TGO David

This morning's changes seem to be holding nicely. I've got a feature enabled that shows me (and only me) a list of stats at the bottom of each page and so far the numbers are well below the threshold that usually causes problems. I'll be monitoring this continually and making adjustments as needed to keep it running smoothly.

I'm still doing some testing and tweaking...

Should have given her a wide eyed stare and said "I'm out of my meds."

Thanks for the brief on that. My wife's employer hunts with a $7k Perazzi. There's a little bit of a difference between a "low end" Perazzi and a $120,000 one-off piece previously owned by an NFL football star, as is the case with the one that Joe listed above. That one's probably going to land in the hands of a collector.

It's not a bad analogy considering that I do believe that those people who choose to carry openly to make a political statement ARE selfish people who will ruin things for the rest of us. Do I think that there are instances where openly carrying make sense? Well of course so. I can think of a two right off the top of my head: 1. On your own property if you so choose. Your own property being commercial or residential. 2. Employees of gun shops, while in the store or on their way to and from. Beyond that, I'm sure there are other good ones. I just don't think that there is any necessity for a person to walk around the shopping mall "strapped up" when in reality it provides that person very little proven tactical advantage and carries with it a slew of disadvantages, the least of which being the fact that the police can and may detain you to ask about a permit. After a while, being stopped and asked about your permit status has got to get old. Hell, I just wanted waffle fries and a chicken sandwich; I didn't want to have to get stopped a dozen times through the food court just because some worrywarts saw my gun and ran to the nearest security guy about it. I guess I'm just different like that. I buy handguns partially based on how easily I will be able to conceal them. The largest one I've been able to pull that off with so far is my Glock 21SF.

Yes, to a small extent.

The buyer for something like this is a collector and views the firearm as an investment, not as something that he is going to take out and shoot the finish off of.

You're on! And... He beat me to the punch line! This evolution of acceptance or awareness or whatever just isn't going to happen. Look around you and consider for a moment how many "progressive" ideas you see taking hold in society. Americans have lost their identity over the past 60 years and are increasingly turning toward European ideals and morals for the basis of what they think American society should become. I blame it on failed leadership in the highest offices of our land, but that's another rant for another day. My point, if I can draw it back together, is that the progressive mainstream American thinks that firearms are an antiquity of a neanderthal age. Consider Barack Obama's accusations that we here in the South are bitter people clinging to guns and religion. That statement alone is indicative of the whole progressive, Liberal, Leftist, Socialist, Euro-poser mentality and it's a mentality shared by a lot of people. Those people may be the slim minority right now, but give it another generation or two and the tide may unfortunately turn against conservative, traditional American values. So your idea that Open Carry makes a statement and desensitizes these people, swaying them to our way of thinking, couldn't be any more wrong in my opinion. I think it's achieving the opposite result. It's inflaming them and causing them to make irrational claims that the streets will be awash with blood if we don't ban guns and ban them now. Again... your hip isn't the place to make a political statement as far as I'm concerned. No. I refuse to let the well-meaning but misguided actions of others give fuel to those who want to destroy my right to carry a means of self preservation. Read my previous statement. We're all in this together. If you were eating dinner at a nice restaurant with a group of friends and one of them was drawing unwanted attention of the bad kind to your group by burping loudly, farting, making crude remarks, etc. wouldn't you pull that person aside and tell them to cut it out before they ruined it for the rest of you? I sure would.

Steve, I like ya man but this train of logic just fails. According to the reading and research that I have done on this subject, Phil stated very accurately why we have Handgun Carry Permits instead of Concealed Weapons Permits. The purpose was to remove the gray area that would allow a police officer to make an arbitrary decision when someone's firearm was accidentally flashed from cover. I've talked about this so much here before that I am almost sick of repeating myself. And I really don't understand why this concept is so hard for so many people to grasp. I suppose it goes back to the age old adage that if you give a person an inch they'll take a mile, but whatever the reason it just frustrates the hell out of me. So, a couple of points: #1.) Your earring analogy isn't a good one. Legislators aren't very likely to outlaw the wearing of earrings anytime soon. Conversely some of them are hot and heavy to impose another firearms ban in general, and want to restrict our rights to carry in particular. If we were talking about a matter as insignificant as men wearing earrings, I'd say that sure you should wear as many as you want in protest. Makes no difference to me. But we aren't. We're talking about the 2nd Amendment. Our rights are under assault 24/7. Why do so many of us insist on shoving our lawmakers' faces into the thing they so greatly despise??? DISCRETION IS THE BETTER PART OF VALOR! #2.) The legal blood alcohol limit to be considered intoxicated in Tennessee is .08 so does that mean that just because you can drive with a BAC of .07 that you should ??? After all... driving with a BAC of .07 is 100% legal so following with your logic, we should all rush right out there and do it. Right?

I noticed another problem that was periodically generating vBulletin SQL errors that some of you may have been unlucky enough to see. I've made changes this morning that should resolve that.

Blade-Tech, G-Code, Comp-Tac and several others make Kydex holsters that are either readily available or available within short periods of time. Most in that price range. Often I hear people complain that they can't or don't want to spend $100 on a holster for their gun. That just dumbfounds me. I realize that times are tight but even the most budget strapped person can save their pennies and afford a good holster. There's no way I'd carry mine in a Fobus or one of those little closed-cell foam and nylon rigs that you see at swap markets. Some things just shouldn't be compromised on.

Agreed. Parking your $500 handgun in a $20 Fobus holster is like parking your Ferrari next to a shopping cart corral. Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should.

That's possibly one of the most idiotic statements I've read about a short barreled AR in ... well ... ever. Have you owned one? Fired one?

Hero Gear and The Outpost both have had MSARs in stock lately. I was playing with one at The Outpost just this past weekend. Honestly, I'm not big on it at all and I think I recall someone (maybe Joe @ Hero Gear) saying that you were essentially getting a really expensive knife and a free bullpup thrown in.

I made some changes to our forum database server tonight and it seems to be dishing out pages much faster now. At least to me it does. How about to the rest of you?

It's not so much the size of the file itself as it is rendering on mobile devices.

At the 2-day Defensive Pistol workshop that I took recently, one of the instructors made what I felt was a very succinct statement about open carry. Allow me to paraphrase: A lot of people open carry to make a political statement. They do it just because they can and they want to use it as a form of passive protest. Your defensive handgun should NOT be used a political statement. It is a tool for your self preservation and the preservation of those dear to you. Make your political statements in letters to the editor, public protests, phone calls and emails to your elected representatives. Leave your means of self-defense out of it. Just my [very likely unpopular] $0.02 worth on the matter.

Smaller that repeated. I've been doing this stuff for quite a while now.

Because no one will ever try to assault you while you're out on a date... right?

Sikkens paint sells it as "Flood Plain Tan" j/k

I really need to see what the heck is causing the forum database delays that are leading to all of the double-posts. I've got a support ticket open with our hosting provider to investigate this.

PS: Anyone who is still seeing the remnant of the graphic at the top of the page beneath the logo should do a hard refresh of the page (shift + refresh on Firefox and MSIE) to clear their browser cache.

Yeah, I had a member ask about it for that very reason so I've been trying to optimize it.

Fixed.