JAB

  Sad thing is that some people will do things like this because they think it is 'funny' - they might not even know the person who owns the car, much less have a problem with them.

I really like that style and similar style wheels on a truck.  IMO, they don't look 'bling', they just look mean.

  Hell, when I was about their age I was attending UTK and lived with my grandmother at her house due to it being convenient to campus.  She lived on East Fifth Avenue (which runs parallel to Magnolia.)  Typical story of someone who had moved into a nice neighborhood only to see it go downhill over the years.  There was more than one drive-by shooting on a house that was across the street and one house down from my grandmother's during the time I lived there (the mother of a known gang member owned the house and lived there - the drive-bys were probably attempts to kill him when he was visiting her.)  That may be a place that young, white kids 'shouldn't go', too but I lived there for several years.  Having lived in that part of town and knowing (from first hand experience) the attitude that SOME of the black residents have regarding white people (I say SOME because we had black neighbors who were among the best people I have known and the best neighbors we could have asked for), I say that the Christian/Newsom murders were without a doubt hate crimes (as if anyone ever rapes, tortures and butchers someone because they just like them so darned much.)

  Even when I was attending UTK (graduated in 1996) - at least for my first, couple of years - there really wasn't much of a 'WorldWideWeb' as we know it, now.  Instead, we did online research for projects, papers, etc. largely through 'gophers' - kind of a forerunner to current WWW and search engines.   It would be one thing to be in my 80s or 90s and think back about how much the world has changed over the scope of my entire lifetime but to be in my early 40s and realizing how much the world has changed since I was 20 (as in many of the things that 'run' the contemporary world didn't even exist twenty years ago) just seems kind of strange.   Then, again, there is a tenant in Anthropology that says the more advanced technology gets the faster it advances.   Oh, and my first cellphone contract was when I was working at the Knox County Public Library.  The county had contracted with U.S. Cellular to give county employees a 'deal'.  This was the mid to late 1990s when a lot of folks still carried pagers and cell phones hadn't pushed pagers out of the market, yet.  IIRC (and maybe I don't) my bill for my first cellphone contract was $10.00 per month for 30 minutes of talk time.  There was no such thing as texting on a phone (although some pagers could text) and certainly no Internet on cell phones.   I didn't carry that phone around, much - generally just left it in the seat of my truck.  I had it for emergencies or if I needed to let someone know I was running late, etc.  Never talked on it for more than a minute or two at a time and left it turned off unless I was making a call.  I don't think it even had voicemail.  If I knew someone was supposed to call me, they would leave a message on my home phone answering machine and I'd check messages with the cell phone.  Now I don't even have a land line/home phone and the Droid Bionic I carry in my pocket (and which is now a couple of years old, not the latest tech) is probably a more 'powerful' computer than my first PC.  At 8 gig of internal memory plus a 16 gig mini-SD card, it certainly has more storage (my first PC had only 100 meg of hard disk space after Windows 95 was installed, etc.)  Heck, my cell phone makes that old Commodore 64 that was my first 'computer' look like an abacus by comparison.

Oh, well, now if we are extending our SHTF planning to include movies, I'll take me some Iron Man armor, an independently operating recharging system, a couple cases of good beer and Scarlett Johannsen in that Black Widow outfit from The Avengers.   Yeah, I may not survive long but I'll die with a big, ol' smile on my face!

If you guys are taking katanas and throwing 'hawks, I want a boar spear.  A really, really big and really, really sharp boar spear.     And a basket-hilt claymore.     I'll be needing a dirk and a sgian dubh, too.     Oh, and can anyone out there tell me a good place to learn how to use a boar spear, basket-hilt claymore, dirk and sgian dubh in a survival situation?     That basket hilt claymore (which is a little different design from the Highland version) will look cool when I am rallying my troops fellow group members as we prepare to stave off looters looking to steal our supplies.  I can just hear my inspirational speech, now:   "They may take our lives but they'll never take OUR BEEEEAAAANNNNSSSS!!!!!"  [insert farting sound here]   "Now, y'all go get 'em.  What?  Somebody has to stay back here and strike a badass pose with this uber-cool boar spear."

        Talk about synchronicity!  I had never even heard of REI until Hershmeister responded to my post with his above quoted post.  Now, they just announced that they are opening a storefront in Knoxville (first heard about the planned Knoxville location yesterday evening, five days after Hershmeister alerted me to their existence.  OOOooooEEeeeeOOOooooo!):   http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/aug/14/rei-plans-knoxville-store/?partner=popular

  That would be almost as odd as coming across a VCR that would only play BETA.

  Hell, I can remember when the Apple Macintosh was considered cutting edge (my first 'home computer' was a Commodore 64.)  I also remember when phones hung on walls or sat on tables, had to be plugged into wall jacks via cables and for the most part had rotary dials, not push buttons, for entering numbers (come to think of it, people still say 'dial this number' - even though there are no longer dials.)   I also remember when having only a black and white television was not that unusual.  Growing up, the cartoons I watched on Saturday morning actually showed Wile E. Coyote hitting bottom when he fell off the cliff (some of you might not even remember the big hooplah raised by some pantywaist 'concerned' parents about all the 'violence' in Bugs Bunny cartoons that got the actual 'hitting bottom' censored/cut out of many of those cartoons in the first place.)   I also remember (as a child of about six or seven) thinking how stupid/crappy the whole 'Disco' thing was and, at not even nine years of age, being glad when the ball dropped on New Year's Eve 1979 that the dang '70s were finally over.  Now I can only dream of this country being socially and politically the way it was in 1979 (when places like Walmart still sold handguns.)

  Well, that's easy.  Obviously, a Soviet NRS-2.  :up:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS-2   Or, at least, one of these:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_knife   Then there are guys like Spots who would be able to make whatever kind of knife he wants according to the needs at hand (seriously, if you have never seen his stuff in threads in the knife forums, he and his father have a forge and he creates hand-made knives and other tools.)

  There is nothing I have ever seen in TN law making it specifically illegal to kill snakes and I have become convinced that statements claiming it is 'illegal to kill snakes in TN' is an exaggeration, at best, and intentionally misleading, at worst.  Yes, it is generally considered a violation of the law to kill any animal out of season or to kill an animal for which there is no hunting season.  However, there also generally seems to be an exception to those laws when you are killing a nuisance animal.  Specially protected animals (raptors, endangered species or threatened species) can generally only be legally killed when there is a danger to life.  Nuisance 'big game' animals can only be killed via special permits or, again, when they pose a serious threat.  Unless I am mistaken, however, copperheads are not 'big game' and are on on no such 'protected' lists.   Further, I do consider a venomous snake living in close proximity to my residence as a direct threat of death or serious, bodily injury to myself, my family or my animals.

  I turned 42 in June.  I realized the other day that this means there are people who are now of legal drinking age who weren't even born when I reached legal drinking age.   And along the lines of 'closer to', I am closer to being 50 years old than I am to when I was 30 years old - and I am closer to being 60 years old than I am to when I was 20 years old.

  What you say makes sense but the big thing to remember is that it took quite some time of this country being a 'car society' for gas to reach $1.00 per gallon.  Heck, I remember when I first started driving in about 1988 I could still get gas for $0.89 per gallon from at least one station in town.  So it was probably the early 1990s before gas would exceed $1.00 per gallon as a permanent thing (in this area.)  Considering that regular unleaded is now normally in the $3.35 per gallon range (and can easily approach $4.00 per gallon when there is some kind of disaster or other 'shortage') then we can see that the price of gas has risen between 300% and 400% just in the last, two decades.  To me, that sounds like gas prices have risen a greater percentage in the last, twenty years than in all the time that there was a mass market for gas, before.

  Again, I am not talking about hiking trails, etc.  In and around the immediate vicinity of my home (my yard, etc.), however, - where I walk on a daily basis and where my dog runs, etc. - I would consider that $0.26 to be money well spent.   I mean, I put out mouse traps to kill vermin and most see that as no, big deal.  People use .22s to thin out things like chipmunks, sparrows and other critters they consider nuisances around their homes/yards.  Shooting raccoons that are invading chicken coops and killing chickens is considered acceptable.  I see no difference in eliminating nuisance animals that could, potentially, cause serious bodily injury or even death via venom from the vicinity of my residence.

  I agree with you in a philosophical sense.  That does not change the fact that citizens in some states had (maybe still have) a stated or implied duty to retreat before using deadly force.  This meant that a would-be victim of deadly assault who chose not to present their back as a target to an assailant but, instead, use deadly force without attempting to retreat could be charged with a crime even if clearly acting in self defense.  Heck, apparently in some states you are expected to try and run away even inside your own home and only use deadly force if the assailant pursues you/backs you into a corner from which you can no longer retreat.  "Stand your ground" laws are intended to remove any such duty to retreat in any location where you are legally allowed to be.   Even here in TN, where there was no clearly stated duty to retreat, 'stand your ground' type laws were put into place to make it absolutely clear that the would-be victim in fact has no such duty.  Therefore the repeal of 'stand your ground' laws - while such repeal can obviously not take away a natural right - could result in would-be victims being prosecuted (and, possibly found guilty) for not further risking their lives by attempting to run away before using potentially deadly force in self defense.

  When I hear this sort of thing, I generally think of the first Superman movie that starred Christopher Reeve as 'The Man of Steel'.  Specifically, I can't help but thinking that Lex Luthor (played by Gene Hackman) had the right idea.

  By 92, I am assuming (yeah, I know what happens) that he is talking about a Beretta 92.  If so then I think maybe I can see why he phrased the OP the way he did.   Question for The Itis:   Based on the OP (original post in this thread) and the guns you already own (and, possibly, some latent telepathic abilities I may or may not possess :pleased: ) I have to wonder if you were actually kind of (in a roundabout way) saying/asking, "I currently own two handguns.  One is a Beretta 92 in 9mm and the other is chambered in .22LR.  I am thinking about buying a long gun and I am not really interested in shotguns.  I also don't have a whole lot of experience with centerfire rifles.  So, with possible SHTF and 'bugging out' usage in mind, if you were in my position and looking to buy a long gun to pair with one of the handguns I already have, do you think it would be better to choose a .22LR rifle to pair with the 9mm or would you choose a larger caliber rifle and pair it with the .22 pistol?  If you would choose the latter then what chambering would you choose in the long gun and why?"   If so, then there is no shame in just coming out and asking.  Also, if that is what you are getting at then I would wager that phrasing the question in such a manner would get you answers that would more closely match what you want to know.  That doesn't mean that some folks won't still try to persuade you to choose a shotgun (for various reasons already discussed in this thread) but I do think it might help focus the discussion a little.

Potential cost of anti-vemon:                                     $42,000 per dose Cost of venom extraction kit:                                     roughly $25.00 Cost of a field load shotgun shell from a bulk pack:  roughly $0.26   The third option costs much less and has the great benefit of avoiding getting bitten in the first place.  Not too hard to figure out my preferred method of dealing with the issue.   Yeah, I know you won't always see a snake in time and no, I don't go hunting for them but I also won't feel bad about eliminating a venomous snake that is around my home.  Most bites might be 'survivable' (hey, cancer is often 'survivable' but that doesn't mean anyone wants that, either) but I'd just as soon avoid the pain and suffering involved, too.

I have never actually met the man but one of the 'celebrities' who I think really deserves respect is Stan Brock.  Folks my age (42) and older might remember him going up against some pretty dangerous beasties on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (apparently managing to subdue them one way or another without ever, actually, doing any lasting harm to them.)  Others may or may not realize that he is the founder of the RAM (Remote Area Medical) Clinic that works to provide free medical care to people in remote parts of the U.S. and the world.   I was thinking that Mr. Brock owned a ranch in Sneedville, TN.  I am still thinking that he did at one time but, according to the RAM website, he now lives in Knoxville, TN (although he probably travels with RAM a lot.)   http://ramusa.org/about/stanbrock.htm   Here is an episode of Wild Kingdom showing Mr. Brock, in his younger days, in Africa chasing down and lassoing a wild buffalo from horseback then jumping off the horse and 'calf roping' the buffalo.  Oh, and notice that he is barefoot (or maybe he is wearing some kind of very light/minimal sandal?)  So maybe Cody Lundin didn't originate the practice, after all.  Jump to somewhere around the 12:35 mark to see the actual lassoing.  Apparently, they wanted to use an instrument they had to check the creature's heart rate or something as part of a study that was being conducted.  When all is said and done, Mr. Brock releases the buffalo to go on it's merry way with nothing hurt but its pride.   EDIT: For some reason unknown to me, when I click on the embedded video, it starts somewhere around the 15:30 mark where he is already releasing the creature.  If it does this when you click on it, you can just drag the progress indicator backward to the right spot to see Mr. Brock in action.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZ4ATmfsAA

  Keep in mind that the ability to make moonshine would likely be an invaluable skill in a SHTF scenario.  Such spirits would have a myriad of uses.  Probably more uses than a .22, anyhow.   I have never made shine, myself, but my late father made and ran (yes, illegal) shine in his younger days.  I had him describe the process of making shine to me, in detail, just because I was curious about 'how' one would do it.  I think making good shine would take more knowledge, skill and sense than you might imagine.   Having had 'good' shine - (from, um, independent distillers my dad knew of when I was younger) I can say that the homemade stuff can be a damn sight better than the mass produced 'moonshine' that is now on the market (although, being honest, some of that isn't bad.)   And to think, I'm the one that was trying to be civil to you.

Don't neglect the fact that your Nagant revolver can - with the stock cylinder - already chamber and fire .32 S&W Long rounds. I know because I've seen me do it (with my Nagant revolver, that is.) I would suppose that would also mean you could chamber and fire .32 S&W (short) rounds. In fact, I have read in more than one place that Nagant revolvers are 'strong' enough to handle .32 H&R Magnum rounds - although I have never tried that and probably will not unless a true emergency (such as SHTF survival) arises and, by some strange set of circumstances, the only ammo I can find in .32 H&R Magnum. Anyhow, this means that - even without the .32acp cylinder - your Nagant revolver can fire at least three, different ammo types (7.62X38R, .32 S&W Long and .32 S&W.) If you are willing to risk .32 H&R Magnum, that would mean four ammo possibilities with the stock cylinder. Throw in the .32acp cylinder and you'd be looking at possibly being able to fire five, different ammo types with that one revolver. That would mean that, between the two primaries and the Nagant, you'd possibly have the option of using ten different ammo types!

People are constantly pointing out that rattlesnake bites are usually 'survivable'.  People also seem to act as if getting bitten by a copperhead is more or less equivalent to a serious bee sting.  That is not, necessarily, the case.   I used to work with a lady who was bitten on the arm by a copperhead while she was working in her garden.  She went to the hospital but her arm still turned blue/black and swelled to more than twice it's normal size.  At first, doctors told her there was a good chance she would lose the arm.  Even after the threat of limb loss was over, they told her that it would take up to a year to regain full use of the arm and that the arm would likely never be the same.   So, yeah, the bite was 'survivable' but 'survivable' doesn't take into account a whole lot of pain, suffering, nerve damage, tissue damage and even possible limb loss.

  Before I moved to where I now live (with my mom as a neighbor on one side and my sister's family on the other) my sister's husband was raising a few hogs and they had a litter of piglets.  I had never really seen a set of what I would call true tusks on a domesticated hog, before, but their big boar had some pretty impressive ones.  One day, while the piglets were still small, two or three mean dogs that lived in the area came around looking for trouble.  They were trying to get into the area where they were keeping the piglets and even acting like they would attack my sister.  Well, the piglets were scared and squealing which probably only riled the dogs up further.  One of her dogs was trying to fight the threatening dogs and was able to keep them off of her but wasn't going to be able to hold its own for long.  Desperate and scared for herself and her dog, she says that she did the only thing she could think to do - she reached over and tripped the latch to open the big hog pen.  She said that boar hog came out of the pen like a demon straight from hell and laid into the attacking dogs.  She said it ended up ripping one of them all the way down its side with those tusks.  At that point, the attacking dogs ran off and - despite her fears that she wouldn't be able to get the boar back in the enclosure - the hog just turned around and walked right back into the pen, allowing her to close the gate.  After that, she referred to it as her attack pig.

  Not a true 'Makarov' but along those lines the first thing that came to my mind when reading your 'specs' for a new gun was a CZ-82.  As you list a .380 as one of your carry guns, I assume you would be okay with the 9mm Makarov ballistics.  They aren't as inexpensive as they once were but you could still probably pick up a pair of them for your $500 budget - maybe with enough left for a box or two of ammo.  Only problem is, 9mm Makarov ammo (like most ammo) is a bit difficult to find, right now.   I don't think I could pocket carry my 82 but in a home-made, leather belt slide holster it carries easily OWB with a cover garment.  With 12+1 capacity and a spare mag, it is my usual 'step up' from my S&W 642 when I want something with a higher ammo capacity.

  I was thinking that the bullet would be intentionally designed to transform into a superheated plasma charge as it left the barrel.