RichardR

Well from a liberty standpoint I believe that an adult should be able to consume anything they want, be it transfats or heroin. From a fathers standpoint I have seen the negative impact mary-j has had on one of my kids, granted they are an adult and they arnt in danger of OD'ing but it sure does make a person lazy and unmotivated! If it (the decision to legalize) was up to me, I would probably side with liberty, for no other reason than the fact that we should be free to make those decisions for ourselves, even if they are bad or unhealthy ones.

I'd probably take a good steel roofing hammer over either a pry bar or baton, be it collapsable or other wise. Not only is a roofing hammer good for prying, it can be used to drive nails (important for either rebuilding, repairing or fortifying) as well as can be used as a weapon for smashing skulls. I have a few machetes that I use to clear brush and stuff but I am not sure I would want to use them as a weapon, as soon as they hit/cut into a heavy bone I am guessing that they'd become lodged in it, just like they do when they strike a thick piece of brush that they don't cut through with that first strike. Crow/pry bars are either to heavy or to short or to thin for me to seriously consider relying on as a melee weapon, the ones that are long enough to get a decent swing with are to heavy for me to swing repeatedly or they are to thin to reliably deliver the sort of killing blow I'd be looking to achieve with each swing. Batons, over the years I have been issued straight batons, tonfa-type batons & collapsable ones, while they can be lethal if the target is someones head, they are more of what is known as a less than lethal, pain compliance device, and having used them for years I'd say that it would probably take repeated blows to a zombies head to be effective in putting them down for good.

I have a P226R DAK that I absolutely love & I am thinking that your P226 X-5 tac would be a great addition to it. Wanna trade? I think that I have at least one good kidney that I could part with!

*shrug* I believe that even if you legalized narcotics there would still be plenty of gangs, violence and crime. It really just boils down to the fact that bad people just do bad things, extortion, kidnapping, rapes, robberies, all of that will still go on, maybe the lower cost of legalized narcotics will help reduce it some because "junkies" will have an easier time aquiring their fixes, but I just don't think that bad people will suddenly stop doing bad things as a result.

Heirloomseeds.com is where I usually buy new seed stock from when I need too, after the growning season is over I simply allow a couple of each garden fruit/vegetable species to "go to seed" though and harvest my own for use the next spring.

Pump shotgun in either 20 or 12, preferably one that comes with a short 18.5"-20" barrel for HD and a longer 26"-28" barrel w/adj chokes for hunting. $300ish My personal preference is for Mossberg 500 & 590's but I have had no trouble from any of the Rementon 870's I have owned. Lastly I'd probably buy a case of 250 shells of either 00 or #4 buckshot $250ish, spend the rest of the remaining $50ish on assorted 25 shell boxes various shot sizes for small game #4 -#7 shot &/or some 5 shell boxes of rifled/brenneke slugs for large game.

Regardless of caliber you'll actually want the longer carbine buffer tube, preferably one that has foam covering so that even without a stock on it they can be sort-of shouldered and you can get a decent/stable sight picture, this is even easier if you use a holosight. The shorter tubed & piston varients you have to use a sling, fully extend the weapon creating a nice tight lockup against the sling in order to keep the weapon stable enough to sight down the sights/hit anything. The muzzle blast from a 7.5" 5.56x45mm is extremely harsh though, so double up on your hearing protection, recoil isn't that bad but the bark is truely impressive something to behold. While they are definately head turners at the range, other shooters can not only "feel" the blast from several lanes away they are loud enough that they will make ears ring even if they are wearing good hearing protection, so make sure to be as considerate to others as possible when taking them out to a public range. Other than that, reliability seems to be really good if you run them wet, in fact I have never had a malfunction that I can recall, they make a nice portable package & they will fit into most gym bags, of course the shorter the barrel gets the more that the outputted power is diminished but they still are really nasty lil buggers within 75-100 yards. Some guys prefer to use heavy gr bullets in theirs but I have found that that 55gr FMJ in a short 7.5" 1/7 twist rate barrel are just stable enough to accureately reach out to 75-100 yards while retaining just enough velocity to still tumble & fragment.

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I am seeing an increase in local activity, seems to be a lot of restlessness lately, lots of small fights erupting, groups of kids & young adults roaming around at night being loud and obnoxious. Not sure what is going on yet, could just be that they are taking advantage of the cooler weather.

I am also thinking that the vast majority of these "cleaning incidents" are suicides, Drudge Report had an article yesterday that suicides in the US now claim more American lives than car accidents do. Pretty sad if you ask me.

*shrug* what typically happens? And I'd probably put the number of hard-core leftists in this country easily in the millions, at the very least there are more than enough for a prudent man to take seriously. Anyway I've dismissed a lot of this sort of stuff over the years, now I am wondering if it would have been wiser if I had been paying more attention.

That book sounds very interesting, thanks for the recommendation Leroy. As far as Homeland Security buying 1.4 billion rounds worth of "carry" ammunition, it is at the very least curious in nature and absolutely terrifying to think about at it's very worst. I am not sure which way to feel at this point, but I can't shake the same sort of feeling of impending dread that some folks must have also been feeling in Germany circa mid 1930's. I sure hope I am wrong, but I am seeing the same sort of "blame those people over there for all of your problems" rhetoric & policies that they did so I can't help but wonder just how far this administration is willing to go down that same road. If Jeremia Wright & Bill Ares (sp) are any indication of just how radical this President's administration could be, than I am afraid that they might be willing to travel all of the way down that exact same road in order to get the nation to where they want this nation to be. Which is not anything remotely like it is or ever has been before.

These days it isn't as big of a problem as it used to be, most manufacturers have redesigned both centerfire and rimfire firearms to help minimize dry firing related damage and the modern alloys used for making firing pins are a lot less brittle than the old carbon steel ones. But there are still a lot of very fine older weapons out there that you could damage by dry firing, so make sure you know which is which or at the very least least use snap caps if you are unsure.

Thanks for the clarification Leroy, I enjoyed reading it. I haven't really delved too deeply into this topic beyond publically speculating that the only rational reason for these massive amounts of ammunition (slated for Homeland Security use) is clearly because of our current Presidents stated goal of creating a "super-sized" national police force. And that the only rational explaination that I can think of for creating such a powerful police force would have to be to quell future civil unrest, but it would have to be such wide spread civil unrest on a scale of/that which existing law enforcement agencies/national guardsmen would be unable to control. As to the potential causes of such future civil unrest? I (intentional or unintentional, result is still the same) collapse of our monetary system ranks as the most likely, unfortunately zombie virus outbreak is probably the least likely. But to be honest I haven't really put much thought into what our judicial branch of government would do in such a crisis, especially if some of those black robed folks who ruled wrongly simply started dissappearing like what historically has happened in other "coups" but alas I am not sure that I want to go down that particular rabbit hole with any speculation, at least not just yet, that still seems a bit tin-foily to me at this point. I am enjoying the conversation though.

I don't think its "loony" to ask questions or to speculate about something as potentially as serious a topic as this could turn out to be. Especially when it has been the stated goal of this administration (paraphrasing:) "to create a national police force, just as strong and just as well armed as our armed forces". That isn't tin-foil hattery, that's just what the President said he thought this nation needed. Personally I don't think we need a domestic militarized national police force that rivals the worlds most powerful military in size & strength, but there is no denying that our current President does and these ammunition purchases would be in-line with those stated goals he laid out for us. Why he believes we need a domestic police force of that massive size & strength can only be speculated on, but there is no rational explanation that I can come up with other than to quell some sort of large scale civil unrest that has not yet occured yet. Think about that for a few minutes and let that sink in.

A bar laundry soap, hard to find these days but usually can be found either online or for some-odd reason at Mexican grocery stores, some clothes pins and clothes line.

Lester, I am sure that they got bulk pricing, but unlikely that they got premium ammo for the same price they would have gotten the same amount of cheaper target ammo for, premium ammunition will always cost more to manufacture than cheap target stuff, especially if we are talking about a billion and a half rounds of ammunition, even just a few extra grains of powder would add up to an extra couple of train cars full of powder, and a miniscule 1 extra second per bullet of additional manufacturing would end up costing thousands of hours in extra processing. Anyway I dont think that very many of those Syrian rebels are armed with .40, 5.56 & .308 caliber weapons, while those calibers are very popular here in the States they are not all that common in that part of the world where soviet era designed weapons are more commonplace, I think it is safe to say that this ammunition is intended to be used right here in the US.

1.4 Billion (with a simply put is a staggering amount of ammunition for "domestic law enforcement" a branch of our armed forces buying this enormous amount of ammunition probably wouldn't raise any eyebrows but we are not talking about this ammunition being used over in Iraq or Afganistan, this ammunition is for use here on US soil, by domestic law enforcement agents, assumably against US citizens. There are no other conclusions, that is it's purpose. Now with that said, what specific reason would preempt our government to procure such a vast stockpile of ammunition for domestic use, when there (to my knowledge) never been a shortage of ammunition in the supply to any of our law enforcement agencies or academies? It is not like our police forces are in constant short supply of anything, let alone in constant short supply of ammunition. The whole "nothing to see here, move along" explination just isn't cutting it with some folks, there is a genuine concern that there is preparation and planning for large scale "civil unrest" by our government, and I personally think that concern is looking more and more legitimate and not just wingnut tin-foil hattery. I for one would like a better explaination than the "everything is fine, situation normal" Han Solo one.

Since we are talking about an DPMS & Armalite parts gun put together by an unknown builder, value to me would be cost of parts, minus 25% because the weapon & parts are now considered "used" and no one is going to pay anywhere near "new" prices on "used" parts from either of those two manufacturers. The actual configuration isnt a bad or less desireable one, at least not in my opinion, A2 standard service rifles are great rifles, they just are not as tacticool these days and a bunch of aftermarket junk cant be hung on them as easily.

Well Will, I own several shotguns most of which are for hunting, one of which is for HD but you are essentially correct, any one of my shotguns could be used to defend my home against an intruder, but it is sort of difficult to swing a 28" barrel around inside of a dwelling, limiting your ability to search/clear with one like that. But HD shotguns can also be used for hunting, typically their shorter barrels & wider chokes are not ideal for launching a nice tight pattern of pellets at long ranges but with the proper shell load they can successfully take any game any other shotgun can, they just wont be ideal for doing so. Sort of like using a crappie pole for catfishing, it will still catch catfish even if it was designed for catching crappies.

Duh posted to soon, but here in TN they are a bit more restrictive, not entirely unreasonable but still have to educate yourself on the differences if you want to remain "law abidding".

I moved from Indiana & it was the same way there, anyone able to lawfully own a firearm was allowed to carry a loaded long gun anywhere they wanted except schools, fed buildings, airports, etc.

One of my favorites has always been that huge hand cannon from the movie "Hellboy".

If JHP doesn't expand the ballistic characteristics are similar to FMJ anyway, so I wouldn't worry to much about it.

I had to do the same ballistics testing for a paper I had to write while I was also in college, I used line of milk jugs filled with water & I was able to recover most of the rounds.