JAB

There has to be some point at which people are recognized as 'adults'. The age of 18 has been the standard in our country for a while for most things. Enlist? Heck, a guy can be drafted at the age of 18 (although it may not actually happen in our lifetimes.) I take kind of an opposite view from you - I say 18 is the age that a person is legally an adult in this country and, as that person has all of the legal responsibilities of an adult (including being charged as an adult for an alleged crime) that person should have all of the rights of an adult - including the right to purchase not only long guns but hand guns, as well (plus alcohol, tobacco, etc.) At the age of 18, while taking a year off between high school and college, I was the department manager for the dairy department at the grocery store where I had worked during high school. Not an assistant, not a night manager but the head department manager. When I got ready to go back to college and could no longer work as many hours I was made front end manager - meaning I was in charge of the entire store when the manager or assistant manager weren't there which, because of my schedule, was pretty much all of the time that I was there. I was responsible for all of the money in the place. I was responsible for thousands of dollars in the night deposit, for running reports at the end of the week to balance the books, so to speak and for supervising employees, some of whom were three times my age at the time. As far as firearms, I had two shotguns that were mine as well as a lever action 30/30 which belonged to my father and to which I had 'unfettered access' which hung on the wall in a gun rack in my room, over my bed, by the time I was 16. I never shot up a school. Sure, there are some 18 years olds who are immature. There are some 21 year olds who are immature. Heck, I have known some 35 year olds who were pretty immature. So where is the line drawn? There are also 18 year olds who are plenty mature and who, as they are expected to act like adults when it comes to obeying laws, etc. should also be afforded the rights and liberty that all adults in this country are meant to enjoy.

Regardless of the reaction here I don't believe such a walkout would happen. At the first sign there might be a protest that was pro gun it would likely be handled as a 'threat' and the school would be put on lockdown, the students organizing the walkout would be treated as if they had threatened to shoot up the school and the media would present them as being either mentally unbalanced or naive and (ironically) too young to truly understand the issue and suffering from the influence of pro-gun adults who are pro gun (and, therefore, uninterested in the safety of the chiiiilllllldddddreeeeennnnn.) That is the real problem - even in the absence of a concerted 'agenda' the likelihood of uneven and unequal treatment of the two sides of the issue by both the media and school officials forms an agenda all its own.

I don't know if there is a stated, organized agenda so much as teachers influence the students on a daily basis. I don't have kids (thankfully) but I do have an example of what I am talking about: My oldest nephew is now in his early 20s. At one time, early in his time at elementary school, he began to resist or even refuse to eat meat. When questioned as to why he had suddenly made such a decision, he stated that his teacher (a vegetarian) had told his class that eating meat is wrong and that they (the students) shouldn't do it. He later returned to the carnivorous fold but for some time he was a borderline vegetarian - not because he had decided on his own that he wanted to be for any real, personal reasons but just because one teacher had told him that eating meat was wrong. When kids are sent to school and told to learn from their teachers and those teachers are placed in positions of authority I believe that it doesn't require a formal, organized 'agenda' to influence the students with the teachers OPINIONS. It only takes a comment here and there regarding things which those teachers have no business, as authority figures and leaders of the classroom, discussing with the students - at least not in such a manner.

I have never renewed my HCP online as the last time I renewed, a couple of years ago, the option to do so online was still in the 'coming soon' phase (as was the lifetime option.) I originally got mine at a Driver's Testing Center in Knoxville which no longer does HCP related things but, luckily for me, the Rockwood Driver's Testing Center does (I live right on the Roane/Loudon County line.) All renewals for my HCP thus far have been done there. When renewing in person they always give me a receipt to show that I have renewed and they say that, along with my old permit, will serve as a valid HCP until the new one arrives if it should arrive after the old one expires. The last time I renewed the lady at the counter even folded the receipt into sort of an open-topped envelope shape that I could slip my old HCP into. Last time my DL was up for renewal I did renew it online. When finished there was a page I could print out that, again, showed that I had renewed and that could be used along with my old DL as a valid DL until the new one arrived in case the old one expired first. Not advising you to wait or not wait just mentioning that, in my case, there were things in place to mitigate the potential issue of the renewal taking overlong to arrive.

The irony is this: Most of these students probably are NOT 18 or older. There are cries, many by such protesters, to pass laws that will strip 2nd Amendment rights from adults who are between the ages of 18 and 21. If they want to have others' rights taken away then maybe - as they aren't adults and are under the jurisdiction of the schools at the time in question - their 1st Amendment rights should be curbed, as well. Maybe that would drive home a point as to exactly what they are asking - that they are asking the government to interfere with a Constitutionally protected right.

Not to mention - unless I am mistaken and Selective Service requirements were repealed without my knowledge - all young men 18 and older are required to sign up for Selective Service. This means that, however unlikely it might be at this point in time, these same young men could be drafted, handed a gun and told to go kill people or die trying. These people will be charged as adults if they commit a crime, can be charged with statutory rape for having consensual sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend who happens to be a year or two younger, are considered to be responsible enough to vote and to enter into contractual agreements but not old/responsible enough to buy a Budweiser, not old enough to purchase tobacco in some places and, now, not old enough to purchase a firearm (not just by retail chains - some states are working on laws to that end.) Either they are adults or they aren't. It is sickening that they would be considered 'adults' when it benefits the government or society but 'immature' and 'not really old enough' when it comes to having all of the benefits of being an adult. I am 46 and don't have any kids so it doesn't impact me directly but, as a person who believes in individual liberty, it still ticks me off.

I also have to wonder - to turn Chucktshoes' comment around a bit - if we wouldn't be hearing a huge outcry from the left if Dick's and Walmart had refused to sell a firearm to the young man because he came in wearing a dress and wanted to put 'Ms.' on the paperwork rather than because he is an adult of legal age to purchase a firearm and to whom Wally and Dick's simply don't want to sell a firearm.

Our support or lack thereof is moot at this point. The precedents have been set. If the government can tell a small, mom and pop bakery that they HAVE to bake a cake for a couple even when they don't want to do so then that same government should absolutely tell a huge retail chain that they HAVE to sell firearms to an adult who can legally purchase them. Otherwise the application and interpretation of the law, itself, is being used in a discriminatory manner and the legitimacy of the courts to fairly and justly interpret and apply the law - what little legitimacy they have left - is null and void, IMO.

I was going to start a thread on this lawsuit but saw that one was already started. I am glad someone is making an issue of this.

More like pole abuse.

First, it sounds like you are doing better and I am glad. Second, I'd say that she is protecting you - especially since she can probably tell that you haven't been well - but once the pack leader gives the okay by opening the door she probably figures that your approval of the visitor is good enough for her. She looks and sounds like a really good pup!

She is actually a mutt. I got her 'free to a good home' at the Crossville flea market. Near as I can tell, based on what the lady told me and the research I have done, she is a black and tan Mountain Cur (a Mountain Cur is a specific type of mutt that is actually recognized as a valid mixed breed by some kennel clubs - in the book, apparently Ol' Yeller was a Mountain Cur.) These were the old farm dogs bred for general purpose duties. They weren't herding dogs but were smart enough to help with herding. They weren't high-bred hunting dogs but have been used to hunt everything from squirrel to wild hogs. They often had/have a mix of hound (for the hunting/scenting ability), terrier (for the tenaciousness and fearlessness) and other breeds, depending on what duties they were intended to perform. She is very loyal and generally pretty sweet but when she decides to whoop up on another dog her entire demeanor changes. Her eyes even seem to change and she goes right for the throat. She hates possums, too. She isn't quite knee tall to me but very muscular. I have seen her grab a grown possum just behind its shoulder blades, yank it up off the ground, heard bones being crushed by her teeth and then saw shake it until she broke its neck. Funny thing, she will bark at people but will usually back off from them if they keep coming closer. There has only been once that I have thought she really might attack someone. See, she knows what guns are and is kind of skittish of them - not just being fired but she will sometimes kind of cower if I am even holding a gun. One morning, though, a cop came to the front door (for something not directly related to me.) I thought Millie was going to go through the storm door to get to him. I don't think I have ever heard her bark and snarl quite like that at a person. I honestly think she saw the gun on his belt and - as skittish as she is of guns - was afraid he was going to hurt me and so was trying to get at him before he did.

For the most part, service animals or not, I usually enjoy seeing dogs in public places such as Lowes, Petsmart, etc. Saw a few at the newly opened (as in opened last week) Rural King in Sweetwater last Sunday. Heck, as long as they are well behaved I figure the more dogs the merrier. Generally speaking it's all the damn people I can't stand - especially all the little brats whose parents let them run around as if they are on the playground and not in a store. My dog hardly ever goes with places with me, however. If I am going to town to pick up something to eat (call ahead and pick up) I will sometimes let her ride but otherwise she mostly doesn't go. She is good with people but not always so good with other dogs despite having been socialized to them at an early age. If she weren't so unpredictable when it comes to other animals I would probably take her more places with me (although not to the grocery store, etc.) Knoxville and the surrounding area is becoming more and more dog friendly with dogs allowed on the outdoor/patio areas of many restaurants. It would be fun to take her with me to, for instance, the biergarten at Schulzbrau but I know it wouldn't be a good idea.

This looks kind of interesting but one of the reasons I carry a revolver is that there are no safety switches to flip, no mag release buttons to accidentally push, no tapping and racking, etc. For me, my first thought was, "I carry a revolver because it is simple to use. Why the heck would I want to add a step to deploying it?" I am sure the gun could still be fired without deploying the extension but in the heat of the moment, if the button is pushed and the extension does not deploy I have to wonder if it would throw someone completely off and prevent them from getting that first shot off as quickly as necessary in order to protect themselves. It is an interesting concept and I can definitely understand wanting more to hang onto with a J-frame. I put a set of the Pachmayr Compact grips on my 642. They fill my hand much better than the factory torture devices that it came with both in length and width AND they cover the backstrap. Despite that, the little snubbie still fits in the same pants pockets it would fit in, before. Best part was I got them for $11.96 as an open package/used deal through Amazon Warehouse Deals.

Sounds to me like two people got shot and then the perp started a fire to try and cover their tracks.

I wanted a 1911. I found a cure for that - I bought one and that got me over wanting one really quickly. Granted mine was just an ATI model but it was nice looking. Regardless of the problems with that, specific pistol I also came to realize that I am not crazy about the platform, in general. Don't get me wrong - I'll jump at the chance to shoot someone else's 1911. Thing is, I have decided that 1911s are like children - I like them best when they belong to other people who will be taking them home at the end of the day. I traded the one I had for a Taurus Tracker .44 Magnum and am much happier. My problem is kind of the opposite of yours. I have found the 'I don't care what others think this is the one for me' carry gun. For me it is a snubnosed revolver - right now a S&W 642. The make/model of the gun I carry most may change in the future but I doubt the basic platform will. My problem is that, although I certainly don't have a large collection of firearms based on what some, other folks on here have I simply can't think of too many that I still want. I mean, I would like to have a Ruger SP101 as a match for my GP100 and I wouldn't mind having a lever gun in .357 but that is about it - and I'm not really even actively looking for either of those. Literally every firearm I have seen from this year's SHOT show so far (with the possibly exception of the new Marlin lever .357 carbines although I'd rather have an older, used one) has left me saying, "Meh. Not interested."

Conspiracy? No. A conspiracy would be if I suggested that the NRA and gun industry were actually BEHIND the mass shootings and similar incidences in order to cause customers to buy more/members to donate more due to fears of gun/ammo bans. I am not suggesting that. I am simply saying that, just as the media uses such tragedies to generate ratings and just as anti-gun politicians use these tragedies to push for further loss of personal liberty the gun/ammo industry and the NRA will take advantage of tragedies and the rhetoric from the aforementioned anti-gun politicians in order to feed gun owner's fears so they can drum up more business/donations. Heck, the NRA pretty much called for a ban on bump stocks but you can guarantee they will fret how all of our gun rights are under threat due to such bans in their next propaganda mailer. Now, I would not be at all surprised to find out that the NRA and possibly the gun industry contributes to the campaigns of anti-gun politicians. Those folks are good for business, after all. They don't call Obama the best gun salesman of the last, several years for nothing.

Just saw this post from DaveTN. My above post is an example of this.

These things can be really strange. I am NOT suggesting the following as a solution as I think it is kind of underhanded - I am simply providing an real life example (to the best of my recollection - I was a kid when this happened and my parents are now both deceased so I can't ask for specific details) regarding the complex nature of such things. When I was a kid - think very early 1980s - my parents purchased a plot of land. Turned out that the people who lived next door to said land had put their fence up far inside the property line, thereby taking some of the land my parents had purchased - land which included a really nice apple tree. My parents pointed out that their fence was inside my parents' property line and asked them nicely to move the fence. They refused. Well, the whole thing went to court and the judgement was that, as the folks who put up the fence had been using that land and had the fence in place for X number of years, it became theirs. Sort of like squatters rights, I suppose. My parents would have basically just been screwed out of some of the land they purchased except that the person from whom they purchased the tract of land lived on the other side. Being an honest sort he made up for the land they lost on one side of the property by giving them an equal amount on the other side. Their purchase of the land was complete and had been for about a year or so by that point so he probably didn't have to do so but he did. Now, as I said that was dang near 40 years ago so laws, etc. might have changed but the bottom line is, if laws are still more or less the same, a case could possibly be made that if the outbuilding has been on that property for X number of years the land now belongs with the tract you are purchasing. Once, again, I am not saying this is the route to take and I think it would be pretty underhanded - not to mention not exactly getting off to a great start with the new neighbors. It is more that your case made me think of an interesting story about how screwy property laws can be.

As a reformed Baptist who is now more or less a Deist Graham was one of the few televangelists who I could stand. I didn't agree with him on everything but I do think he was genuinely a good person as opposed to a scam artist. Heck, though, the man was 99. He had a good run!

Many times I have said that I would consider the ammo shortage to be 'over' when I can walk into a Walmart and consistently see .22LR ammo on the shelves. That has been mostly the case for the past, few months. The real 'end' for me, however, was when I was in the Turkey Creek Walmart on Monday evening and saw that they not only had .22LR ammo on the shelf but that they had bulk packs of Remington, Winchester and Federal .22LR - shelves full of them - and the prices were more or less what they were before the shortage began (especially when we adjust for four or five years of inflation and natural, what would have been gradual, price increases.) To put the cherry on top, I have been consistently seeing one or another type of .22WMR ammo on Wally shelves - including Winchester Super X (the original WMR load) that are still going for a bit over ten bucks for fifty. For the past, few years WMR ammo has been a veritable leprechaun riding a unicorn while chasing a gryphon through the streets of El Dorado. Consistently seeing WMR ammo - and often more than one type - on the shelves of Wally World is, to me, a sign that the ammo shortage - at least for common (and maybe slightly less common) - calibers has 'ended' (well, more likely hit a lull, I think.) I know that Walmart isn't the be all and end all of ammo retailers. However, like it or not they are one of the most prolific chains that sells ammo (they sell ammo in all of the locations of which I am aware, at least.) Because so many people shop there and they tend to have pretty good prices Wally locations are also among the first places to run dry when there is an ammo scare and one of the last places to be completely restocked when the scare is over and demand goes back to normal. Sadly, I don't expect this lull to last more than a couple of months before there is panic in the Sporting Goods department and people are once again going online and into Walmart, Academy, and their LGS to buy up every round of ammo, every box of reloading supplies and every Nerf dart they can get their hands on once again. My suspicion is that many of those first-time gun buyers who purchased guns during the scare (because they thought they soon might not be able to get them) and purchased a lot of ammo either to 'stock up' or because they wanted to practice shooting have probably grown tired of their new 'hobby', put the gun in the closet or their sock drawer and gone back to collecting stamps or whatever. Heck, some of them might even be helping to drive the new-purchase market down by selling off some (or all) of the guns they bought as well as some (or all) of the ammo. In other words, I think that the high demand was a temporary uptick that was sometimes falsely inflated by guys who were buying everything they could get their hands on to resell at inflated prices. Unfortunately, with the general ammo shortage coming so closely on the heels of the previous shortage that was pretty specific to .380 ammo, the industry has now seen how much of a boon such a scare can be just as the NRA learned long ago that allowing threats to our gun rights is good for their business model so I expect them to do all they can to 'encourage' such scares in the future - but only after they have raised their prices due to 'decreased demand' (and them raise them again due to 'increased demand' once the next scare begins.)

When I got my HCP back around '08 the instructor's wife assisted him with the class. She was (I guess still is) a school teacher. I can't remember if she taught elementary or middle school. Like him, she also shot competition. As part of a conversation during the class break she said that she wished she could carry at school. She also said that she had done what could be the closest she could legally do - she had made the resource officer aware of her proficiency with handguns and told him that if there were ever an 'incident' at the school if he could get a gun in her hands then he would have backup.

That stinks about the Colt getting stolen. I would like to have one of those convertible Blackhawks. I have heard good things about .41 Magnum but have no experience with it. Not to take the thread in a different direction but just out of curiosity, as you have a penchant for SA revolvers, did you ever have a Blackhawk in .30 Carbine? I saw one in a gun shop years ago but didn't have the carbine to go with it at the time. Now that I have a carbine I can't help but wonder how good a combo those would make. Not that I would be likely to buy the Blackhawk at this point unless the price were just amazing - seems like I have more guns than I have time to shoot them as it is - but I still can't help but wonder.

Nah. I'll wish it were a 12 gauge pump with an extended tube mag loaded up with 00 Buckshot. Otherwise, I am really not convinced that it would make all that much difference. Once you get to the level of .38 +P or so - as long as you get good hits - my belief is that a person who isn't going to be stopped by a few rounds from that probably isn't going to be stopped by the same number of rounds from any common, defensive handgun. For handgun defense against big critters who might want to have me for dinner I want something with 'magnum' in the name. All that doesn't mean I still wouldn't like to have a Bulldog, though - that is if, as you say, the ammo were more available and less expensive, particularly good SD ammo.

Sounds like a nice project. Just curious - do you still have it after all these years? I was feeling all jealous of the gun prices you mentioned but then decided to try and find out what they would be in 2018 money. According to an inflation calculator I found here: http://www.in2013dollars.com/1954-dollars-in-2018?amount=100 $32.95 in 1954 dollars is about $303.61 in 2018 dollars so I guess the relative prices of police trade ins haven't really changed that much over the years. Would still be really nice if we could pick up good shooters for $32.95, though. Oh, and you got our first .44 Magnum the year I was born. Thanks for helping me not feel as old.