JAB

I agree about the states' rights vs. federal law issue. Interesting about the Colorado standard for DUI with THC. I did not know that so I learned something. Thank you. There is still a potential problem for handgun carry, however. In Tennessee, for instance, it appears that it is against the law to carry with any amount of alcohol in your system, period. Unlike driving, there is no, established standard for what is 'over the legal limit'. So, again, if that translated to having any amount of pot in your system meaning you can't legally carry then that person who smoked weed three days ago - even though he or she wasn't carrying or handling a handgun at the time - would still be in violation of the law. However, maybe that would force states to create a 'standard' for intoxication while carrying not only from pot but also from alcohol, etc. rather than the 'even one sip is illegal' rule that appears to be in place, now.

You could well be correct and I actually thought of that. As you say, though, it is kind of a chicken and egg thing - how do you convince people to participate in a study which will basically require that they admit to illegal drug use and allow you to document it and, conversely, if legalized - meaning such studies would be easier to perform - how do you handle DUI type cases during the five or ten years it would take (probably at minimum) to develop such testing? Believe it or not, although a lot of this seems off topic for this thread, there is a real, solid reason I see this as a concern in a manner that is very much related to the thread topic. I don't believe that being even a recreational pot smoker should (necessarily) preclude buying a firearm but there are concerns when it comes to carrying a firearm. Until more specific tests are developed legalized pot would, IMO, create too much of potential for problems that would lead not to a crack down on pot use while carrying (because there would be no way to specifically test for that) but to more draconian laws on carrying handguns, period and further limits upon to the ability to do so. I believe we would see a reversal of much of the progress we have made, recently (such as the ability to legally 'carry' in one's vehicle without a permit.) As a non-pot smoker, expanded carry rights are much more important to me than expanded weed smoking rights. I don't want my right (privilege or whatever) to carry to face further limitations just because there is no, good way to tell who is stoned at that exact moment and who is not. I can just hear the (largely pro pot smoking) liberals now: "Since it is impossible to tell who is stoned while carrying and who is not the only, real way to deal with the issue is to severely limit or eliminate the ability of private citizens to legally carry. If no one can carry a handgun then no one can carry a handgun while stoned."

And you can't get a carry permit if you have been convicted of DUI, etc. within the past five years, right? That is a little different, though, because in that case simply consuming the alcohol in the first place is not a crime - as long as one is of legal age and not caught driving, etc. under the influence. The very act of using marijuana, for instance, is a federal crime and illegal in some states. In other words, I see a difference between, "Have you been convicted of a crime involving alcohol within the past year," and "Do you smoke pot, sometimes?" Besides that, isn't TICS basically just NICS with an unnecessary $10 fee appended?

I numbered the above statements for clarity in my response. 1. That is my point - you could have people who are stoned out of their gourd but who claim, "That's showing up from where I smoked a little last weekend." Conversely, you could have people who are sober at the time but who are charged because it shows up in their system where they smoked a little last weekend. See, I'm not just talking about people who are seriously impaired while driving, carrying a handgun in public, etc. getting away with it. I am also talking about people who really are not under the influence at the time being charged with DUI or carrying while impaired because they smoked some three days ago. With alcohol there is not much room for doubt - you show a significant BAL then you are intoxicated (yeah, some hardcore alcoholics can have pretty high BALs and not really be impaired but they are a minority exception.) 2. Do we really want 'was he stoned or not' to be determined in a court of law by a cop? Sure, observed behavior can give probable cause to stop, search and so on but the opinion of a cop or a few cops being the sole determining factor - once it is determined that, yes, this guy smoked pot sometime in the last, two weeks - in whether or not a person is convicted of DUI from smoking pot? Being able to say, "He was showing signs of..." in court is one thing and is valid as a reason to stop someone, etc. and maybe even as evidence to corroborate a definitive blood test and so on but when it can only be known that the person has smoked pot sometime in the last, two weeks or so to use that testimony as, basically, the main evidence upon which to convict someone isn't something I'd want to see. Now, if the officer or another witness actually saw the guy smoking a joint, the joint was recovered at the scene of the arrest and a cloud of cannabis smoke issued from the car when the driver rolled his window down that would be different. However, if the dude toked up at home and then decided he needed more potato chips and Hershey bars so immediately got in his car then the only, real evidence he had been smoking that night would be the officer's testimony that he was 'acting stoned'. I have known people who pretty much acted stoned most of the time - and some of them didn't do any drugs. As I said, before, I am not against legalizing pot. Heck, people are going to get it, anyway and I don't believe the government should tell them they can't so rather than wasting money fighting a 'war' on pot that will never end legalize it, license it, tax it and turn it into an incoming revenue stream rather than an outgoing one. Legalize private growing for personal use, as well (I also believe it should be legal to make 'shine for personal use and not just as fuel for vehicles - and I would be all over that.) I just think that, unlike testing for being intoxicated with alcohol specifically at inappropriate times (like when driving), testing for being intoxicated with marijuana specifically at inappropriate times isn't really possible - or at the very least not as clear cut - at the present time and that would create many legal issues which could work for or against any given defendant and make giving a fair trial and determining guilt or innocence in such cases nearly impossible.

You can't be denied a license for using drugs? Actually, you can although not exactly in the way you mean. A person can absolutely lose their license for a period of time for driving while impaired and if that person tries to get their license reinstated before the time to which they are sentenced to be without a license is up they will be denied a license for drug use (while operating a vehicle.) As for the detection time chart that is interesting but that still doesn't negate the fact that the person who is arrested for driving under the influence, chronic user, casual user or whatever could claim that they had not used pot that day and there would be no way to prove or disprove what he or she is saying. Further, I would guess that a person who has a medical marijuana card probably needs to use marijuana on a daily or almost daily basis (and I am not denying that they could have a very real, very valid need) which would likely put them in the 'chronic user' category. Further, as I stated above, I knew people who smoked so much pot that they actually smoked between classes at college. They smoked it more or less every day and sometimes several times a day and so would have fallen into the 'chronic' category. However, that doesn't necessarily mean they were always high nor that they drove while high. It isn't an easy issue because, while there are definitely 'abusers' I do believe there are also very valid, medical uses. Heck, I even have a personal anecdote about that. I have had life-long stomach issues and sometimes wake up feeling a bit queasy. Well, back in the '90s there was a friend of mine who lived near me and worked where I worked. Her car wasn't all that reliable so I would often give her a ride to and from work. Usually she wasn't quite ready when I would get there so I would go up to her apartment to wait for her to finish getting ready. Well, she would often 'wake and bake'. This meant that the smoke, etc. was gone by the time I got there but the smell was still in the air and I noticed that, just from the smell, my queasiness would always almost instantly go away, my stomach would settle and I would be fine for the rest of the day. Even with medical applications aside, I am very much a proponent of individual rights and the idea that the government doesn't have the right to tell people what they can do with their bodies (whether that be smoking pot or having an abortion.) The problem comes when a person creates a hazard for others by drinking, smoking pot or whatever while driving and so on.

From what I can find, Oxy stays in the system for about three days. Marijuana stays in the system for months and, again from what I could find, can be detected by a simple urine test for about three weeks. Still not really all that comparable. Also, although it is little known, aren't there still laws under which a person can be charged with 'driving under the influence' or similar violations even for prescription drugs for which they have a legal prescription? I am pretty sure that is the case. Heck, I think there are some states that are even looking at criminal charges for operating a motor vehicle when a person is too sleepy. As for your last statement, it depends on the pothead and the drunk. As I said, I have never smoked pot myself but have been around plenty of people who did. I started out at UT as an Art major then switched to English and Anthropology - I have literally been on the roof of the Art and Architecture building with friends who were smoking pot between classes and not smoking made me the odd man out in that environment (although I never experienced 'peer pressure' to smoke it as my friends would offer and when I declined they would be like, "Cool. More for me.") The idea that pot never makes a person confrontational - especially a person who is prone to becoming paranoid when smoking - is a total myth. Further, while some people are "instant a-holes, just add alcohol" I know plenty of people who are laid back and mellow when they drink. The point, however, wasn't necessarily how the two substances might change personality. The point was the level of responsible behavior exhibited by the two and, honestly, while neither might be very responsible (as in exhibiting safe gun-carrying behavior) in my experience I would trust a non-confrontational drunk to be responsible enough to carry a gun much more than I would trust a non-confrontational person who is stoned out of their gourd on pot.

I agree for the most part. Playing devil's advocate*, however, alcohol doesn't stay in the system very long. If you submit to a breathalyzer test or a blood alcohol test and it shows alcohol in your system, especially a significant percentage (as in more than would be explained by taking a dose of cold medicine, for example) then you have consumed alcohol within the last, several hours. Therefore, if you test positive for significant BAL and you are carrying a gun then you are carrying while 'impaired' or 'intoxicated' which is illegal in many places. On the other hand, marijuana stays in the system and will show up on drug tests for weeks or even months after use. That makes it much more difficult to determine if someone is carrying/driving/operating a boat while intoxicated or impaired by marijuana. In other words, if someone is driving drunk, carrying a gun in public while drunk or so on and they test positive for alcohol in their blood then there isn't much wiggle room to avoid prosecution unless they have a really good lawyer who can trip the lab techs, arresting officers or so on up on the witness stand. With marijuana, however, the person could argue that he tried marijuana a week before at a party and hadn't touched it since and there is no way to really prove he is lying (which could mean a guilty person could avoid prosecution) or telling the truth (which could mean a person who is innocent of the crime of which they are accused is prosecuted.) So, while I agree that I don't give a rat's hairy posterior if someone wants to roll up and smoke a Cheech and Chong sized joint and then order 5 pizzas and 50 hotwings I don't want that same person stoned out of their gourds and driving on the streets where I am driving or carrying a gun in a place where I could be arrested, lose my permit, face fines and so on for having one, damn beer with my handgun in my pocket. *I am, of course, not a doctor, a lawyer or an expert on intoxicants and their impact on the human body

The answer would still be 'yes'. As others have stated, as federal law regulates gun sales, as federal law prohibits selling a firearm to a person who uses illegal drugs and since marijuana is federally illegal the feds can deny gun sales based on this even though it is legal within the state and these aren't exactly people buying a baggie on the street corner. Yet another example of the federal government overstepping what should (Constitutionally) be their (very limited) authority - the very thing the Second Amendment was put in place to help prevent in the first place. In other words, the feds are more or less using these laws in ways they shouldn't be used in order to punish both the states (for daring to go against the almighty fed on the marijuana issue) and the users (for daring to think that they should have individual freedoms) as well as yet another way to curb gun sales to American citizens.

In the past I have actually taken the time to compare TN's license costs with a couple of other states. I can't remember the states I looked at but I actually found that, in some cases, those states' non-resident hunting and/or fishing licenses were less expensive than TNs resident licenses. Basically Tennessee has too damn many regulations and too many fees related to hunting, fishing and so on. In this state I believe the regulations are more about bringing in money than providing a good hunting/fishing environment and $$$ seems to be even more important than good, solid wildlife and fisheries population management. In fact, I have actually had a 'game warden' at Reelfoot Lake tell me that very thing in that, according to him, many of the regulations were intended to attract/promote big money fishing tournaments by creating an environment where you had fewer fish but with bigger specimens rather than a larger number/variety of smaller fish/species. In other words, according to him, at least in some cases the regs were designed mostly to create and maintain trophy bass and were actually counter to maintaining healthy, varied fish populations. Is that true? I don't know but it makes sense. I think that the problem likely is that there are too many business people, trophy hunters and trophy fishermen on the TWRA board and not enough average Joes and Janes who just want to bag a couple of deer or catch a few trout without spending hundreds of dollars on fees, permits and so on every year and still not being able to get a clear picture of what is legal and what is not.

I am not sure that is correct. In fact, unless the rules have changed since the last time I checked it isn't. Unless I am mistaken, 'pest animal elimination' is viewed differently from 'hunting'. If I am not mistaken there are different regulations for dealing with nuisance animals than for hunting. Heck - again, unless I am mistaken - you can even get a permit from your local agriculture agent to shoot pest deer out of season. The special permit, to my understanding, is only needed for 'big game'. Endangered or protected species require special permits, too. As far as I am aware, however, there are no special permits needed to kill a non big game nuisance animal. In other words, hunting coyote at night is illegal but pest elimination is not hunting and the rules are different. As the coyote is most likely to show up and be a nuisance animal at night it wouldn't make much sense if you could only shoot them during the day. For example, I knew a guy who had raccoons tearing up his garden. He planned to put out cage traps to catch them and called the TWRA to find out what he should do if he caught some. He knew it was illegal for him to relocate them but wondered if the proper, legal thing to do would be to call TWRA to get them relocated. He was told, by the person to whom he spoke at the TWRA that they didn't do relocations for raccoons, etc. and that the best thing to do if he got one in his trap was to shoot it. Of course, the legal hunting season during that time of the year allows only one raccoon to be taken per person per night but that obviously did not apply to elimination of nuisance raccoons. Further, he was actually more 'trapping' them than hunting them and while there is no limit on trapping raccoon during the legal season that season runs from November through February and would not include the months when raccoons in the garden would be an issue. So, either way, the normal hunting/trapping regulations apparently did not apply. That said, I am not a lawyer and would recommend contacting the TWRA directly to get an answer. ETA: Here is a link to a page at the TWRA website discussing nuisance animal control: https://www.tn.gov/twra/article/adc-faq It doesn't specifically say that it is okay to kill nuisance/destructive coyote at night but it does quote part of the TCA. Notice that no mention is made of any limits to the legal ability to do this based on legal hunting seasons, regulations, etc. Again, though, I would call the TWRA for clarification :

Cool. Thanks for the link. From what I have seen folks doing with them on YouTube - using them largely as big chopper type woods blades - those kukri's are pretty amazing. Of course, the Gurkhas who carry them are pretty danged amazing, too. Here are a few links to stories about them that are almost unbeliveable but, apparently, all true: In 2010 a just-retired Gurkha single-handedly fought off 40 bandits and would-be rapists on a train with nothing but his kukri (and a set of 95 pound, stainless steel cajones, IMO): http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Inspirational/indian-gurkha-soldier-fought-40-armed-bandits-alone-and-saved-a-girl.html During WWII, Gurkha single-handedly held off an overwhelming force of Japanese for four hours, killing over 30 of them, with a bolt action rifle - after having his right hand blown off by a grenade thrown by the aforementioned Japanese. And while doing all of that he was heard by injured comrades, who were unable to aid him, taunting the Japanese by yelling, "Come and fight a Gurkha!": http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338429/Gurkha-Lachhiman-Gurung-Victoria-Cross-hero-dies-aged-93.html That is part of the reason I'd like to have a kukri even though I don't know if I'd even find a use for it - just because of its association with those brave individuals and other Gurkhas like them. Heck, maybe some of their badassititude could even rub off on me.

All I can say is that I damn sure wish I'd start getting my part of all that racial privilege and comfort because to this point I haven't seen one, little bit of it and am pretty sick of hearing all the bull-s*** about it and not reaping any benefits from it. I think the band Minor Threat said it pretty clearly waaay back in the '80s. No, it ain't a rascist song. Lyrics: [Verse] I'm sorry For something that I didn't do Lynched somebody But I don't know who You blame me for slavery A hundred years before I was born [Chorus] Guilty of being white Guilty of being white Guilty of being white Guilty of being white [Bridge] I'm a convict Guilty! Of a racist crime Guilty! I've only served Guilty! Nineteen years of my time

Very nice. Is that one from the Ex-Gurkha Khukuri House in Nepal? The sheath looks like one of theirs. If so, I have read good things about them and have thought about looking at getting one but have never been able to directly ask the opinion of anyone who owns one. I honestly don't know what the heck I would do with one but that doesn't stop the wants from happening. The EGKH supposedly makes theirs out of old leaf springs from trucks, jeeps, etc. Did yours come with the small knife and the blade sharpener also included in the sheath?

I have never bought one of the mega packs but I have shot quite a bit of UMC (it is just Remington's value line - in fact, the 50 round boxes are white and green with Remington written larger than UMC) in 9mm and .380. I have encountered one or two 'duds' in the 9mm fmj rounds (they also offer a JHP in 9mm, or at least they used to) but never any, other problems.

The real problem is that some folks believe that their 'rights' have no limits. Is there a Constitutional right to free speech? Of course - but I don't think that the natural progression of that right grows into a right to stand in the middle of the road and block traffic. Further, an individual's rights are limited where they begin to infringe on the rights of others. I believe that people have a right not to have their lives or property endangered by, for instance, some idiots who haven't got the sense to get the heck out of the road and who are, therefore, endangering lives and property by intentionally and unnecessarily creating traffic hazards.

Although when I was a kid if there was a kid who was being particularly annoying someone might sarcastically say, "Why don't you go play in traffic?" Of course, the kid generally had enough sense to realize that this was sarcasm as well as enough intelligence not to actually do so.

Two things: 1. What in Hades does standing in the middle of the road, blocking the flow of legal traffic and impeding people who are just trying to get to their destination have to do with a perceived notion that cops are more likely to shoot a person of a particular demographic? If that is their claim, shouldn't they be protesting at police stations, instead? 2. How stupid does someone have to be to stand in the middle of the road or to be part of a group of which some members are standing in the middle of the road and then act all shocked and surprised when the idiot standing in the road gets run down? I mean, that is kind of like protesting NASA by standing under a rocket as it is being launched and then having one's fellow protestors act all surprised and shocked when the idiot's stupid ascetabulum gets burned to a crisp. Of course, they'd probably release statements blaming the space agency and not the protester's own, moronic behavior because taking responsibility for their own actions and realizing that those actions have consequences doesn't fit into their playbook. There are such things as 'natural consequences' and there is such a thing as 'he was asking for it.' I have no pit or empathy for the idiot who got plowed by the car. None, whatsoever. I do have empathy for the driver as this will probably cause emotional and mental distress for her for some times to come - not to mention that the jackhole protester and/or his family will probably sue her for having the audacity to drive on a legal, public thoroughfare.

I work at a small, satellite campus of a private college. Our building has a lot of large windows and the windows are more or less mirrored from the outside during daylight hours. One particular Summer some years back we had a rash of the little fellas flying into the windows and killing themselves. The lady who was in charge of this campus at the time expressed concern and I told her, "Well, I can tell you why it is happening." She wanting to know and so I told her - it was because all of the flowers around the perimeter of the building were red. Apparently, red and purple really attract them (which is why so many hummingbird feeders are red and purple.) I told her that they saw the reflections of those red flowers in the window and were flying into them. She said, "Well, I can fix that." Next thing I knew, after the next time the grounds crew came, all the red flowers were gone and had been replaced with yellow flowers. The kamikaze hummingbirds stopped immediately. Unfortunately, before that happened there was one little guy that injured its wing. I have a soft spot for little birds so I took it home and contacted some folks in the area that are authorized to legally rehabilitate birds (they are actually called The Clinch RIver Raptor Center and I knew about them because I took an injured red-tailed hawk to them, once but they help all kinds of birds.) It was some time before we could meet up and these things have to eat constantly so it had to be fed. Now, I know that adult, wild animals often won't eat in captivity but this little guy had no qualms about it. I mixed up some sugar water, put it in a medicine dropper like folks use to give medicine to little kids and stuck the tip of the dropper just over the tip of its beak. That little, threadlike tongue - which is amusingly long for such a small creature - started working immediately and it ate its fill. I actually needed to feed it that way several times. So that is my story about hand feeding an injured hummingbird. I know - pics or it didn't happen, right? Well... As for how well it recovered, I am not sure. I called to check on it a few days after I took it to the rehab folks and they said there wasn't a whole lot they could do other than keep it fed and cared for. Apparently, their little wings are so small that they can't be set and wrapped until they heal like a larger bird's wing can. The lady said that it might heal on its own or it might not. If it did, they were going to find someone who was going to Florida to give it a ride so it would have a head start on migrating. If it didn't they said they would have to put it down because unlike some injured birds that can't be released into the wild a wild, adult hummingbird would never really adapt to living in captivity. After that I just kind of wanted to assume that he had gotten better so I didn't call, again.

Glad you have had good experiences. My mom went with me to a couple of the Knoxville shows when she had a couple of guns in mind that she hoped to find 'deals' on and commented on the fact that every time she stopped to look at a gun some guy (not the same guy) would literally push her out of the way. It isn't just because she is a woman, either. I have had that happen to me several times and I am a guy who is just shy of six feet and over 250 pounds. The last, couple of times that happened I had enough and pushed back. That was about the point when I decided that it just wasn't worth the aggravation. Come to think of it, I don't recall that sort of thing happening when they have the shows at Chilhowee Park in the Jacob's Building but it has been the norm every time I have been to one at the Expo Center.

When I very, very first got my HCP and started carrying in public (and was still a little nervous about it/getting used to it) I went to one of the RK shows at Chilhowee. I didn't realize until after I got in there that carry wasn't allowed. I figured that if there were anywhere on the planet that would allow carry it would be a gunshow. I explained this and apologized to one of the off-duty officers who was checking guns being carried in. His response was, "You have a permit to carry?" and when I answered in the affirmative, he said, "Well, since you told me I have to hang on to your loaded magazine until you leave. From now on just keep it in your pocket and don't say anything." Well, far be it from me to disobey the instructions of an officer! Of course, I haven't been to one of those shows in, oh, at least three years, maybe more. I got tired of paying out the admission fee to walk around a crowded building with a lot of rude people (a lot higher number of rude, pushy people than I would expect at a firearms related event - like being in a big room with a bunch of New Yorkers) and look at overpriced guns and ammo that was usually even more overpriced. As for the policy change I, too, wonder if it was due to the 'parks' law. Sure, they may have some shows that are in privately owned facilities but some of their shows are in facilities that would be covered by the 'parks' law so maybe they just decided to adopt a blanket 'carry allowed' policy. And for those who don't want people carrying at gun shows I understand where you are coming from but honestly it kind of sounds like the same argument the antis made against allowing carry where alcohol is served, "I don't want some guy with a gun sitting next to me and my family when we are eating dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, I don't know if he is safe and responsible with his firearm," sounds a whole lot like, "I don't want some guy with a loaded gun standing next to me and my family at the gun show. I don't know if he is safe and responsible with his firearm." See, it kind of is the same argument because they don't know that the guy next to them is a 'responsible' carrier any more than we know that the other guy at the gun show is 'responsible'. So, are they right? Either a person is responsible enough to be able to carry everywhere or that person isn't responsible enough to be allowed to carry anywhere. Further, and I don't mean this to be confrontational it is just the fact of the matter, what you are really saying is that the requirements to get an HCP in Tennessee are not stringent enough and that not only should we not enact no-permit carry but we should actually make it much more difficult to get an HCP so that we can know for sure that the other guy - whether he is carrying at Ruby Tuesdays or at an RK show - is responsible enough to have that loaded weapon.

As someone else pointed out, there are efforts to ban/restrict knives. These seem to be happening largely in places like the U.K. where, surprisingly, taking away everyone's gun rights has only resulted in the small segment of the population who want to commit murder finding other ways of doing so. I have even heard of legislation being proposed there (not sure if it passed or not) which basically required most (all?) kitchen knives to have rounded tips instead of being pointed to make it harder for a person to get stabby with them. As many others have said before me, you'd think it would be easier just to go ahead and make murder illegal. Oh, wait...

Don't take this as me saying you are 'wrong' as that is not what I am saying. Just offering a different, general perspective. When I first started her with that Rossi .357 my ex had difficulty pulling the trigger making it almost impossible for her to use the gun. I looked at what she was doing and realized that the problem wasn't the trigger pull. The problem was her trigger finger. She was used to shooting semiauto .22 pistols and her finger was positioned on the trigger the way it would be positioned on a semiauto trigger. Revolver triggers are actually easier to pull if you put less finger on the trigger - basically using the center of the pad at the end of the trigger finger rather than first knuckle/end of the second joint as you might with some/most semiautos. Once I had her re-position her trigger finger she had no problems, whatsoever, pulling the trigger and staying on target. It was a leverage issue rather than a hand/finger strength issue. Not saying that is the case with everyone who has trouble pulling a revolver trigger but it is something to think about. FWIW she dry fired an LCR a couple of times and said that she was amazed at how easy the trigger was to pull (this was after I had gotten her to adjust her trigger finger position for revolvers.) Another thing to consider is that many small semiautos are DAO and have a trigger pull that is just about as heavy as a revolver. My P3AT has a fairly long, stiff trigger pull and the trigger pull on the P11 I used to have felt stiffer/heavier than most of my revolvers (not counting the Nagant revolver in DA mode.) That is another thing that makes me wonder if - again, only in some cases - it isn't that the trigger on a small, DAO semi is easier to pull so much as the shooter just doesn't realize that a revolver generally requires a different trigger finger position. As for the 642, in addition to making the recoil much more manageable the Pachmayr grips I put on mine also make pulling the trigger much easier just because of the slight difference in hand position. Honestly, I knew I didn't like the factory grips mine came with but I didn't realize that I absolutely hated and downright despised them until I changed them out for the Pachys. I am not saying that 'everyone should carry a revolver' or anything like that. I am also not saying that there aren't folks who, due to certain physical issues, may not be able to reliably shoot a revolver. I am simply suggesting that sometimes the difficulties that people have with revolvers are not actually due to the trigger pull, recoil, etc. so much as they are due to hand/trigger finger positioning and the grips the revolver is wearing, both of which are easily remedied if someone really wants to carry a revolver but has difficulties with these things.

To ME, my 642 with the aftermarket Pachmayr grips I put on it isn't bad for recoil, at all, even with +P loads and I can shoot it pretty accurately at likely SD distances. With the factory grips it was terrible - it hurt my hand and I couldn't hit worth a hoot. The caveat here, however, is that I like revolvers more than semis, anyhow, and seem to shoot them better. I also don't tend to be bothered as much by recoil as some, other folks (the factory grips on the 642 didn't just cause higher felt recoil but actually caused the backstrap to painfully beat up my hand with each shot no matter how I adjusted my grip or how tightly I held it.) If your mom really wants a carry revolver and recoil is an issue then you might look into something like a Ruger SP101 in .357 and load it with .38 Special self defense loads. The weight and mass of the SP101 really helps to mitigate recoil (I don't have one but have shot one a good bit with both .38 and .357 rounds.) Of course, the trade off is that the weight and mass make it figuratively akin to carrying around a boat anchor but that is pretty much going to be the trade off with any handgun whether revolver or semiauto. When she was ready to 'move up' from shooting .22 pistols I taught my ex-wife to shoot using a snubnosed Rossi .357 (one of the 'newer' ones made by Taurus) that had belonged to her late father. I had her load it with .38 Special rounds. Due to hand strength issues she had trouble finding a semi on which she could rack the slide. At first she had trouble with the trigger but after I got her to adjust her hold and the way her finger was positioned on the trigger she had no trouble with it. Again, however, it is a fairly heavy, bulky gun for what it is. It is also larger than a j-frame. I carried it, some and I had trouble finding holsters that would specifically fit it - in fact, that was the reason I made the first leather holster I ever made. She finally ended up getting a Kel Tec P32 because she found that not only could she easily rack the slide but it also has very mild recoil which didn't bother her hands even though the pistol is very light and small - mild enough that I can do a 'mag dump' shooting one handed with my off (left) hand and stay on a paper target at about 12 yards or so just doing point shooting. Or at least I could the last time I tried it. I can't really control my P3AT shooting that way very well, at all. No, a .32 isn't a 9mm, a .45 or whatever but I would hardly say that someone carrying a .32 is 'unarmed', either.

Geez, could this whole thing possibly be more confusing? Of course mine is probably a bit of an 'uncommon' case because it happened to fall that my DL had to be renewed at pretty much the same time as my HCP so I got the 'new' five year renewal for my HCP (which would have put it in line with my DL under the old DL renewal cycle) and the even newer 8 year renewal on my DL which, of course, took it out of sync with my HCP.

Yep on the Maverick. I have a Maverick Security 88. They are available in an 18.5 inch barrel but I chose the 20 inch barrel because it holds one more round in the tube mag Basically, it is a Mossberg 500 'clone' that is actually made by Mossberg. In fact, they often have a 'Mossberg' sticker on the stock when purchased new. Functionally, the biggest difference, to my understanding, is the position of the safety (some folks actually prefer the Maverick on that aspect.) There used to be a difference in the forearm setup, too (so that Mossberg forearms wouldn't fit the Maverick unless you changed some things out) but I am not sure if that is still the case. To my understanding, Mossberg is able to sell the Maverick shotguns for a little less because some of the work on them is done in Mexico (I think some of the parts are made there and the shotguns are actually assembled in the U.S.but can't recall, for sure.) The buttstocks and (to my understanding) barrels made for a Mossberg 500 will fit the Maverick. Be aware that there are also Maverick 88 models that have 'full-length' barrels. There are a couple of the 'full length' versions that are available in 20 gauge but the Security models are only available in 12 gauge. http://www.mossberg.com/category/series/maverick-88/