JAB

  Heck, just the ad for it was enough to elicit a hearty, "Oh, [eff} you!  Kiss my a**." from your truly.   I am not always 100% on board with the things that Massad Ayoob says but he once wrote an article saying that the better solution would be to gun proof the child rather than trying to child-proof all guns.   http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob68.html   Of course, I found a simple yet fool-proof way to circumvent the entire issue.  I don't have kids.

I haven't seen him in a few years but in Loudon the interesting character used to be a fellah that everyone just called 'Choo Choo' or sometimes simply 'Choo' for short.  He answered to that name and didn't seem to mind.  He usually seemed pretty friendly and willing to chat a bit albeit somewhat in his own, little world.   I heard a story, once, that Choo had been a really good pitcher in baseball.  Supposedly went at least to the minors and nearly made it to the majors.  I thought that was just local legend until I was at the town's 4th of July celebration one time and Choo showed up.  There was a dunking booth and people were paying the fee for Choo to throw.  He would step up to the line, a little wobbly from being about two and a half sheets to the wind.  Then his eyes - which held an almost perpetually glazed look - would go completely clear and focused.  He would do a baseball pitcher style windup and throw with baseball pitcher style follow through.  He threw what looked to be a pretty good fastball - and hit the little target, dunking the person in the booth, about eight times out of ten.  After that, I believed the story.  I think I also heard, once, that he had gotten 'shell shocked' (what folks now call PTSD) in a war or something and that is what put an end to his baseball aspirations and turned him into such an interesting character.   When I was a little kid and we lived in Lenoir City, there was a guy who was pretty tall and lanky.  The short beard he wore made him resemble Abe Lincoln.  I never knew his name but he was also, supposedly, a victim of shell shock.  He didn't seem as outgoing as Choo Choo but I never heard of him causing any, particular problems or being 'mean' either.  Mostly, I have to wonder if he even realized that other people were there most of the time.  The most interesting thing about him was that he was constantly mumbling, kind of under his breath.  If you got close enough to hear what he was saying, it sounded like he was telling jokes to himself and then laughing at them.  Where seeing Choo Choo was kind of fun because I think he enjoyed his life, all in all, seeing that fellah always made me a little sad.

  I'm thinking more, "new from Ruger's research and development department."

Just for me, serrated blades are best when paired with a fork for eating steak.  For carry, I like a plain blade.  I used to carry a partially serrated Kershaw Scallion and all the serrations ever did were get in the way and get on my nerves when I would be trying to cut something.

The Knoxville location of Gouger Mountain used to be a great place to stop and browse long guns to decide if there was something you might like to look for at some other place where the prices are more reasonable.  That was when they still had all of their long guns on the sales floor (secured to the displays with security cables but you could still pick them up and look them over, etc.) so you could peruse several, different guns without having to wait for a sales clerk to pass them across the counter and so on.  Since they put everything behind the counter I have just about stopped going in there despite the fact that if I went home from work that direction GM would be right on my way.   Their prices on some reloading stuff were actually pretty reasonable but just about the time I decided to dip my toes in the reloading waters they decided to mostly get out of the reloading supplies business (at least at the Knoxville store.)  That is just about the way my luck runs.  Academy doesn't sell reloading supplies, as far as I know.  I have also noticed that the prices at Academy seem to be creeping up as of late.  I know prices are going up pretty much everywhere but I'm not sure how much longer Academy is going to be all that much better than the other big box sporting goods stores on price.   I've never been inside a Cabela's but I've heard good things.  I wish they would put a store somewhere in this area.

Honestly, the following is the first scenario that came to my mind for the 'real' reason a company might want to produce/push such ammo:     Company CEO:  These damn reloaders and hand loaders are cutting into our bottom line.  How can we make them stop reloading and start buying our new production, factory ammo every time they want to go shooting instead of reloading previously fired casings?   Vice President for R&D:  Well, we could try using plastic for the shell casings.  Maybe even design them so they crumble just a little around the edges when they are fired.  Let them try reloading those!   Company CEO:  Yeah!  I like it!  Hahahahahaha!!!!

          Some of you have obviously never had an uncle who wore his pants pulled up danged near to his armpits.  Seriously, one of my great uncles (maternal grandmother's brother) wore his pants so that the waistband was just about at the bottom of his sternum.  I have seen other guys wear their pants that way, too.  Assuming that their underwear rides just as high, I can easily see such a thing being true.

It sounds like the Texas law in question (even if it is old news) simply provided exceptions to laws in their state that must require an intended victim to retreat or attempt to retreat in many situations.  As RED333 poisted, in Tennessee there is no duty to retreat as long as you are in a place where you are legally allowed to be, so I think what we have is better.   Now, if TN wanted to follow Texas' example and allow the legal use of deadly force to protect property and not just when one is in fear of one's life...

  [sarcasm] So does that mean if you are forced to used deadly force to prevent some low-life from carrying out a home invasion buglary at your home do you reckon it would be okay to just stop by the next business day and file a report?  After all, if the assailant - the would-be home invader/burglar - is dead then it is no longer a 'life-threatening' situation, right?  I'd hate to see the Sheriff's Dept. wasting time on an investigation. [/sarcasm]

Is Winchester not still making Wildcats?  I know they were still around as recently as five or six years ago because that is what I fed my 22A that I used to qualify for the HCP.  I have heard people bad-mouth them but I always thought they were pretty good shooters.   As for pricing, when my maternal grandfather passed away a couple of years back, he had dresser drawers and a trunk packed with various ammo.  Some of it he must have had for years.  Most of the varieties are still made, today, but some (although not all) is now sold in packaging that looks entirely different.  It isn't reloading components but I'll have to see if I can get some good pics of the prices he paid for loaded ammo.   I know inflation happens to everything but I really think that ammo and component prices have skyrocketed in the last, few years.  It wasn't that long ago - maybe eight or ten years - when the 'expensive' FMJ/range 9mm ammo was still under $10 for a box of fifty and the less expensive stuff could be had for $6 or $7 a box.  Now even the 'cheap' stuff is up around $11 or $12 a box (or more) which is a few bucks more than the expensive stuff was less than a decade ago.

  When things are 'normal', I try to buy a box or two of ammo a month over and above what I shoot.  I try to vary what I buy so that I can build up an 'on-hand' reserve of at least a few rounds for most of the firearms I own.  Personally, I have not seen any online suppliers with 'better' prices than Walmart except possibly on some occasions if one has the cash on hand to buy in bulk.  As I generally do not have a couple hundred bucks to spare for purchasing ammo in bulk at any, one time there is no real savings for me in ordering online and, in fact, the ammo prices for small orders are often higher than Walmart.  Add in shipping and handling costs and I could probably buy three boxes of ammo at Walmart for what two boxes of the same stuff would cost me online and I walk away from the transaction with ammo in hand, not waiting for it to show up at my door.  Even before online shopping came about, I never liked mail-order as much as going to a brick and mortar store where I could lay hands on the product at the time of purchase and that preference hasn't changed, generally speaking (although I will order from Amazon, etc. if there is something I can't get locally or if the price is much better even including S&H charges.)  To me, ordering things sight unseen just has too much of a 'pig in a poke' feeling to it.  I am just not all that enamored with ordering stuff online nor do I find it to always be the most economical approach.   I used Walmart as my example in the above but the same is also true of buying ammo at Academy and, oftentimes, even at my LGS.  I think the owner of my LGS treats his customers well but he simply doesn't have the buying power to compete with Walmart prices on the ammo they sell.  That said, he sells types/calibers of ammo that Walmart does not stock and on those things I prefer to give him my business rather than ordering online - especially since his prices are generally competitive with or even better than online prices for the small amounts I purchase at any, one time.  Not only does buying those things along with firearms and other accessories from the LGS help support the small, local business but also helps me build/maintain a relationship with the owner and his staff - a relationship that often results in them giving me a good deal on other purchases, such as when buying a used firearm from them, etc.  Because of that relationship, the owner has gone 'above and beyond' in helping me with other firearms related issues in the past (for example, when my P3AT had to go back to the factory he sent it with one of his shipments, free of charge to me, despite the fact I didn't even buy that one from him.)  You don't get that kind of relationship online (nor at Academy or Walmart, for that matter.)

  I don't buy from scalpers, either, but this whole thing has made me realize just how much I (normally) shoot .22LR.  Partly that is because it was pretty much the least expensive thing to shoot but there are other reasons, as well.  I live rurally and do the majority of my shooting in my back yard or next door in my mom's back yard.  The distances I can really shoot aren't long enough to be 'worth' shooting centerfire rifles very often but shooting .22 rifles is still fun and good practice.  I also really enjoy shooting my .22 handguns both just for enjoyment as well as for extra practice for shooting centerfire handguns.  In addition to more traditional 'bullseye/ring' type paper targets, I like using reactive targets (empty cans, etc.) as well as some non-traditional type paper targets and those are just plain lots of fun with .22s.  For example, at Academy I bought some targets a while back (before the .22 drought) that were intended for playing a version of 'Battleship'.  There are two, different colors of 'ships' and each 'ship' has a certain number of rings on it, depending on the size and type of ship.  Instead of guessing where the ship is and putting pegs on a board the object is to 'sink' the other person's ships by shooting them in those spots.  It is a challenge and my nephew and I had a lot of fun competing against each other.  Now, even though I kinda saw the drought coming and put back enough .22 ammo that I don't feel the need to stop by Walmart every day or pay the outrageous, scalping prices that the profiteers want, I also don't have enough to feel comfortable going through it nearly as quickly as I once did.  Since I really don't much shoot centerfire rifles around there, at all, and don't shoot centerfire handguns there all that often, that means I am shooting far less than I did for the past, several years.

I don't have cable where I now live and don't watch the show.  I think I have, maybe, seen one episode.  To me, it is just another stupid 'reality' show just like all the other 'reality' shows that became popular when the entertainment industry lost the ability, imagination and drive to actually create interesting television.  Further, I am past sick and tired of seeing Duck Dynasty/Duck Commander EVERYTHING.  It's worse that Angry frickin' Birds in the licensed product area.   I also don't really consider myself strictly a 'Christian', any more.  I was raised Southern Baptist/Christian but I have become much more of a Deist over the years.  I think of the Bible as more of a book of (mostly) good advice written by a bunch of different people over a long period of time.  And that is if you can settle on which 'translation' of the Bible is the 'real' one.   All that said, while I don't hate gays and will throw in the obligatory caveat that I have had gay friends, I simply think that homosexuality is against the natural order of things.  In that way, I think it is 'wrong' and cannot think of such a lifestyle as being in any way normal.  Of course, I also think that low-rider pickup trucks are unnatural and wrong and cannot support doing such heinous things to a perfectly good truck.   To me, the funny thing is that networks want to promote such crap as 'reality' shows but then when someone on the show has the audacity to actually be 'real' and give their honest opinion and thoughts on a subject all hell breaks loose.  The reality is that this guy believes that homosexuality is a sin - but I guess that doesn't fit in with the 'reality' that A&E is trying to fabricate.  As far as the rest of the family/cast taking action, rather than refusing to appear on the show, thereby running the risk of violating their contracts, I think that every, single member of the Duck Dynasty cast should seek out a national media outlet in which to grant an interview and, in those interviews, they should each and every one speak of their beliefs on homosexuality.  Then, in order to be consistent, A&E would be faced with either suspending every, last one of them - effectively cancelling their highest rated show - or letting it go and bringing the entire cast back.   My understanding is that Duck Commander was already a million dollar (or maybe multi-million dollar) business so the major players on the show were already pretty well rich.  If that is the case, then with the money they have already made off of the show, licensing, appearances and the like as gravy on top of that, I'd say A&E needs them a whole lot more than they need A&E.

  I had never heard that.  Everything I have read (from the Mossberg and Maverick sites) says that Mossberg 500 barrels and Maverick 88 barrels are interchangeable within the same gauge.  A guy on another gun board to which I belong has confirmed that by swapping barrels between a Maverick 12 gauge and a Mossberg 12 gauge that he had.  The only caveat, I think, has to do with whether the shotgun originally comes with a ribbed or non-ribbed barrel.   I don't have a 500 so I can't say, for sure.  I will say that I like and trust my Maverick Security 88 (20 inch barrel) enough that it is my bedside shotgun.

The final product is pretty cool.  Looks like a cybernetic coral reef, to me.   I have never done aluminum casting but I once met a friend of a friend who did and apparently sand is a great casting medium for aluminum.  In fact, that is what this guy used.  He would carve what he wanted out of wax, bury the wax carving in sand with a channel through the sand down to where the wax figure was and then pour the molten aluminum through that channel.  It would run down the channel, melt and replace the wax and leave him with an aluminum copy of his wax figure.  He just had to snip off the part that was cast in the channel he used to pour the metal.  He showed me a really cool, roughly fist-sized dragon head he had made using that method.  I keep wanting to try to make a really cool walking stick handle that way but never have gotten around to it.  Not yet, anyhow.   Come to think of it, it seems like I remember something about Lodge using negative sand casts to make at least some of their cast iron cookware but I might be mistaken.

  Yeah, because this has SOOOO much in common with that other case to which you are obviously referring.  That is if by "SOOOO much" you mean nothing at all beyond both of them involving a firearm and the deceased being 17 years old and black in both.   Also, just for the record, going by his statement from the article it looks like Mr. Archer didn't get out of his vehicle, at least not initially and not by choice.  Instead, one of the robbers seems to have pulled him out - or at least was attempting to do so.       As for this case, one thug down, another shot and hopefully going away for a long time and an intended victim who apparently suffered no serious injury and won't be facing any charges.  Sounds like a good outcome, to me.   I do have to say that if someone wanted to meet in a parking lot and sell me four Microsoft tablets for $250 a piece I'm not sure I would do it.  Even if the supposed sellers didn't pull some crap like this, I'd have to suspect that I was receiving stolen property.  Someone with one tablet to sell for that price (need the money for Christmas, etc.) might not see odd but someone with four of them to sell at that price would sound suspicious, to me.  Still, regardless of what he might have suspected or what he did or did not have reason to suspect, the would-be victim broke no laws, defended himself and removed two thugs from the societal equation.  Good for him.   I also have to commend the Chattanoogan for the way the article was written.  They refer to the man who was forced to defend his life as 'the victim', just as they should.  They also never, once refer to the dead thug or his partner as 'gunshot victims' or any, other type of 'victim'.  They refer to the dead thug as 'the dead robber', 'the other robber' and so on.  This is as it should be.

...you don't remember rotary dial telephones - and certainly don't remember when they were more ubiquitous than push button phones.   ...you never heard of a car called a "Yugo" (my mom had one when I was in high school - it was one of the cars I learned to drive a manual in.)   ...you think drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon is hip.   ...you never had one of your public school teachers ask to borrow your pocket knife - at school - and hand it back to you when she was finished using it.   ...you don't remember seeing news coverage of the "Iran Hostage Crisis" on television, nor do you remember the parody song (to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann") in which the chorus went, "Bomb, bomb, bomb...bomb, bomb Iran" being played on the radio.   ...you never thought you'd pull your friggin' hair out if you heard that damn, "Don't Mess with My Toot Toot" song one more damn time.   ...you never thought you'd pull your friggin' hair out if you heard that damn, "Don't Worry, Be Happy" song one more damn time.

  I think my 925M is the 'updated' version/replacement for the 25M.  Pretty much the same rifle, I believe.  Thing is, I just went to the Marlin site to see if I could check myself on that and the only .22WMR bolt rifle I can find there, now, is in their new "XT" series.  Anyone know if they have stopped the 25M/925M series, altogether?

I have a Marlin 925M that I bought a couple of years ago.  I had an inexpensive Simmons scope (the scope is actually called a '22 Magnum') put on it when I bought it.  I haven't shot it a whole, whole lot but it really is quite accurate, at least out to 100 yards or so.  Mine likes the 33 grain Remington Accutip-V ammo the best for accuracy but it is still pretty good with other types/brands.   I also have a Rossi pump action .22WMR that I inherited from my late grandfather.  I don't think he ever shot it (still had the "Read Manual..." safety tag hanging from the trigger guard when I got it.  It is still a little stiff and requires pretty 'decisive' operation of the pump in order to feed the next round but I think that is likely because it simply isn't broken in, yet.  Pump rifles in .22LR or .22Mag are sometimes called 'gallery guns', I think.  I am pretty sure it is the same as the rifle that the character 'Little Rock' uses in the movie "Zombieland", fwiw.  I wouldn't put a scope on that one (not even sure if it is set up for it) and haven't tried any longer range shooting with it but from 20 yards out I can pretty consistently pick off empty 20 gauge hulls with it, hitting at least three out of four on a good day.  It is right up there with my Henry .22LR lever rifle when it comes to fun factor.  I am not sure if Rossi is still making them - I am thinking maybe not.   I really like the WMR round.  I don't, personally, have a whole lot of interest in a PMR but think that an RMR would be a great gun to have.  Even if Kel Tec started absolutely churning them out tomorrow, though, I imagine it would be years before I would be able to get one.  Ruger made a .22WMR version of the 10/22 for a few years but I have heard that some of them had a lot of problems with functionality.  Ruger stopped making them and I have heard that they are now pretty expensive.   I think I would eventually like to have a lever gun in .22WMR.  I believe such a thing would be a fun, little rifle.

From the article:     Says the dumbass who has obviously not studied enough of history to know what a 'well regulated militia' meant and means - including reading Madison's "The Federalist #46" in which is is made clear that 'militia' refers not only to every able-bodied citizen but that a 'militia' is NOT a standing military and, in fact, is the best way to keep a standing military (and a tyrannical Federal government) in check.  Further, Madison referred to the ability of each and every individual citizen to own arms as an advantage Americans have over most, other nations and links that ability with the very ability to form a militia in the first place.  I guess this jaggoff knows more about the intent of the 2nd Amendment than Madison did, as well (you know, James Madison- the guy who can be attributed with successfully campaigning for a Bill of Rights to be included in the Constitution and who came up with many of the concepts that inspired the points contained therein.)  Honestly, I'd say that his real problem with the Second Amendment is that it basically reinforces that we, the People - not the military, not its officers and not his bosses in the FedGov - are in charge and that we have the innate right to use force of arms, if necessary, to keep it that way.  Just another government lapdog hiding behind pretenses of concern for the safety of the public to advance an agenda bent on destroying liberty in the name of government control.  To hell with him and his ilk.   To be truthful, the real failing of the Supreme Court in that ruling is that it ruled that the government could still pass laws regulating some firearms, etc. - thereby allowing the government to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, which is specifically forbidden in the Second Amendment.

Some people need to be tied, spread eagle, to a wall and repeatedly kicked in the 'nads until they puke.   Personally, I don't give a good GD if this guy is head of the joint chiefs - the intention that the 2nd Amendment means an individual right is clear to anyone not trying to play a disingenuous game of semantics and I'll take the Founders' wisdom over that of some flunky in uniform any day of the week.

I also watched a lot of the old reruns on PBS.  Tom Baker was also always my favorite.  I consider myself a 'fan' of Doctor Who and I watched some of the 'reboot' series when I still had cable and enjoyed it.  I no longer have cable so I haven't watched, lately.   Quite possibly my favorite scene from the new show took place during the final 'showdown' between the Doctor and the Master.  The Master had sent some of his 'drones' to attack the Doctor's former companion, Donna.  To save her life, the Doctor had been forced to make her forget about her time with him so she had no way of knowing what was going on.  Just when Donna was completely surrounded and it looked like she was done for, there was some sort of psychic wave triggered from her that knocked her (and her would-be attackers) unconscious.  The Doctor then looked at the Master and said something along the lines of, "Did you think I'd leave my best friend without any defense mechanism?"   I have to say that I am curious to see how the Doctor's final demise will be handled - or avoided.  As part of the series lore, Time Lords get to regenerate twelve times.  That means there should be thirteen and done.  As far as I know, the only Time Lord to have gone beyond that number was the Master - and his first attempt to do so left him warped and disfigured.  The Master eventually overcame that but only via stealing the bodies of living victims.  I'm guessing, though, that now being the 'last' Time Lord will come into play in helping the Doctor avoid final death.   Oh, and I think John Pertwee was probably my second favorite.  His Doctor was mostly limited to adventures on Earth (his fellow Time Lords exiled him to Earth) so I think that made his adventures a little more 'immediate' in some ways, not to mention his run having other great characters such as the Brigadier and the guys of U.N.I.T.  Then there was Bessie.

From the article:     So, in their warped reality where they are always the victim and anyone who refuses to be victimized by them is out of line (and probably judged to be a racist, to boot), their low-life, scumbag of a relative has every 'right' to rob a business at gunpoint, has every 'right' to put an innocent person on his knees and place a gun to his head and has every 'right' to expect to be able to do so without consequences?  And no one has the 'right' to interfere or attempt to protect said low-life's intended victims?

The more I think about it, the more I doubt the 'knockout game' connection in the story posted in the OP.  I have to wonder if the 'knockout game' isn't simply being used by the assailant as a cover story for something that could have more serious legal consequences.  Think about it:   In everything I have heard or read about this so-called 'knockout game', people are targeted at random on the street.  As the thug who is playing the 'game' and his friends walk by the random stranger, the thug tries to knock the victim out with a single punch to the face/head.  Knocking the victim out with a punch, then, is kind of the 'object' of this stupid 'game'.  That being the case, a taser pretty well goes against the entire 'point' of the knockout game.  So, the more I think about it, the more three guys getting out of a van (after circling a couple of times) with a taser sounds like an attempted kidnapping and the less it sounds like what I have heard about these knockout games.  I'm thinking the scumbag assailant just didn't want to do the kind of time that attempted kidnapping would bring so he 'confessed' to playing the knockout game, instead.   With all that in mind, I have to wonder if these guys might not have seen the father standing there waiting for the bus to drop off his daughter on multiple occasions.  Not realizing that he was just waiting for his daughter, depending on the type of neighborhood, location and so on maybe they got it into their heads that he was slinging drugs.  Maybe - believing he was a pusher - they thought they could drop him with a taser, grab him, toss him in the van, roll him for drugs and cash then dump him somewhere else.  They probably figured that a dealer wasn't going to report the incident to the cops.  That honestly sounds more feasible, to me, than three guys pulling up in a van and tasing a stranger as part of a knockout game.  If that is what they were really doing then maybe when it came time to give his story, the would-be assailant figured that the likely sentence for playing the knockout game might not be as severe as the sentence for attempted kidnapping, conspiracy to commit a kidnapping, attempted robbery and so on.  Just a thought.

  This wasn't just a case of someone walking up and shoving 'something' in someone else's side.  This was a case where the victim saw the van that the assailant got out of driving around in a circle a couple of times.  On the second time around, he saw three people (apparently, the would-be assailant and two of his buddies) get out of the van.  At least one of them - the would-be assailant - then walked up to him and shoved something in his side.  Put all of that together and I believe that the intended victim could, indeed, articulate a reasonable belief that his life was in danger.    If I am standing in a public place, minding my own business and a vehicle circles past me a couple of times, three guys I don't know get out and one of them walks up to me and shoves something in my side, I don't think I'd give them a chance to take any, further action before acting in self defense.  It isn't like this guy just bumped into him walking down the street or even like the intended victim just suddenly felt something shoved into his side out of nowhere.  The back story - the circling van, the three guys getting out, one of them walking up and then shoving something into his side - is important.