RobertNashville

"I was in fear for my life and I defended myself...I don't mean to be uncooperative but I don't want to say anything else until my attorney is present" - that statement should be good enough for any LEO investigating a homicide and I suspect the good officers will know and respect that.

People aren't perfect...got it.

I'm sure most of the law enforcement officers on this site doesn't appreciate this information but I think it's absolutely true, you shouldn't talk to LEOs...if there is a problem, the courtroom is the place to address it.

I would say that with many government functions/agencies; it often has more to do with who is in control of them at the moment than the existence of the agency itself.

I am ALL for keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people but no background check will ever do that. What will do that is to lock up criminals and keep them locked up - that removes many dangerous people from society and serves as a warning to others who are thinking of taking the same route. Those who are mentally disturbed should be institutionalized (as used to be normal) - if they represent a danger to innocent people then they shouldn't be allowed the opportunity put innocent people in danger. Finally, we need to have more law-abiding and well trained citizens who are armed so then those who fall between the cracks like this sicko in Phoenix can be taken down before he kills a bunch of people.

If you are routinely driving 2 or 3 or more times the posted limit then there is no radar detector that can help you other than, perhaps, to tell you to get your wallet out of your back pocket. Moreover, I don't think driving that much over the posted limit, no matter how arbitrary they may be, is a good plan; at least not if you want to keep driving.As to your driving ability, I'll take your word for your skill level. In any case, there is a lot more to driving safely and not putting yourself or someone else in danger than just raw skill - there are many things that can go wrong when you are on the road, not the least of which are other drivers who may not have your skill - things that the driver cannot control and that "skill" will often not get you out of. The greater your speed, the less reaction time you have to avoid disaster; it's really that simple.

Do I think that the trivial amount of food or prep an individual might have will have any affect on how these agencies might react? No, I don't think what any one individual has would. But; do I think that knowing that some significant percentage of a lot of individuals have "X" amount of emergency provisions (and what kind) might make a difference to, say, TEMA; possibly, yes. As to the customer list, I'm hearing different things about what is being asked and who is doing the asking so I can't "justify" anything at this point; all I was doing was making a point there there may be a less nefarious purpose to the questions that some are assuming.

Do you really want to go back to that story? I think that thread was a few dozen pages long and nothing new to be said about it.

Whether or not FEMA should exist or is a proper function of the federal government is something that can be debated but clearly, the states have a right to have such organizations if they choose to have them. I would submit that FEMA or something like it both should exist and that its existence is a proper function/role of the federal government. You cannot have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if your house and half of a state has been destroyed by an earthquake – an individual can and should prepare for emergencies but some emergencies are too large for individuals to prepare for/survive without help and some are too big for a community or a state to prepare for/respond to.

Who said they were (the answer to everything)??? Just because they aren't the answer to everything doesn't mean they aren't the answer to SOME things or that they don't have a legitimate function to play in, for example, a natural disaster situation. Even doing a poor job during a disaster doesn't mean such an agency shouldn't exist. The primary responsibility for our protection and for being prepared for emergencies IS, first and foremost, an individual responsibility but that doesn't mean the government shouldn't or doesn't have a part to play.

Well...healthy skepticism of government is a good thing but there is always the danger of such skepticism reaching an unhealthy level. In any case, why would you want a government agency to spend money on preparations that they don't need to or even worse, spend too much on the wrong preparations??? I would agree that most people aren't prepared for an emergency but I also believe that that level of preparedness is changing (and that more people are preparing)...I"m sure that TEMA and FEMA thinks so too and as such, I don' t see them asking people to be "butting into people's personal affairs". Besides, you can always chose to not respond to their questions just like I chose to not respond to most of the census questions last year.

I think some of you are being a little oversensitive. The "news media' is predominantly liberal leaning; sometimes VERY liberal leaning and most liberals are "anti-gun"; some are VERY so. It follows, then, that anytime a crime is committed with a gun involved or anytime they can run an opinion piece about the subject, the anti-gun bias is going to come through. However, I very much doubt that the anti-gun rhetoric is significantly "more" right now than it has been or usually is...that may change as we get closer to 11/2012 of course!

Part of what I learned - how TEMA operates/how their are structured, toured the Nashville operations center and what they do to respond to an emergency, etc...the fact that they have almost no assets of their own and such a small number of actual employees was an eye opener. I surprised you see no legitimate reason in their knowing, at least in a general sense, how "prepared" the public is or isn't because I certainly can see such a reason. Moreover, an emergency response agency like TEMA in one function/area that I think is very appropriate for government to be engaged in - significant disasters, whether man-made, natural is something that any one person, community or state would have trouble responding to totally on their own and not something the private sector can really do either, even was it so inclined.

Well...I've slowed down too...at least somewhat (you aren't likely going to see me under the limit unless I'm slowing down for some specific reason)...however...these days, I leave 95% of my speed/performance driving where they belong; track events and autocross courses. There is something to be said for maturity - maturity such as what speed is truly safe based on the road, the weather, other traffic, etc. Of course, like virtually ever other law ever passed, "speed limit" laws can be very political in nature and even if they aren't, they are generally based on the lowers common denominator. Therefore, what may be a truly safe speed may be above, or even below the "posted" limit.

I'll take a sales tax over an income tax ANY DAY and TWICE ON SUNDAY...in fact, it was a MAJOR factor in my decision to more here; I wasn't even considering moving to any stat that had a state income tax. Most of the states I've lived in, except for Washington, had both an income and a sales tax (and many others)...the only thing that was good for was keeping tax accountants employed filing income tax returns for the state and the city you worked in and the city you resided in and on and on it went. I would also point out that during this current recession...depression...obamasession; it's the states that don't have an income tax that have fared better than those with income taxes!

Having just completed a course with TEMA I can say that there is a legitimate reason why TEMA, FEMA, etc would like to know just how prepared the public (in general) is for an emergency...they don't need to know precisely what I have or how much of it nor am I going to give them the serial numbers of everything in my gun safe but if they want to know if I've made some preparations for an emergency I'm not going to have a problem telling them so.

No one is claiming that a detector is going to save your ass every time...BUT...technology like this moves the needle just a bit toward toward the citizen.

Well, I rarely just "take" something as fact from someone I don't know and even more especially from someone I don't know on an internet forum. Unless you have some substantial, empirical data to support your opinion then I'll rely on my 40 years of driving history and using detectors since my the first FuZZbuster that I bought in 1976.

I don't have to think a radar detector will; my detectors have saved me form many tickets over the years...what they won't save a driver from is his/her own stupidity.

There is a lot of information about me available to both the public and/or to the government that I am not happy about thanks to the digital age we live in…so much information is amassed now that it almost boggles the mind what a person with the right tolls and the desire to do so, can find out about us. That said, maybe I should care but I’m not sure I really do care if “big brother” knows how much food I’ve purchased or not purchased from a supplier like “Food Insurance”, etc…I’m not happy about it but in the overall scheme of things I’m not going to get overly excited about (maybe I’m just too old to get too excited about such things???).

Part of me may feel compassion for someone who is breaking into my home because he is "hungry", etc. - I don't think I'd be much of a human being if I didn't "care". However, if someone breaks into my home I"m not going to ask him his motives - the only reasonable course of action is to assume he/she is there to harm me and for me to defend myself with the best tool I have within reach (which I intend to be a firearm). ___________________ As to whether firearm rights should or should not be restored to a felon, I say that there should be a "path" to having the full rights of citizenship restored to someone who once committed a felony and especially so since many states do have a method/pat to restore some rights - the right to keep and bear arms shouldn't be singled out for permanent removal while allowing other rights (such as the right to vote) to be restored. Such a path should be available to those who committed non-violent crimes and should be after a proscribed period of time has passed during which they have lived a productive life. Obviously, violent felons and particularly those who committed their crimes with a firearm should never have rights restored...in fact, in my humble opinion, such criminals should never see the outside of a prison cell making any restoration of rights a moot point anyway.

Unfortunate news; especially the apparent death of the office. However, other than the fact that it was near the campus of VT, there doesn't appear to be any connection beyond that - the latest report I just read said this was apparently a traffic stop incident.

Personally, I drive the speed that my abilities, road conditions and traffic allow as "safe". Many times, "speed limits" are set based on bureaucratic policy/politics rather then common sense or measurable criteria. For similar reasons, I tend to ignore the "car pool" lane restrictions as well.

I would suggest that most of the problems with detectors not picking up radar quickly enough has less to do with any failing of the detector and more to do with users overestimating what a detector can actually do!

Some of the things these guys do are pretty crazy and some are a lot more dangerous than they look on TV...I wonder how many people watch their experiments and thikn to themselves how foolish these guys are for taking such measures to be safe then something like this happens and you suddenly realize that the safety measures were likely pretty important!!! As Robert Burns said - "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men oft go awry"!