JAB

Just FYI, there is already a thread about this:   http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/78820-one-for-the-open-carry-crowd/

  Yeah, I don't know what scares me more; the idea that anti-gunners may be using 'plants' to damage firearms rights or the idea that these dumbasses might really think they are doing something good for firearms rights.  Of course, there is a third option that is just as likely.  It is entirely possible that they and others like them are a simply a bunch of attention whores who have attached themselves to 'gun rights' like a cluster of barnacles.

Never mind - found it.

  I wonder the same thing when I read of incidences such as this.  Intentional or not, jackholes like this have the potential to do more damage to the actual practice of firearms carry than Bloomberg and all his ilk, combined.   Do I support a person's right to carry for self defense?  Of course.  Do I support some attention-seeking asshat's 'right' to walk around with an AR or AK strapped to him, enter a private business which has nothing to do with firearms and has previously not interfered with the ability to carry in their establishment - with the result that they end up ruining things for those of us who try to have a little common damn sense?  Not just no but hell, no.  To me, these particular attention whores are even worse than he-who-shall-not-be-named because at least his activities (the ones of which I am aware, anyhow) took place on public property and not in a private business.

You know, although I don't think it is appropriate in all situations, open carry of a handgun is one thing and I can kind of see that side of the debae.  Strapping on a long gun to go eat a taco is just stupidity, no debate needed.

I can see where hiking and camping and maybe even fishing would come in if someone (with the proper licenses and in legal hunting seasons and in areas where hunting would be legal) were planning to 'subsistence hike/camp' or whatever you would call it.  In other words, packing only a little food with the idea that one will shoot squirrels and rabbits and catch fish for dinner, etc.  Kind of 'back country' stuff, in other words.   wk05, I don't know how close you are able to park your vehicle to where you are fishing.  If you are able to pull in right next to your fishing spot then maybe the law that becomes active on July 1 allowing you to carry a firearm in your vehicle without an HCP will help.  It wouldn't be the same as actually having a firearm on you but having one in your vehicle - assuming it is parked pretty much right next to you - might help.

  Hmmm...I got, "Whatchoo takin' my picture fo'?"   Looks like a good dog.

  I think it is the difference between it being possible that one will need to defend oneself (which could happen anywhere at any time) and being likely that one will need to defend oneself.

  I think you are right.  Thing is, at least as I understand it (and I could certainly be wrong - it has happened a time or two) the ATF had already given Taurus the go-ahead and told them that there was no problem with the 28 gauge revolver.  I think Taurus even built one or two (not sure if they were functioning prototypes or not) and had them at their booth at SHOT show a couple of years back.  The way I heard it, some ATF representatives went by the Taurus boot at that SHOT show and told them that the 28 gauge revolver would have legal issues for exactly the reason you state despite the ATF (supposedly) having previously given the go ahead.  I think Taurus basically gave up the idea in disgust.

  I prefer mine not cooked crispy.  I want it 'done' but not crispy.

  Could be.  I looked up Baken Snaps on the 'web and it sounds right.   Or it might have been these 'Bacon Nips' from Frito Lay although I thought the ones I remembered were longer - more rectangular than square:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQD41hrHRQk   So I guess there were at least two, different bacon flavored chips back in the '70s.  I think I prefer the '70s approach where they just made 'bacon' chips outright rather than trying to make bacon flavored Pringles and so on.  Still, it seems the current trend isn't the first time that bacon flavored things - other than bacon - have been on the market and even popular.

Generally, I like potato chips (and potato crisps, as Pringles are called) un-messed with.  I don't like flavored potato chips for the most part.  Flavored corn chips, sure, but not potato chips.  In fact, about the only dip I like with potato chips is ranch dressing.  In my mind, salsa is for tortilla chips and bean dip or French onion dip are for corn chips.  I do like Pringles but I don't think I'd even want to dip them in ranch dressing - just plain, original flavor for me.   When I was a kid -  I mean a little kid - there was a bacon flavored chip of which I can't recall the name.  My mom thinks it was 'Bacos' but that is the name of some of those imitation bacon bits so I don't know if that was what the chips were called.  The chips were made in strips and had 'stripes' on them to mimic bacon.  To my knowledge, these things haven't been made since I was four or so but I still remember liking them and even what they tasted like.  They didn't really taste like bacon but I still liked them.  I have had a few types of barbecue flavored potato chips that (strangely) have almost an after taste that reminds me of them.  The bacon flavored Pringles gave me hope that the flavor might be the same but no dice.  Sort of similar, maybe, but not the same.   You know what variation on bacon is good?  Some of the relatively new 'bacon jerky'.  Man, some of that stuff puts most beef jerky to shame.  I happened to find a brand of that stuff that had something to do with Bass Pro at UGO a couple of months back.  It was $1 a bag.  I only bought a couple of bags because I wasn't so sure about it but figured that if I didn't like it then my dog would eat it and it was cheaper than dog treats.  Yeah, well, the dog loved it but she didn't get much of it.  It is a testament to how much I like that mutt that she got any, at all.  I ended up wishing I had bought every bag they had - and by the time I went back it was all gone.   Another 'bacon related' thing I have found that I like is 'pork belly'.  That is, basically, the cut of the pig that America uses for bacon but uncured.  I had my first Korean style pork belly taco (yeah, it's fusion food but it fuses 'delicious' with 'damn, that tastes good' so I'll take it) at a place called the Yard House in Cincinatti last year.  My mouth is watering, now, just thinking about it.   Central Taps and Flats on Central (yeah, what a shock) in Knoxville has a panini sandwich called the Belly Boy that has (per the description from the menu on their website) pork belly, smoked gouda, field greens, red onion, fresh avocado, and roasted red pepper mayo.  That sandwich is tasty.  Very tasty.   One of these days, I think I will have to try to make something like this:   http://theeatenpath.com/2009/03/23/chicken-fried-bacon-sodolaks-country-inn-snook-tx/

No, that isn't a knife. That is a hinged short sword. Again, in person those things are even more impressive.

  Someone else was looking at the Voyagers when I was there and he fondled the large Voyager.  Someone joked that it is a folding machete.  I have to say, though, that it would be a heck of a thing to have in a pocket if you suddenly found yourself in a survival situation and needing to build a shelter, get firewood and so on.

  Unfortunately, you are probably right.  It is too bad because all it would take would be one - just one - of the ammo companies having a little foresight as to the good it could do their company down the line while losing nothing, now.  What do I mean by that?   Well, packaged bulk or in fifty round boxes, in the current climate they are going to sell every, single round of .22LR they make so that is the 'losing nothing' part.  So, if I were the CEO of an ammo company then what gain would I see to going to fifty rounders?    Well, (thinking as I might if I were such a CEO) if people are walking in to their local Walmart, sporting goods store or whatever and (because my theoretical company is packaging its ammo in fifty round boxes) my product is the only option available to them then they are going to buy and shoot my product.  This means that until the ammo situation starts to settle down, again (which I do think it will but maybe not for a couple of years even at this point) a whole lot of folks - maybe even the majority of people who are buying the ammo to actually shoot - will be using my product.  They won't be using it because I have slashed my price.  Heck, I can probably charge a little more per round than with bulk pack and still keep the price attractive for a fifty round box.  Nope, they will be using it because it is all they can get.    When and if things get back to normal, neither my company nor the competition will likely be able to edge out the others based on price but I will have an advantage in that people will be used to using my ammo.  They will walk up to the ammo counter/cabinet/shelf and see three or four different types of ammo sitting there.  They will see that they are all priced pretty much in line with the others and probably won't have any reason to believe that one type is remarkable compared to the others.  In the case of newer shooters, they might not even know anything or much of anything about the others.  But there, on the shelf with my company labeling, will be their old friend - the only .22 ammo they have been able to find for the past two, three, four years or longer.  Again, with new shooters, maybe the only .22 ammo of which they have ever shot very much.  So here comes my advantage - familiarity.  If you are about to drop the same amount of cash either way, why not stick with the ammo you have been shooting?  You know it works, you have already sighted your guns for it (as it was the only ammo you could find, anyhow) and you know its capabilities so why change?    Further, there is the possibility of a somewhat Pavlovian element - people start associating the feelings of pleasure and instant gratification they get from actually finding some .22LR on the shelf with my company's product, labeling, brand and so on.  Not exactly brain washing customers to buy my product but perhaps taking the opportunity to insert a little coincidental conditioning.  Behavior modification as a sales tool.   See, that is the kind of thinking about the customer I am talking about.  Not so much that I believe a company cares who gets the ammo but more along the lines of a company wanting to expand and solidify its customer base while building, if not customer loyalty, then at least customer familiarity and habituating customers to buying that company's ammo.  To me, that is a pretty unique opportunity with a type of ammo - .22LR - that has been around for years and sells in such high volumes.  All by doing something that requires no real effort or expenditure on the part of the company.

  For me, I thought the length limit would impact me more than the auto knife change.  I have a couple of el cheapo autos (no, I haven't carried them - just 'collected' them) that I bought for the novelty factor but can't really justify the expense (in my mind) of a decent quality auto vs. a good 'assisted opening' or even easily deployed (think thumb stud) non-assisted knife.  Maybe after the law changes we will see a greater selection of decent quality auto knives for sale in the area.  If that happens, I might be more interested.

This may be a bit of a tangent but still related.  Besides I can hi-jack ny own thread if I want.   I was a bit surprised at how little the folks who work there knew about the coming law change.  I mean, I wouldn't necessarily expect the folks at the Walmart knife counter to know but people who work in a business that mainly sells knives and is called Smoky Mountain Knife Works?   For instance, a couple of the people working there didn't know about the change, at all.  One guy I mentioned it to said, "Oh, yeah - they are increasing the legal blade length limit to four inches, right?"  Then there was the guy who insisted that switchblades have always been legal in Tennessee (I don't think he meant legal to own for 'collecting' but not to carry.)  The best response was from one lady who not only knew about the knife law change but also said, "Did you know about the other change to the law that will allow people to carry a gun in the car without a permit?"

  That is actually one of the things I liked about the Rough Rider I bought.  It and a few, other Rough Rider models were the only knives I found that had relatively large blades while keeping the grip thin and yet comfortable to hold.  If RR made that, exact style with a five inch blade I think carrying it would be doable.

The picture still does not do justice to the massive bulk and size of that knife, IMO. I actually went to look at that, specific knife based on other posts you have made about it. That thing is a monster. Not as much of a monster as their largest Espada (which looks more like a joke/novelty knife than a serious carry knife due to its extreme size) but still a monster.

  Well I, for one, work at a place (a satellite campus of a private college) where it is illegal per state law to carry a gun as well as against employer rules.  The employer also has a rule against knives but we were specifically told that the rule doesn't apply to carrying a pocket knife.  I am unsure of the legality of carrying a pocket knife on campus being that we are a private college and HR has said that doing so is okay.   I have no training in fighting with a knife and am not a knife fighter.  That said, in a last ditch effort to defend myself in case of an incident at work (we are, after all, a satellite college campus), a large, folding pocket knife would probably be a lot more convincing to/useful against a potential assailant than, "Please, don't hurt me."

In another thread on this subforum, TGO member netmindr mentioned seeing fifty round boxes of .22LR at his local Walmart.  Part of his post that really got me thinking read:     You know, maybe that would be part of a potential solution - or at least an improvement - to the current situation.  From what I have seen, Walmart doesn't limit purchases based on number of rounds - they limit based on number of boxes.  I have seen other retailers do the same.  So, based on a three box per person limit and using the 550 round bulk packs as an example, the same 1650 rounds that one guy (possibly a reseller, possibly not) could get in a visit would allow eleven people to buy three fifty-round boxes each.  Even if bulk packs were limited to 1 per person while 50 round boxes were limited to three per person then packaging the ammo in fifty round boxes instead of bulk packs would allow three people to purchase 150 rounds each (with some left over from the bulk pack to package with the 'left-overs' from other packs to make even more fifty round boxes.)  To be clear, I am not talking about retailers breaking down bulk packs.  I am talking about ammo manufacturers packaging the ammo in fifty round boxes instead of bulk packs in the first place.   Sure the scalpers could just get their friends/family/bums off the street to come in with them and buy fifty round boxes but I have to wonder if the increased effort and likely decreased profit margin would be worth it, to them.  It just might put them out of the ammo scalping business.  Even if the price on the fifty rounders increased slightly - which could further hurt the scalpers - they would still be inexpensive enough that a guy could buy one or two a week to keep shooting until the nonsense ends.   Yeah, I like being able to go into a store and buy 550 rounds for around $20 as much as the next person.  However, realistically it has been over a year since a person could count on being able to do so.  Further, if it made a difference between ten or eleven people being able to keep shooting at a reasonable expense versus one person getting ammo (and maybe reselling it), I would support the idea of manufacturers doing away with bulk pack .22LR until things settle down.  To my mind, it would be a win for people who want to shoot .22LR on a weekly basis or even people who want to build a small reserve.  I would also think it would be a win for retailers as they would still likely be able to sell all the .22LR they could get while making a larger number of customers happy in the process.   I would also see it as a win for ammo manufacturers when it comes to long term sales.  At current ammo prices, even those of us who are very much 'in' to target shooting, plinking and the like are not doing it nearly as much and some have indicated that they have gotten out of it almost entirely.  I also have to wonder if potential new shooting enthusiasts (i.e. the ammo companies' potential, future customers) might not be deterred by the current prices of ammo and end up exploring another hobby rather than ever becoming involved in shooting as a hobby.   So, what do you guys think?

  That is good news.  Remington is also supposedly adding a building to one of their ammo factories that they say will double that factory's output.  It is supposed to go online sometime in June or July, I think, according to the last that I heard.  Maybe we will see some relief by 2015.

As I have said in other threads, before the current 'craze' started I suspected that .22LR would be included in the nonsense, this time.  To that end I bought a few, extra bulk packs before it all disappeared.  That said, I had no idea how long the .22 drought would last or how ridiculously high some places would be pricing them.  If I had, I would have bought a lot more when it was still available.   Even with the small amount I have on hand, I have all but stopped shooting .22LR.  Oh, I still shoot it some but now it is more like I go through 50 rounds or so every couple of months where before I could kill a bulk pack in less time than that.  As .22 LR had become the bulk of my shooting, as prices for centerfire ammo have gone up, as well and as I really only reload for .38 Special at the current time, I have not been shooting nearly as much.   The last .22LR I bought was at Gouger Mountain on Black Friday of last year.  They had a couple of pallets of CCI that they were selling for $5.00 a piece.  That was really too high so I only bought a couple of boxes (I think the limit was ten but I didn't get anywhere near that.)  Mostly, I think I just wanted to be able to say that I had seen - and bought - some .22LR in a retail establishment.  Thing is, those two pallets, piled high, gave me hope (now I know it was false hope) that supplies might actually be returning.  I thought we'd see some normalcy return by this summer.  Man, I guess I got fooled.

Allow me to rephrase that for you:   Well, I actually don't blame the people who are hurting other gun owners and really hurting interest in the shooting sports, in general, by grabbing up all the ammo that the average, working person could actually afford to buy in large enough quantities to be able to have a fun, all day range or plinking session with family and friends and reselling it at profiteering prices.   That isn't intended as a jab at you, personally but it is exactly what these profiteers and scalpers are doing.

I am really, really glad about the upcoming law change that will remove blade length restrictions as well as restrictions on carrying automatic knives, balisongs and the like.  This past weekend, though, I came to realize that the change likely won't have a huge impact on me on a daily basis.   This realization came after a trip to Smoky Mountain Knife Works.  My first thought upon hearing about the change was that I wanted to get a fixed blade knife with a blade of about 5 inches to carry.  I am not a very 'tacticool' person and tend to like more 'traditional' looking knives so I was thinking something in a hunting style knife with a nice-looking grip.  Then I realized that in any situation I'd be likely to actually carry such a blade I would be likely to carry a firearm.  If I belt carry a firearm, it is OWB.  That would mean having a firearm on the strong side, a knife on the weak side (I would make a cross-draw sheath for it so I could draw it either with the strong or weak hand) along with a possible reload all hanging on my belt.  I could very much see such a setup for camping or woods bumming but for out and about in town it just seemed a little too Batman utility belt for my tastes.  I might eventually looking into making a custom belt, holster and sheath and trying to find a knife with grips that closely match the grips on my GP100 to make sort of a 'barbecue rig' just because but I don't see me regularly carrying all that on a belt.   For that reason, I decided that a large folder would serve me better and such a folder was what I had in mind when I headed up to SMKW.  I quickly realized that a folder with a blade of five inches or more isn't large - it is huge.  No way I would carry something that large in my pocket regularly.  Of course, there is the belt pouch/sheath option but if I am going to carry a folder on my belt then I had might as well carry a fixed blade.  I looked at Cold Steel's Voyager line and they kind of left me flat (again, I like the 'traditional' look.)  I looked at their Recon line, too (btw, they have a sale on some of their older Recon models and claim that the sale price - around $39.99 - is about $80 off the normal price.)  Although that put some of the models within my self-imposed budget (I am pretty much not going to spend more than $50 on a knife, ever) the Recon also did nothing for me.  Besides, I don't think the larger Recons were on sale.   I ended up buying another Victorinox Swiss Army knife, a Trekker.  I like the idea of a SAK with a (liner) lock blade.  I also kind of like that the scales on this one are black rather than the more usual bright red.  The blade on it is certainly larger than the SAK Tinker I have been carrying but still falls well short of the current 4 inch max length.   http://www.smkw.com/webapp/eCommerce/products/Victorinox/Victorinox%C2%AE+Trekker%26%23153%3B+-+Black+Composition/V54854.html   Just so I didn't leave without something that would be currently illegal to carry but would become legal on July 1, I ended up buying a Rough Rider Deerslayer with white bone grips.  It is a nice looking knife, IMO, in a more 'traditional' looking style with a shape that I think will work well for pocket carry.  It didn't cost very much but I have heard that Rough Rider makes a good, inexpensive knife.  I figured I would give them a chance and mine was shaving sharp right out of the box.  The blade on it is impressive, IMO, but - at 4 1/4 inches (according to the SMKW website) it still only exceeds the current max by a quarter of an inch.   This is the model I bought.   http://www.smkw.com/webapp/eCommerce/products/Rough+Rider/Rough+Rider%26%23153%3B+Deer+Slayer+Folder+with+White+Smooth+Bone+Handle/RR142.html   I have some ideas for a knife with a blade length of five inches or so that would work for a carry knife.  I would probably be back to a fixed blade and would be looking at something in more of a 'bushcraft' style than a 'hunting knife' style.  I'll probably end up ordering a blade and making the handle, myself.