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The AT&T folks are shouldering a hell of a task right now. I've worked with BellSouth and AT&T telco engineers for years, including the linemen out in the field, and if there is anything that impressed me about them more than their technical prowess it was their professional dedication to keeping "Ma Bell" online for the customer. I imagine that you had engineers in the Nashville area who already had their work clothes and steel toed boots on before they even got the first phone call yesterday. Those folks take pride in keeping people connected. Just keep them in your thoughts because this wrecked Christmas for them and their families, and I bet a bunch of them spent Christmas day in a dangerous environment enduring absolutely miserable wet and cold conditions.

Right or wrong, whenever I hear “Person of Interest” I think of Richard Jewell. I know we love speculating our asses off here, but it’s a solid idea not to make any hard judgements until time and evidence have time to bring clarity.

Why is it that someone cant simply take a minimum level of precautions without being "scared?" I am not so concerned with my own health but I am concerned for my son who has asthma, for our elderly neighbors, for my coworkers, and even the rest of my fellow citizens. This isnt an either or issue. It doesnt mean you are terrified etc. It means you have empathy for your fellow human beings and hope to prevent spreading something you may carry with no or little symptoms at all.

And why would at&t be chosen to audit the dominion voting machines? They can’t even keep the billing for their customers correct.

Let's remember... Let's remember that we're all fundamentally good people here as far as history suggests. I don't understand why a topic like this would inspire arguments between members, but I suspect that tensions are just running high and everyone is on edge. Treat each other kindly. Disagree with tact. Step away from the keyboard for a little bit when you feel the urge to snap at someone. These are skills that we are probably going to need frequently in the year ahead. We might as well start practicing them.

There used to be an NFA section in the classifieds. Few but me seem to remember it.

First bolded comment... go get the context for that statement. He didnt mean what you think he meant. The second bolded comment... Sweden has now said they were wrong. https://www.google.com/search?q=sweden+covid-19&rlz=1C1ASUM_enUS817US817&oq=sweden+covid-19 https://www.politico.eu/article/stefan-lofven-sweden-coronavirus-escape/ Again, you missed the context of the statement you are referring to here. Please show us the charts or even the numbers.

This is what people who keep talking about the low likelihood of death from COVID-19 miss.

I just watched the Netflix show about this recently. Manhunt:Deadly Games is the name. It's heartbreaking what the FBI and media did to that man.

Yeah, it's all kinds of crazy to think people had to leave their families on Christmas morning to do damage control on a bomb site with work hazards galore and temps in the 20s. But most folks probably just want their phone or internet back.

The sad thing is that we might be looking back & saying these were the good old days. Hope & pray not. If someone sells their ammo for what it will cost to replace is it gouging?

Just get closer to your game. I called in this bobcat and took him at 35 yards with my 1966 Winchester 30-30. My eyes are 65-years-old wore out, so yes, iron sights are tough, but still work for me close up. I limit my deer shots to 50 yards with irons. Not hard if you hunt thick woods. If I'm hunting open fields, I still have some scoped bolt guns for that.

Thanks guys, I can't wait to try it out. I've heard they were great running guns to have a 3",Bbl. it's not easy to find some of the parts for. I do have a source for recoil springs but orginal Mags. are hard to find and cost as much as my Staccato P 4.14 double stacks or more. I'll post some pics when I get time to go shoot.

I’m not going to ban you. You are a valuable member with a long history that also does not recognize that you participate in the same things you call others out on. You encouraged us (the mods) to call out people that agitated others. I simply took you up on that offer. I don’t think you’ll find I’m alone in this opinion.

Unless it was used solely as “I don’t want to kill people but I’m trying to get my message heard nationwide”. Then it makes perfect sense.

Now I found it. Been searching for it in this thread, but now I found it. I question whether you know what that word means or if you're using a straw-man argument to drag the Biden election sham into the discussion of COVID. To be clear: I don't think Trump seriously mishandled COVID. I do think that he should have hyped less, but that's like asking rain to not be wet. I do think that the establishment is scared as hell of Trump and weren't going to let him have Term #2 at any cost. I do think we saw that play out in broad daylight. I do think so many people hate Trump that they don't care what crimes were committed to keep him from being re-elected. I do think dark times are ahead of us. I don't think this has any bearing on the medical treatment of COVID.

I admit that I'm not a very good Christian. But lately I find myself praying a lot for the unfortunate people stricken with this plague. May God help us all.

Took the pawpaws about a week ago when they were still a little firm and finally got around to using them! They were a hit all around. Used this recipe: https://www.realtree.com/timber-2-table-wild-game-recipes/wild-pawpaw-pancakes Anyone need pawpaw seeds shoot me a pm with a mailing addy, and you can tell people you have a story about those mystery seeds from china, too.

Joined a few years ago but forgot all about it. Just recently started posting. Been reloading for over 50 years (yea, another old guy). Only lived in Tennessee for 5 years but we love it here. Hunted Alaska from one end to the other for decades and one quick trip to Africa. Went from the bigger magnums down to 6.5 CM, 260, .270, 7mm/08, 06, 30-30, 45-70, etc. My passion is hunting with a handgun but a recent injury has put that on hold. Hope to correct that with a lot of PT in time for next years deer season. Am proud of the fact never shot a big game animal with a factory round. Back in the 60's when I began to reload most shooters and hunters thought reloads were inferior to factory rounds. We have a 50 yard range in our backyard and our deer stands are a 200 yard walk. We eat mainly venison all year and process everything ourself. So, Hi

I'm pretty sure this link just gave me a virus. Is that supposed to be a real news outlet? Why does their web design look like it was done in the 90's?

French Railway mounted cannons during World war One 1916

People not wearing masks.

I’m not sure of the exact way that it’s desired to be done, So I am tagging @TGO David

His livelihood is ruined either way. He doesnt have customers he closes.

POI, which likely means wrong. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nashville-bombing-person-of-interest-identified/#app

Oh my no! I don't go anywhere near Chicago hauling a bunch of firearms.

Funny thing is I've relied solely on TGO for updates since we have members right in the mix and local news sux. I didnt even click on daniels links I simply feel the swell of animosity brewing for gun owners post election, rhetoric starting to ramp back up, and a major gun owner related "mass" something waiting to be unleashed in the coming weeks. And this isn't it, just an appetizer.

News reports said that there was apparently ammunition inside the RV and that it was cooking off due to the fire. There will be some tie to gun owners as a result of this. The Twitter accounts that @Daniel mentioned previously were from someone calling themselves "S McG" or variations of it. The first damn things that my mind extrapolated that abbreviation to was "Shooter McGee" or "Shooter McGavin". The latter was the antagonist on the movie Happy Gilmore starring Adam Sandler.

Another really great tweet thread on the subject.

A genuine " Blast from the Past "..! Aint seen one of these in forever... Im glad ya rescued this guy... On a related note; i seem ta remember that Colt tried a slightly warmed over copy of these pistolas, but they couldn't do anything with the popularity of the Detonics and finally quit tryin. Admirin leroy...

My friend, I may be completely off base here, or maybe somebody deleted something that would have provided context, but your couple comments in this thread make no sense to me all. I’m truly interested in what you are trying to say, but it’s not coming across in a manner that I can put together.

Even on Christmas Day, the drama and random blurts never cease to amaze.

Click through to twitter... you dont need to have twitter to look at it. I'm not sure what to make of all that.

What amazes me is that with all the crap going on, we still can't step back from our hardened rhetoric and attitudes to come together for even a brief moment as a unified nation to deal with the unimaginable shxtstorm that's falling down on our heads.

Depending on motive...that person may have been inside.

I was just typing something similar. This bomber seems to have gone out of their way to avoid casualties, and I see those things you mentioned as proactive steps to prevent loss of life. Everything about this is pointing to something downtown being the focal point. AT&T is a believable target, but it could be unintended collateral damage of somewhere else being the real target. And I'm with you on having to respond to the telecom outages...I have docs leaving their families and headed to the hospitals (who are working through those issues you mentioned) in response to systems that let them work from home being down. One told me he's bringing a bag to just stay until everything is good. Small sample of the best being brought out in a crisis. I'm also curious as to what actually took down the network; the bomb itself and backups failed after a few hours of coverage, or are they doing something with the response that took it out. Suppose we'll figure that part out soon enough.

This has caused significant telcom (voice, data, 9-11) issues for not just the immediate area but the Southeast from what I am hearing. We've been on a call at work because of this for a few hours now, but my business unit relented and told my team to disengage since it doesn't affect us directly. Consider the facts as we know them: 1. The area where this bomb was detonated only has a few things of significance when outside of business/tourist hours. The biggest asset is the major AT&T routing and switching point of presence which was real near this. 2. The timing (very early Christmas morning) and the fact that the RV was broadcasting a recording over loudspeaker to warn people to evacuate both seem to support the notion that whoever did it was trying to minimize human casualties and instead do major damage to property or infrastructure. 3. Reportedly the "gunshots" heard before the explosion might have been flash-bangs or fireworks or some other noise making device meant to bring the police nearby to evac people. It was successful in doin gthat. This doesn't look like a terrorist act, to me. It sounds more like a really pissed-off employee or former employee of AT&T or some other neighboring business. The automated recording and the efforts to clear the area of innocent people support the idea that property damage was the intent. Terrorists don't normally do that.

This all feels quite probitive - response times, tactics, etc. Y’all keep your heads down.

The first "big" revolver I ever shot was a Python. Back in the mid 1960's a very nice man a few streets over taught me how to cast, size, and lube bullets. Then we would reload them. Once we had 300-400 off to the country we would go. All I remember is it was blued and the barrel was about 6 inches long and it was equipped with a scope, Bushnell maybe? In todays cruel world people would think the guy was up to something evil but he was simply nice and kept a lot of kids from getting into trouble. Anyhow.............a Python has always been on my short list to buy,

My PSA AK was languishing in some terrible OD polymer furniture from the factory. Found some proper Russian furniture to make it a proper AK.

It's a shame so many people don't mind having blood on their hands by helping kill off half a million of us. But Murica! Freedom! - OS

China can kiss me Blarney Stones.

Of course China thinks gun ownership is a problem in this country. Most every country without the rights we enjoy thinks the same thing. That’s all of them BTW. Problem is China carries great weight on the global stage now. We have only ourselves to thank for that.

By popular demand, I am happy to unveil to you all a DARK visual theme for TGO. You can select it by scrolling to the bottom of the page, finding the link for "THEMES" and selecting TGO Dark Earth from the list as shown in the screenshot below. The Benefactor members have been helping me test the new design for the past 24 hours or so and I've used their feedback to refine it into something that I think is reasonably ready for prime time use. With that being said, this is still very much a first public release. It's a one-dot-zero (1.0) in tech terms. This means that you and I are probably going to discover things together that I need to fix or modify. When that happens, please use the Feedback and Support forum to report whatever issue you have found. I can tell you now that you will find that other members have chosen to use colors in their posts that simply do not look good on a dark background. It will also become very obvious when you see that someone has copied text from another website and pasted it into the editor here when making a new post. Often that brings over a background color for whatever they are pasting, and it looks like . When you discover that, bear in mind that there isn't much I can do about it. Just reply and tell your friends to cut it out. Alright... no more jibber jabber from me. Get on with it. Bring on the darness!

I'm a 99 Savage guy, but I do like lever rifles in general. I have an older Rossi Puma in 357 Mag. It is a neat little rifle. One in 45 Colt would be awesome.

Hey folks, Every once in a while I run into a China product that is a fantastic value. This easily qualifies for that. After I have pulled a couple slivers I ordered 5 of these for gifts. The capper on just how useful these are is this story. My wife had what looked like a skin tag popping out on her upper eye lid where the eye lashes are. By naked eye, yeah it certainly looked like a skin tag. Then I thought let me look at it with those jewelers glasses set to 15X. It in fact was an ingrown hair that tried to poke out but did a U turn back into the lid skin. I could clearly see the black hair below the skin surface. So with a acupuncture needle, I carefully broke the skin at its furthest point sticking out and exposed the hair enough to grab it with my extra fine tweezers and pulled the hair out root and all. The jewelers glasses made this possible. Even with a basic magnifying glass, it would not have been any help at all in defining the situation. I'v pulled a number of wood & steel slivers out of my fingers with these glasses and its nothing short of amazing on knowing, I got it all within a highly accurate extraction. The 25X lens is way too strong on any operations since my fine tweezers tips look like cannon barrels. Clearly, these are prized as a survival tool. https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-15-20-25X-LED-Eye-Jeweler-Watch-Repair-Magnifying-Glasses-Magnifier-Loupe-USA/254375610539?hash=item3b39f7c8ab:g:19sAAOSwCDxdrsc5

It wasn't hard I guess, but I really studied since I wanted to learn the material. Got a 100. Used both the ARRL book and an app to take the section quizzes and sample tests.

Williams Foolproof receiver sight. A scope on a Model 94 is an abomination.

While at first blush I was tempted to place this into the Ammunition and Reloading forum, it seems to me that this is in actuality the better place for it. Often the subject of "stopping power" in a handgun comes up on other forums and in physical conversations. To be blunt, the notion of "stopping power" from a service / self-defense handgun cartridge as it is envisioned by the general public is non-existent and therefore should not be the primary factor when choosing a handgun for self-defense. It is my opinion and that of many others who know far more about the subjects than I do that you should chiefly choose a carry handgun based on how well you shoot it, how likely you are to carry it due to comfort / size / weight of the firearm, and how reliable the firearm will be. Without passing grades in these three areas, a handgun is in my opinion completely unsuitable for carry. You will see from the chart below that when comparing well-designed defensive ammunition, there are minimal differences in penetration depths and in temporary cavity effects. This photo was provided by Doug Carr. As you increase the diameter and mass of the bullet from 9mm / 357SIG, to .40SW, to .45ACP, more tissue will be crushed resulting in a larger permanent cavity. Also it should be noted that the larger bullets typical offer improved performance through "intermediate" barriers (clothing, vehicle and building construction, etc.). However it should also be noted that for some people, the benefits of the larger calibers is offset by the fact that a larger caliber typically begets a larger weapon frame which begets decreased ergonomics for the shooter depending on their physique. The photo provided above makes it obvious that NONE of the common service pistol calibers generate temporary wound cavities of sufficient size that it would cause significant permanent tissue damage. Refer to “Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness” produced by the FBI FTU, as this remains the single best discussion of the wound ballistic requirements of handguns used for self-defense -- it is available at: http://www.amazon.co...94498334&sr=8-1 So too is the notion of "expansion" or recovered diameter used to support the preference for larger caliber handguns. As seen in the photo above, the bullets recovered from ballistic gelatin show that modern defensive cartridges in the different calibers exhibit similar expansion diameters. Keeping in mind that it is not the size of the hole going in that is as important as the depth of penetration and the amount of bleeding caused within that affects the effectiveness of the bullet, one can see that choosing a handgun solely on the basis of caliber ignores far more important factors. Primarily, you should choose the handgun for carry that: You are most likely to carry rather than leave at home You shoot the most accurately Offers the best reliability Summary: Caliber used as the basis for choosing a defensive handgun is, within reason, bull$#!%. All modern service calibers provided comparable performance and all of them offer generally poor incapacitation ability when compared to rifle calibers. Therefore, choose the gun that you shoot best, that you're most likely to have with you at all times, and that won't fail to operate when you need it the most. Source of much of the data contained within this thread: DocGKR on M4Carbine.net

Continuing with those thoughts, let's discuss why penetration is more important than expansion or caliber size. All too often we read comments on gun forums and hear comments in real-life discussions about the perils of "over penetration" in self-defense shootings and ultimately the conversation turns toward the notion that a mythical sweet-spot exists wherein a cartridge provides adequate penetration yet not too much. When you consider the dynamics of a self-defense encounter (the distance at which the shooting may take place, the way that the body of the individual receiving fire may be angled, intermediate barriers between them and the shooter, the anatomy of the individual being shot at, etc.) then it becomes obvious that it is quite literally impossible to load a cartridge that will provide just enough penetration for every single instance. As illustrated in my preceding post, the temporary cavity effects and permanent tissue damaging effects of handgun cartridges make them poor performers when compared to the incapacitation qualities of rifle calibers. While a subject shot with a handgun caliber may indeed bleed out from a minor would given time, a self-defense shooting requires quicker incapacitation of the subject resulting in a more immediate elimination of the threat. Barring mortal injury to the central nervous system (CNS) via the bullets fired, the most effective means of dealing with the threat is to use a cartridge capable of penetrating deep enough into the subject so as to reach the large blood-bearing vessels and organs in the torso. Failing this, rapid physiological incapacity of the threat is unlikely. In comparison, if a bullet completely penetrates and exits the subject, the bullet will have had enough penetration to reach the critical organs and vessels and will more likely have caused hemorrhaging sufficient to induce hypovolemic shock in the subject. Second to CNS trauma, this is the only reliable means of incapacitating the subject. This bears out two points: 1. Shot placement is critical in any self-defense shooting, not only because of the liability attached to each bullet fired, but but also because failing to deliver shots accurately to the areas most likely to incapacitate the subject will result in that subject remaining a threat. 2. Penetration is king when choosing self-defense cartridges. If you have to choose between penetration and expansion, choose the former.