JAB

That is quite impressive.  My late father worked pulpwood, etc. in his younger days in the Lookout Mountain area.  I have seen him climb trees to trim branches or top the tree (so it would fall right when cut at the base) without the use of any equipment, whatsoever, just using his feet/legs and one hand (one hand because he was holding a chainsaw in the other.)  He usually had branches he could grab ahold of all the way up when I saw him do that, though.  I have also seen him jump out of fairly tall tree (not as tall as the one Spots was climing in the pics), land on his feet and simply walk away.  Me, I'd fall and break my neck even with the equipment (a man has to know his limitations.)  Of course, dad started working pulpwood when he was about twelve years old so I guess it is fair to say that he had some experience.   There is a reason I say that dad had to die of cancer because nothing else could kill him.

Not sure why .22LR is a 'given'.  Personally, I'd rather have one of my .22WMR firearms in a SHTF situation.  I mean, it isn't like the ammo is that much bulkier/heavier but I believe that the ammo construction and performance is much better.  While neither would be 'ideal', I would feel much more confident in using a rifle chambered in WMR to attempt to take white-tailed deer sized game (in a SHTF, gotta do it to survive so the rules no longer apply situation only, of course) than attempting to do so with a LR.  Because I do like the WMR chambering so much, I have a decent amount and variety of WMR ammo on-hand to choose from if the S were to HTF.   If WMR is allowed, then I would be sore tempted to go with a long gun in WMR and pair it with a double action .357 revolver with a 4 inch barrel (good compromise of 'using' the magnum potential and still being able to somewhat conceal.)  If WMR is not allowed, then I would likely go with my Henry lever action .22LR and the same .357 revolver.   I'd choose the Henry over a semiauto because I am much more accurate with it using only iron sights than I generally am with semiauto rifles.  In a SHTF situation, I want something I could shoot well and accurately with iron sights only.  The Henry is also extremely light weight.  Another advantage is that I could use .22LR, .22L, or.22S.  I could also use shotshells or colibri without worrying about whether or not the ammo would cycle the action.  I figure the use I would have for the .22 would not necessitate a high rate of fire (although with practice one can fire a lever gun pretty quickly) or fast/combat reloading.   Of course, if the goal is simply 'getting away from the big cities' and I am at home (where these guns would be, anyway) then I'm good as I would already be away from the big cities.  No need to go anywhere and I would have all my firearms as options for use.

I like the one in the last (bottom) picture.  Nice work.

  Hypothetically speaking, if there were a restaurant where I have only eaten once or twice and that was in a part of the state that is a little distance from where I live - we'll call it Vegas steakhouse in Crossville, TN just for the sake of argument - and if the last time I was there this restaurant were only posted with a small, gun-circle-slash sticker that had a clear background and if said posting were on the innermost set of two glass doors and if someone were holding the door open when I entered, I might accidentally carry past it without ever even seeing the 'posting'.  If such an unfortunate mistake were, hypothetically, to take place, I would posit that - again, hypothetically, of course - I could probably be seated, eat an entire hypothetical meal and leave all while keeping my hypothetical 642 in my hypothetical pocket and not even noticing the sign until I was leaving without anyone there ever even knowing I was hypothetically carrying, much less saying anything about it.  Hypothetically. :shrug:

From the article at the link:     Well, uh, being that they are in the hands of someone other than the rightful owner or a person who has permission from the rightful owner to possess them then, yes, I'd say they are in the 'wrong hands'.   Almost makes one wonder if keeping many/all of their privately owned firearms in one safe/lockbox/etc. might just be a way of creating 'one stop shopping' for criminals.

  I saw or read (can't really remember which - heck, maybe both) an interview with him where he said that was, basically, luck.  He said he knew the reload was where he might lose time so he just kind of 'tossed' the reload into the cylinder and got lucky that it lined up just right, slipped right in and he was able to keep things rolling.  That said, I'd say his extensive practice and training had a lot to do with generating that 'lucky' reload.

Chiappa is making the Double Badger over/under in .22LR and .410 and I think it looks pretty nice.  For some reason, way back when Sears and Penney's still had firearms in their catalogs (as in when I was just a kid), one of the things that always caught my eye were the over/under rifle/shotgun combos.  There was just something about them I found appealing and I guess the appeal never completely went away.   The biggest thing that stops me from getting an over/under combo or one of the Rossi matched pairs is the cost.  North of $300 for what is essentially a single shot shotgun or rifle (or, in the case of the O/U, a single shot shotgun and single shot rifle) for which I don't really have a practical use and which would likely stop being fun at the range pretty quickly is just too rich, for me, when I can point out pairs of repeater shotguns and repeater rifles which together cost less than one of those single shot O/U combos.  For example, I recently bought a Savage 320 for just under $200 and have a very serviceable Winchester 190 that I bought used for around $89.  It is kind of hard, for me, to justify paying $100 more for a single shot shotgun and rifle than I paid for those two, combined.  Okay, maybe it isn't fair to compare new vs. one new and one used so it might be more fair to say that I bought the Savage for less than $200 and saw a bolt action, mag fed Mossberg .22LR rifle at Wally the other day for something like $130 - which still means I could buy two brand new 'repeater' firearms for the price of one single shot combo.   I can kind of see that the cost would be justified for an O/U due to the complexity of the action, extractors and so on plus they are kind of a niche firearm.  I just wish Rossi didn't hold their matched pairs so dear.  I mean, being that they can sell the youth combo .22/.410 for around $169 (or less) it would seem that they should be able to sell one of the larger caliber/gauge matched pairs for not a whole lot more.

  So the officers observed a firearm in her possession?  Or they should just assume than anyone involved in an automobile accident is an armed thug looking to 'take out' a cop?

  I'm thinking a nice 'fringe' with ball tassles around the mag well would be nice.   :dirty:   Seriously, though, that is a nice looking rifle, IMO.

I still would like to know why it was necessary to yank the woman from the car, prone her out on the pavement and cuff her in order to 'get control' of her.  I mean, she doesn't look like a bodybuilder, power lifter or track star so I doubt there is much chance she was going to come up out of the car like She Hulk and start tossing officers left and right nor was she going to hit the pavement running like Flo Jo and leave them all in the dust.   So she was attempting to drive away.  Fine - put the car in park, turn off the car and remove the keys from the ignition.  It is kind of hard to operate a vehicle that isn't running when you don't have the keys - especially when (according to the officers, themselves) the car was not drivable, anyhow.   Which brings up another point for those who want to posit that the accident wasn't severe enough to cause injuries.  How can an accident be so severe as to render at least one vehicle immobile but not severe enough to have the potential to cause neck/spine injuries?  That argument doesn't really make much sense, to me.

  I was born in LaFayette, Georgia and we lived in Menlo, Georgia at the time.  My dad grew up mostly on the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain and most of his family live in Northern Georgia and Alabama.  We moved to East Tennessee when I was about three years old.  Folks might not realize how different the accent is in that region (especially in some of the more rural 'pockets') from the one most commonly heard in East Tennessee but it is.   I have heard that many of your 'patterns' are developed by the time you are three years old and I believe it, at least to an extent.  Even though I pretty much have an East Tennessee accent, if I spend a few days around my kin from Georgia, I will fall right into speaking with the same accent they have just as naturally as you please.  In fact, even though I am not doing it on purpose, the accent will be so pronounced that even I notice it.   Back when I was taking German in college, I actually felt like I was pretty good at speaking 'standard' German.  One day, however, an instructor played sound bytes for us of people speaking in the various dialects (Bavarian, Austrian, etc.) and I couldn't understand a darned thing they were saying.

There is just something fitting about the term 'Rathaus', considering the place to which that term applies.   I took German when I was at UTK many years ago. Jetz, spreche und verstehe Ich nur ein bisschen.  (I probably butchered that.)  I actually love the language.  In fact, one semester German wouldn't work with my schedule so I thought about switching to French.  I took one semester of French and realized that I despised it.  Why anyone would say that French is a beautiful language is beyond me - I think, when spoken properly with the right accent, etc. it sounds like the speaker just smelled something nasty and is about to puke.   To me, German just sounds 'strong', not unpleasant.  I did, however, have a German instructor who once said that the most effective 'cussers' on Earth are pissed-off German grandmothers.   Of course, without German we wouldn't have English as we know it and English is, largely, a Germanic language.  Heck, if it hadn't been for those danged Normans in 1066, we'd likely pretty much still speak a recognizable dialect of German.  In fact, the similarity of many words to English words (due to the English word having derived from the German word) interfered with my ability to properly spell some English words for a time - I'd keep trying to spell the word like it is spelled in German.

  Yet this was the guy that, just two Presidential elections back, the Republican party chose as their 'best and brightest' to run for POTUS.  And still so many go to great lengths to fool themselves (and try to browbeat others) into believing that having a Republican in office would be any less disastrous than having a Democrat in office.

  The way TN law is worded, there are some protections from being charged if you legitimately use your firearm in self defense even in an area where having the firearm is not 'legal'.  I am not sure if that rule would apply in such a situation or not.  Still, I don't know that knowingly breaking the law is something that should be advised.  When possible, it is probably better to find another establishment - one that doesn't treat lawful carriers like criminals - to receive your business and money.  Of course, if visiting someone in a hospital that is posted, etc. that option might not exist.  Still, advising (or admitting) to knowingly breaking the law on an Internet forum is probably not a good idea.   Now, if the posting isn't legal but is just some wishy-washy phrase then - while I would still rather give money to an establishment that doesn't make any attempt to discourage legal carry - that could be a different matter, IMO.  I used to feel that we should respect the business' 'wishes', regardless, but have come to the point that I really don't give a crap about their 'wishes'.  I simply don't want to be caught breaking the law.

  For a long time, I have thought those matched pairs looked interesting although I haven't bought one (yet.)  Even the .410/.22 youth combo that sells at Walmart for around $169 looks like a pretty good, utilitarian combo.   I'd kind of like to have one of the .44Mag/20 gauge matched pairs.  I don't think there is anything that walks, crawls or flies in the continental United States that couldn't be harvested for food with that combo.  I also wouldn't mind having one of the .22WMR/12 gauge combos and would think that it, also, would be capable of harvesting pretty much any game animal in the continental U.S.   Then there is the one Rossi Matched Set that is 20 gauge/.22LR/.44Magnum.  In an emergency/survival situation (where one might go to extremes beyond normal, sporting hunting practices) I'd think that would put anything from chipmunks to moose 'on the menu'.   Heck, there are even single shot handgun versions of the 'matched pairs', etc.  One comes with a barrel that allows the use of both 2 1/2 inch .410 shells and .45 Colt ammo and another barrel chambered for .22LR.  That sounds like a pretty useful 'backpack gun', to me.

  Well, as I said (and this is just me, not legal advice) not being one of their employees, I don't really care what their 'policy' is - their 'policy' means nothing to me, although it is generally my 'policy' that a place that doesn't want my gun on their premises doesn't want my money there, either.  I haven't been back but if for some reason I did go back, it would be with the opinion that their sign does not pass legal muster.  That is all I will say about that.

  At least one Knoxville location of a larger chain (Carrabba's) has some long, drawn out BS posting that is something like,   "While we respect our customer's rights, it is our policy that weapons not be allowed on the premises."   I will just say that, as I am not one of their employees, I do not give a flying fig about their company's 'policy'.  To me, that isn't a legal posting (although I haven't been back to Carrabba's since I noticed it - I like their food well enough but there are too many other Italian joints that don't try to pay lip service to our 'rights' but then say that they don't want us carrying.)   To me, that is like saying, "I absolutely respect your right to free speech.  Now shut the hell up."  I'd rather see a legal posting than someone trying to blow smoke up my butt by claiming to respect my right to carry then telling me they don't want me doing it.  That is saying, "We respect the right in theory but not in practice."  Whole lot of bloody good that does.

  In some, other states the signs do not have the weight of law.  My understanding is that if you are 'busted', asked to leave and refuse then they can get you for trespassing but if you leave then there are no criminal charges that can be filed.  That seems reasonable.  Tennessee, however, has to break our balls about it.  Honestly, for a supposedly Southern state, TN isn't the best on firearm rights (although there are certainly worse places.)  I think there are two reasons for this - 1. Tennessee politicians are greedy and like the idea of the state having an opportunity to collect $500 fines (or any fines.)  2. We have too danged many liberal, anti-gun Yankees from places like Illinois, etc. who have moved to TN and want to gripe about our firearm freedoms (no offense to any non-liberal, non-anti-gun Yankees from places like Illinois, of course - I don't blame you for wanting to escape.)

  Yeah, and my instructor interpreted it as '4 hours for the entire class to get through range time'.  Being we had about four times as many students as we had lanes in the range where I had my class, that meant going in groups.  The folks in the first group obviously got done long before the folks in the last group.

  I don't doubt it one, little bit.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLk1v5bSFPw&feature=player_embedded   That said, watching him (on Impossible Shots) shooting two semiautos at once, very quickly with one in each hand, and hitting what he was shooting at was darned impressive, too.

  That always bugs me, too - although I hadn't really thought about the fact that when they are missing so much that it is generally against the living who are shooting back.  Still, I think there is something to be said for using the weapon they are best with.  For instance, not being a SD expert or anything else, I think if I could make headshots with a Colt Python while running full-tilt then if things got 'serious' I think I'd grab the Colt Python.  Sure, maybe it doesn't have the capacity, etc. of the AR or even a semiauto handgun but six hits beats thirty misses any day of the week.  Likewise, if I could make 200 yard headshots on walkers from the guard tower with a scoped, bolt action hunting rifle then if a living enemy showed up they'd see me in that guard tower with that scoped, bolt action hunting rifle - not an AR that I couldn't shoot worth a heck.

  You know, I hadn't really thought of it that way.  I can see that incoming fire would detract from one's concentration.

  Did you ever stop to think that perhaps there are so many instances of lawsuits, 'persecution' and outright hatred of LEOs because there are so many instances of LEOs doing things that deserve lawsuits, persecution and outright hatred?  No, I am definitely not saying 'all' LEOs engage in such activity.  The honest truth, however, is that too many of them do and an increasing number are being caught 'in the act'.  Based on the number of cases we actually hear about on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, one has to wonder how many times the same officers have engaged in the same (or worse) activity without getting caught.  One also has to wonder how many other officers have engaged in such activity without getting caught (or, upon being caught, had their activity swept under the rug by their department or received little to no disciplinary action for it.)  In fact, not only do some LEOs engage in such activity but seem to do so with a sense of impunity even thought they know their cruiser cams are catching it all on film.  Could this be because they know that 99% of the time the only 'consequences' they will face will be a couple of days paid suspension 'vacation' and some 'retraining'.  They also know that many LEO who are honestly good cops will rush to their defense out of some misguided sense of loyalty.   I mean, we are talking about things like a woman who was posing no threat being yanked from her vehicle and handcuffed for no, good reason.  Closer to home (Knoxville) we are talking about a suspect who is cuffed and subdued being beaten and kicked, apparently even by officers who arrived on the scene after he was subdued (not to mention supervisors who attempted to cover up the incident.)  Heck, we even have officers (Pigeon Forge) talking blithely about walking in to their HQ and killing all the members of another shift within their own department, including their captain.  In some cases, such as the latter, the officers are fired but in too many they are basically given a slap on the wrist (or even a pat on the back) and put back to work.  At the very least, such activities show a marked lack of intelligence and judgement and I would say that people who are that stupid or who demonstrate such poor judgement not only cast a negative light on good officers but also are probably too stupid or 'judgement challenged' to be vested with the authority, duties and responsibilities of a LEO.  After all, you can't fix stupid - not even with retraining.   As far as 'ridiculous' salaries go, getting rid of the bad apples and using the money saved from their salaries plus all of the avoided lawsuits, etc. to pay good, intelligent, responsible LEOs more sounds like a pretty good idea in my book.  I really don't see how that would be a bad thing.

It sounds like your friend was the kind of man and police officer that we could use more of.  I am sorry to hear of his loss.

I have to laugh (derisively) when someone says that crap like this was simply a 'mistake' on the part of LEO (or anyone else.)  My response is always along the lines of, "Oops - I didn't mean to yank a woman who wasn't posing a threat to anyone out of her car, put her on the pavement and handcuff her.  My bad.  I made a mistake - but she didn't ask 'how high' when we told her to jump so it was kind of her fault, you know."  Sorry, that isn't a 'mistake' because it was done quite on purpose and by someone who should have had full knowledge that it wasn't necessary.   A mistake is something like shooting a suspect because the officer mistook the airsoft gun he was holding for a real one.  That is a mistake, and a justifiable one.  Yanking this woman out of her car, etc. was not a mistake.  Instead, it was an example of stupidity brought on by poor judgement and, likely, a lack of professionalism and inability on the part of the officers to control their emotions - there is a difference.   I also have to chuckle a little when people suggest that re-training is 'enough' to deal with cops who could have brought about the death or serious, bodily injury of someone who was not posing a threat.  We have 'zero tolerance' policies for everything else.  Personally, I'd like to see 'zero tolerance' for cops who engage in activity such as this.