks on their chins aren't helping a damn thing. You may feel good doing it. Other people may feel good about you doing it, but that doesn't change the fact that masks are simply window dressing.

But it looks like you care. Virtue signaling is a powerful tool in today's world.

I have the FA one with the bucket and sifter. Does the job fine for about $70 IIRC.

If viruses were only passed via folks urinating on one another, this would make sense.

Thank you KahrMan!

Good ole VSTO. I bought at $7 about a year ago. Been a nice ride up to the $20s.

I'm not a fan of masks. But to prevent aerosols from your mouth getting into the air they can do a half ass job. The problem is that people will wear a mask and touch it and then touch a door knob or anything else and then touch their eye and it just gets to the point that their isn't a point to it. Youre never gonna get people to do what they have to to really help with the problem so it seems to me, in my total not-to-be-taken-serious, opinion that your best course of action is that if youre at risk of getting sick stay home. If you're sick stay home. Just gotta play this with some common sense.

I’ll certainly take a vaccine when it’s available and my doctor recommends it. I ain't skeert.

Absolutely! I would say only use used sheets. New ones can leave a gicky coating on cases.

One thing I'd suggest is you seriously consider getting one for yourself at the same time so you are proficient in one of the main parts of your husbandry duties. I have found that when my wife plays with any tech related item, no matter make or type, they all seem to have the same 24 hour immediate fix it line....1-800-mycell#.

I've got this one from Harbor Freight. If cleaning small brass ( 9mm ) you can do about a 100 in each container. I usually fill mine about half full so the number will vary with the size of the cases.

Like Bhunted, Flitz has worked for me on more than one occasion.

They still leak - hence your glasses fogging up when you are wearing one. That's like a smokestack on a train as you walk down the aisle of a store.

I would suggest current generation whichever form factor you ultimately decide upon - they seem to last a long time - and future proofing yourself as much as possible by spending a few extra bucks is worth it. The current generation iPad is a great value - especially when you find one on sale for a few bucks off. Were it me - I'd start looking at the Black Friday ads. If you use other Apple products like the iPhone - checking their News app and allowing 'Apple' news always seems to have a roundup of who's got them on sale. The newly refreshed iPad Air is more expensive - but a truly great device. It may be more than she necessarily 'needs'. I love the iPad mini. I've had one for 7 or 8 years. I'd probably wait until the first of the year before buying one if that were the form factor she prefers, as it's due for an update soon.

Patently wrong. It's more like, if the other guy farts you still smell it because pants - like masks - leak.

A lot of gun owners are so dumb. If you think your planning for the future buying 5.56 at $1.00 or more per round you are terrible with money. BTW Vista Outdoors (a better investment than that 5.56) has a backlog of ammo orders of over $1 Billion.

Yea and some even post pictures of their newly purchased items for all to see. Duh

Ha, ha, ha, gun owners can’t keep their mouths shut either. They do stupid stuff, and then try to post “cryptic” messages like people reading it are as stupid as they are. Solvent trap threads are always a good example of that.

I bought 1000 Winchester large rifle primers yesterday for $31 or $32, I forget which. And yes I plan to use them, not sell them.

This is why I love TGO!

Three Canadian soldiers in a captured German dug-out during their advance east of Arras, 1918

This is what you need.

You are full of chit. I've seen you looking for a gun. "Money is no object" is definitely not your philosophy. LOL! I see you and I are neck and neck on the popular contributor board. We should probably both find something more productive to do.

I've been watching stuff like this ('fuel filters' ), and thinking, it ain't about the money. I'm not condoning nor endorsing, but... There was an implied connection to boogaloo boys community (online chat forums, Ha!), again, not endorsing nor condoning... But if you had plans for and could produce 3D printed auto sears (or 80% lowers, et. al.) and affordably distributed them to like-minded individuals.... in this day and age (and political climate), some people might view that as a patriot acting to help arm his compatriots? Browns Ferry ring any bells? Just thinking out loud....

Why the hate for Corporations? They employ the average worker trying to maintain a family just the same as the small businesses do. The top 10 large corporation in Tennessee employ over a million workers. Everyday hourly workers. Coming from a manufacturing background I just don’t get this “destroy the rich” mentality. Do people not understand that those people and businesses create jobs? As far as poor people go, when you shut off the income of almost anyone; they will be "poor". Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats refused to help them.

For a DIY, strip the frame down to just the plunger tube. Get a perfectly flat sanding block & 320 Auto body shop sandpaper. For the slide use the sanding block in a straight sweep from the very rear to completely off the front. don't stop, hesitate or move off sideways....ever, when doing this motion. The idea is to keep your paper cut lines perfectly in line with the slide. If the scatches are too deep & you want them out, go to 220g paper and then work your way back up to what ever fininsh you want. 400 being topped out. Then you can use the compounds if you want more shine. The frame is a bit tuffer to work around the plunger tube but same idea just miss the tube with each stoke. then sand up to and then away from the tube. Once the flats are done, carefully tape the flats off with quality masking tape and find some one who can low pressure sand blast the slide top and edges of the frame. I use glass beads for a very fine smooth matt finish. Pull off the tape and say hello to your brand new colt! This is a 600 grease loose muslin wheel high polish with glass bead blasted matt

@Erik88 Skip NYC. The 'romantic' impression that filthy ####hole has cultivated in film and television is 1000x better than the real thing. The food is the only good reason to go there. DC is a great town, but I'd avoid it from now until about March, then re-evaluate. The musuems are incredible, but if you go during peak tourist season, you will find it detracts, especially at solemn moments like the war memorials. My time at the Korean War monument was very touching... until 3 busloads of animals from some Philly school district unloaded. That corner of the country occupying NETN, SWVA. and NWNC has got to be some of the most beautiful land in the country. From Greeneville to Elizabethton is some of the prettiest cow pastures I've ever seen... the hills outside Bristol (they're not big enough to be mountains) are the epitome of "Rolling green farmland" (and home to 2 swanky golf clubs and quite a few celebrity homes dontchaknow?)... but I've caught more than a few sunrises on that stretch of Rt. 81, and just about anywhere from Rt 66 on down will give you a breathtaking photograph. Its understandable why the early settlers from Europe congregated in the Shanendoah... Ditto the Blue Ridge Parkway. If I was retired and independently wealthy I'd like to take Lee Highway up and down that stretch (Rt. 11?) Detoured on it through Richmond a couple times due to weather/traffic. I could make that drive last 3 days if time and money were no object!

Not sure what you just said, but go! It’s a PITA driving up there but the museums and history are well worth it...and free.

We tried to tell you!

I’m happy knowing I can load 38 Specials with crushed walnut hills for our next carpenter bee safari out in the barn.

Let me be an ass and say again...did you forget Obama?. I understand if you don't want to reload. But if that's the case you have to horde some serious ammo. The next 4 years might be challenging. Good luck.

Dave, you have waited to long.

I've decided to trade 1/2 my ammo for a private island and start my own country.

I just went with a 1-4X scope on mine. Works fine and no batteries.

Sig Romeo5 gets good reviews

Drunks will be drunks! I'll probably keep the lee setup for a specific caliber & maybe invest in one of those switcheroo mounting plate thingies, so I can change from one press to the other. I'll probably dedicate the Lee for .45-70 since all my dies are perfectly setup for it & I only have one load I use. Everything else I play around with, but that I leave alone.

You will need to talk to a range owner, or have your own range. Either way, the range and classroom have to be inspected/approved by the state.

It reads like you are thinking a bushcraft/live off the land type scenario. I’m curious how we get there from where we are now. Living in the wilderness with only what you find and what you can fit in a backpack and maybe in a game cart is very difficult and has a TON of disadvantages. Even in the most catastrophic TEOTWAWKI scenario, long term survival (longer than 6 months) will be dependent upon if you can raise animals and grow a garden. In the 6-12 months prior to that (immediately following the “event”) when it’s complete and total anarchy with Mad Max roaming gangs (hypothetical) you will want nothing less than an AR/AK and high capacity pistol. But afterwards, you can’t roam forever, when you settle down or bug in, you can have anything and everything (gun wise) you can get. You will have to get a plot of land or work for someone who does. If you really want a 2-gun battery for that either a .357mag revolver/lever gun or .22 rifle/centerfire pistol would suffice I suppose. But you wouldn’t be limited to just 2 guns. Of course the optimum solution is to just live in the country right now, commute to work if you must, and practice growing a garden and raising chickens or whatever other animals you have room for. It doesn’t just happen it takes work and skills knowing what to do. Otherwise you’ll likely not make it past 12 months. Within 3-4 months all game and fish will be gone. You can’t live out of a backpack/off the land indefinitely.

Since we've been battling the flu around our office for a few weeks before Coronamania, my job has already told people to work from home if symptoms of any kind manifest. The medical practice I work with is already coming up with contingency plans of how to keep essential services we provide going while just hitting pause on routine outpatient ones. Every shopping trip I'm buying a few more cans of soup and Dinty Moore to stock the cabinet. Since it's just me alone in my apartment, I don't need the absurd amount of toilet paper you're seeing folks leave Costco with. I'm not worried for myself. I figure if I get sick, I'll have some bad days, but it'll be over along the reported timeline. I do worry about my father. He's in his early 70s, and as a lifelong smoker, has a bit of a higher risk profile. As with any disease that spreads fast, the elderly will be hit hardest. I'm amazed that hand sanitizer is flying off the shelves while bars of soap are pretty much fully stocked. Our society has gotten quite lazy at the most basic of things.

From a first responder standpoint, there are a lot of lessons to be learned here from the emergency management / planning side of things. It's actually surprising to see these issues pop up now, given that this isn't our first rodeo with pandemics. Things like not relying on "just in time" logistics model for mission critical items (such as masks), considering it's obvious even to the layperson that this sort of approach doesn't hold up if there is a sudden surge in demand, a sudden collapse in the supply chain, or in this case, both. It was never meant to. It's in the interest of national security not only to maintain a sufficient stockpile of these items, but also maintain the capability to rapidly ramp up production domestically so that if our main supply route from China is no longer available, we are fully equipped to deal with a pandemic with organic assets, including surges even more significant than what we're seeing with COVID-19. Where we do have domestic production, we find ourselves sorely lacking in the manpower and facilities to meet anything beyond predicted levels of demand. Single points of failure are not uncommon -- 85% of all the worlds IV bags are manufactured in a single facility in Puerto Rico, and severe shortages occurred after Hurricane Maria. There are also additional downstream effects -- prescription drugs that we developed that may have nothing to do with this (ie, blood pressure medication, medication for those with end stage renal disease, etc) are often made in China and India to save money, and we're seeing a shortage in those active ingredients. Healthcare providers will often not simply write you an extra months prescription so you can "shelter in place" / "self quarantine" because they're more worried about you selling your drugs on the street than hardening our ability to deal with unexpected situations (including natural disasters and pandemics). With the flu season being as bad as it has been, a lot of people have already used up their sick days and there is no "national crisis" exception protecting workers from punishment in case of a pandemic on top of that. Companies are telling people they can no longer call out sick, and considering most Americans live paycheck to paycheck they can't afford to anyway. Simultaneously they are not permitted to wear a mask themselves because of dress codes and the companies desire to maintain a professional face to the customer. Coronavirus may not be that deadly to the general population, but experience in Italy has shown that the vulnerable demographics can and will still overwhelm our ability to respond to them, with the result being hospital staffing shortages, delay of routine care that would ordinarily happen in the absence of the pandemic (surgeries, cancer treatments, etc) to repurpose those assets towards expanding ICU capability and staffing. In the end, this means mortality rates that would normally be pretty low because we're able to provide focused care to those who are especially vulnerable are instead significantly higher than they ostensibly should be because we're simply don't have the assets to give everyone that same level of care we're used to when the resources aren't saturated. Some of the anecdotes coming out of there are, conservatively put, unpleasant for both the populace and provider (ie, people arresting in ICU with no interventions made) Social Media is, of course, polarizing as it is with all things. "It's the end of the world", or "it's nothing at all to be concerned with"... and like most things the truth is somewhere in the middle, and depends on your perspective. Losing a loved one can certainly feel like the end of the world, and it's cold comfort to console them with the statistics that it wasn't very likely. The economic repercussions to the global economy stemming from a single person eating a single bat on the other side of the world turns out to be immeasurable and yet to even be fully realized. Our response to this butterfly effect, a tragedy of the commons. Perhaps ameliorated if we were all on the same page, but when have we ever been? The mainstream media is no help, they've long since dropped any veneer of being unbiased and left journalistic integrity by the wayside, sacrificed at the alter of clicks, views and ad revenue so they of course continue to sensationalize everything. I'm not as upset by that I suppose because that's what I've come to expect from them, and I'd prefer too much noise to too little signal, with the recognition that we as citizens should be equipped with the judgement and experience to be able to pick the useful bits out of the din where we can. So in a broader sense, it's not Coronavirus itself, it's what it represents and the illumination it's provided on some serious cracks in our ability to effectively to respond to natural disasters, including pandemics. Upon discovering these issues I can't help but get a sense of incredulousness. Are you kidding me? Many of them are entirely preventable and were simply policy choices. To find out with trillions spent this sort of thing has been going on decades, spanning administrations.... It's common sense to even the layperson, even if just in principle, that this is not the correct approach, and it was only a matter of time until these problems were revealed, if not through corona virus than something else. There are far too many people earning a comfortable GS10 and above salary throughout Government, the CDC, FEMA, DHS for this to be a thing. Yet here we are. We've all heard "when seconds count, police are only minutes away", and I often tell people that despite our best efforts, first responders cannot be everywhere at once and so as a sovereign individual you share at least some of the responsibility for your own well being until help can arrive. Even for those who espouse the state over the individual this is the case to at least some degree, yet the very thought is met with by gawking by those who has come to be utterly dependent on the state. This experience has only reinforced my understanding that the Government, even if well intentioned, is not a monolith acting as a single entity... it's instead a big ship to steer, and getting anything done through the bureaucracy can be a real challenge, with these delays measured in lives. Penny wise and pound foolish, hundreds of millions to tens of billions in expanding and hardening domestic infrastructure for surety sake is significantly cheaper than the hundreds of billions in economic impacts that failing to do so can bring, especially considering deadly pandemics have always been a matter of when, not if. Here's a recent thread from events in Italy: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1237142891077697538.html

Poot air molecules are far smaller than Covid molecules.

In 2009 my dad sent me a few links. They were from all the big reloading sites. He said watch prices daily and cash in when a price is good. Midway had Wolf primers, they might be $28 per carton one day and whatever price the next day, or an hour later. December 14, 2009 I open my computer before heading to work. Midway had Wolf sp primers for $13.50 per carton, I ordered 5 sleeves. Wolf sr primers $14.75 per carton I ordered 5 sleeves. When I got home I checked again, they were $33 and $35. I got other good deals too. At that time we could spend a few hours at the range with very low cost in reloading.

Youins ain't from around here, is ya?