East_TN_Patriot

I guess we need to get rid of any leader who has been divorced, ever been charged with a crime, gotten a traffic ticket (or speeds to and from BSA meetings), curses, gambles, drinks, smokes, overeats, looks at any pornographic material, doesn't pray regularly, doesn't go to church regularly (defined as little as once per week to as much as seven days per week), doesn't consistently tithe, or any other number of transgressions that doesn't fit into what one considers being "morally straight" in this world.   How about Muslims or Jews in the BSA?  Are they allowed or can they not be "morally straight" because they believe in a different religion? 

I'm sure that your argument was virtually identical a few decades ago related to non-whites who wanted to join and lead the Boy Scouts.  The history of racism within the Scouts is not a secret and many civil rights leaders and early urban gang members specifically reference their exclusion from the organization as a reason for their anger with white society.     http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/bsa_-_race.html  

This speaks directly to my point in the thread discussing whether one can use deadly force to prevent a simple assault. Just cuz you want the law to allow you to use your weapon in a certain way doesn't make it legal, so don't be surprised if you end up in court for using your firearm outside the scope of the law.

Trivia time: Who wrote the Pledge of Allegance? Answer: Francis Bellamy, a socialist who was also a Christian minister, yet he didn't put "under God" in the pledge. Bonus trivia: The pledge was originally said while extending your right arm upward and outward, which became known as the "Bellamy salute", but its use fell out of favor when the Nazi Party adopted the same salute.

I am very familiar with Lott's background.  I'm not saying he is a bad guy.  I'm simply criticizing his decision to team up with a guy like Glenn Beck, whom does have a record of misrepresenting information and being borderline loony.  I used to be a big Glenn Beck fan, but I watched him head down tinfoil hat lane and personally caught multiple incidents of simply inaccurate information he presented (not based on my opinion, but blatant cases of inaccurate information about laws and historical facts).  If Glenn Beck called me and asked me to write a book with him, I would tell him no.     We'll just have to agree to disagree on this point.  

I have known many gay men in my adult life, and only one ever discussed it to any significant degree.  It's not as if these people want to join the BSA and wear a dress.  The issue here is that many Scout leaders who did not discuss their sexuality and did not act inappropriately have been forced out of the organization simply based on their sexual orientation once it was discovered.

Of course, you realize that research has shown time and again that homosexual men are no more likely to assault children than anyone else.  In fact, the vast majority of child molesters identify as heterosexual in their lives and are commonly married.  Dozens of studies by psychologists, criminologists, and medical professionals have failed to show that there is any connection at all between homosexuality and child molestation.  Just because a man wants to engage in consensual sex with another man, there is no way that any honest person can extrapolate that to mean that they would want to force sex upon a child.  I'd rather have a "queer" with a good heart lead my son's Scout troop than some bigoted jerk who doesn't respect what other people do in their private lives.  

Yes, most definitely.  Prison spending has increased so much that many are talking about the "prison-industrial complex" that speaks to the collaboration between the criminal justice system, politicians, and private businesses who make money off of incarcerating offenders.  In all fairness, many of the people who are incarcerated are non-violent drug offenders, but that makes it even more difficult to effectively deal with violent criminals.

  When a scholar teams up with a pop-culture personality with a very divisive record such as Glenn Beck, then yes, I think his objectivity is in question.  Not everyone who writes books does it to get rich.  Most researchers use their work to uncover new knowledge and share it with other researchers and policy-makers.   EDIT: Let me reiterate and clarify my earlier point.  I think that Lott's "more guns, less crime" thesis is flawed and I believe he vastly overstated the effect that CCW laws have on the overall violent crime rate.  Multiple researchers have talked about his work and made similar criticisms.  What these same scholars did say is that Lott's work definitely confirmed that CCW laws do not lead to increases in violent crime, which is perhaps a more important finding.  I personally don't believe that gun owners should be obligated to prove CCW laws improve anything in order to exercise our rights.  All we need to show is that exercising 2nd Amendment rights don't cause more problems.  If we can show that violent crime is hampered by CCW laws, all the better, but you don't much for your case by citing a book by someone with little credibility to many Americans like Glenn Beck and I would like to have thought that Lott was wise enough to realize that.  

I don't know the answer to that and I have never seen any data on it.  What I do know is that it's totally up to the prosecutor to seek the enhanced penalties and many times they do not.  In my police days, what the prosecutor would do is use it as a plea-bargaining tool.  If they would accept a plea deal, they would not tack on the 10-20-Life penalty or whatever was potentially on the table.   Regardless, the length of the average prison term is much higher today than in the early 1980s.  According to the US Department of Justice, in 1990-1999 the average prison sentence was 8 years, but by 2010 the average prison sentence was 25 years.  

Beretta 96 I bought from a fellow police officer. I have no idea what I traded it in to get, but I never did like that gun. The handgun I have owned the longest is a Smith & Wesson model 65 my grandpa gave me in 1995. It was his duty revolver when he retired from Ft. Lauderdale Police. Nothing fancy, but it has a fantastic trigger. The story he told me was that a fellow officer had a friend who worked as an armorer at the Smith factory and whenever this guy went home to visit family, he would take a gun or two up to have his friend do a trigger job on it. It still has the original wood grips, and my grandpa used his pocketknife to carve out a recess in the left grip so he could use a speed loader. I asked him if he ever shot anyone with it and he said no, but he did kill a man with it. A fellow cop was in a battle royal with a guy and called for backup. When my grandpa got on scene, he saw the bad guy was trying to get the officer's gun. Afraid he'd accidentally shoot the officer, he beat the guy over the head with the gun and killed him. Funny story; when I got an H&K for my first duty gun I showed it to him. He looked at it for a few seconds and said, "I'm sure it's a fine piece, but do you think that plastic frame will hold up when you hit someone over the head with it?" He preferred the heavy-barreled Smith revolvers over the Colt Police Positive revolvers because they had a pinned barrel and covered ejector rod.  He told me about the first guy he hit over the head with his Colt revolver and when he was done, the ejector rod was bent and the barrel would turn freely in the frame.  He was an old school street cop for sure!    

Only in cases of random crime.  Again, most people are murdered and raped by people they know.  CCW laws should have very little, if any, impact on home invasion because the vast majority of states have allowed possession of firearms in your own home for decades.  Where Lott found his most "convincing" data for CCW laws was in Florida.  If his thesis holds true, then we would see similar declines in crime everywhere a CCW law was passed.  It just doesn't happen.   Most violent criminals have been put away for long sentences.  Since the 1980s the United States has embarked on a policy of very strict punishments that include mandatory minimum sentences, three-strikes laws, and enhanced penalties for use of firearms.  We have put so many people in prison that we have the highest incarceration rate in the entire world.  Now, hard labor is another issue.  Contrary to what most people believe, prisons are terrible places and our overuse of them has contributed to the violent street crime and gang violence we see today.  Perhaps busting rocks every day for 25 years would be a deterrent, perhaps not.  I suspect if the constant threat of prison rape, brutality, and being shanked at any given moment isn't deterrence enough, then hard labor wouldn't be either.  Of course, that is a subjective opinion.

I guess I'll speak blasphemy and say that Lott's "more guns less crime" thesis is largely incorrect.  The overwhelming majority of research shows that gun laws don't prevent gun crime, and CCW laws don't decrease crime to any significant degree.  This is why I think economists should stay out of social science and stick to economics.  That said, his book "The Bias Against Guns" is a decent read.  To see that he's teamed up with Glenn Beck likely means he has little objectivity, but is more concerned with selling books than doing scholarly research, which is what we need more of.   EDIT: Since I'll get the question, here is why I say that Lott's thesis is incorrect.  First, dozens of studies have shown that CCW laws do not have a statistically significant impact on crime.  Part of what Lott did was catch data during a period of time when gun violence made a dramatic and unexpected decline after a few years of  an unexpected and dramatic increase in gun violence.  The passage of CCW laws happened to coincide with a unique trend in violent crime.  Second, the very nature of gun violence is not something that can be easily impacted by CCW laws.  CCW laws generally provide individuals the ability to protect themselves and deter random acts of violence.  The vast majority of gun crimes are not random acts of violence, but are committed between people who know each other, and many times are criminals themselves engaged in gang and drug violence.If gun possession itself was a deterrent, then gang killings would be extremely rare since virtually all of them are armed all the time and everyone knows it.  Other gun crimes are perpetrated by one who is known by the victim and is the outcome of some sort of interpersonal dispute where a CCW would have little, if any, impact on the outcome of the incident.  If two drunk brothers get into a fight or a person comes home early and finds their spouse/significant other in bed with their best friend, CCW laws are not going to have any significant impact in those cases. Clearly, gun ownership does deter crime to a certain extent, but it doesn't require "more guns" to have that deterrent effect.  The very possibility that anyone *could* be armed is enough for most criminals who carry out random crimes to be very cautious about who or where they target.  With all of that said, we also know that gun control laws do not have any statistically significant impact on gun violence either.  

If you want to do it on the cheap, get a can of Alumahide II from Brownell's.  It's about $15 in a rattle-can and due to its epoxy formula, it is more durable than regular spray paint, but not as durable as professional Duracoat.  Most places I have looked at charge around $200 - $300 to do a pump shotgun in Duracoat/Cerakote or similar coating. http://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/metal-prep-coloring/paint-finishes/air-cure-aerosol-paints/aluma-hyde-reg-ii-prod1117.aspx

  Yes, and???   As if teenage boys and girls haven't been doing this for centuries.  As if gay teens in the BSA haven't been doing this anyhow.  Is clandestine gay sex between boys who have to keep their sexual orientation quiet is somehow morally superior to clandestine gay sex between boys who don't have to keep their sexual orientation a secret? Frankly the logic that banning openly gay teens from joining the BSA will prevent gay sex is as sound as the idea that banning guns will prevent gun crime.

I have a feeling the same thing was said about blacks during the civil rights movement and women during their suffrage movement.  The issue here is about treating all people equally based upon their actions and their abilities, not how they identify themselves.  Gays are the latest group to step up and demand the same treatment as other Americans.  I used to be quite anti-gay and after being around many homosexual people in my adult life, including many friends who came out of the closet over the years, I realized how unfair and unjust policies are in this country in relation to homosexual people.  It's really quite sad.

Sounds like you are a libertarian.  :usa:

And if they do share a tent, does that automatically mean they are going to engage in sex?  I have been around many females and gay men in my life and - lo and behold - we were all able to control ourselves.  Who could imagine?!?

At a basic level, I agree with you, but keep in mind, for the majority of people in this state there is not enough spare income to support stockpiling of ammo and I am sympathetic to that.  Obviously, there are some who could have, but didn't due to short-sightedness or simply chose to spend their money on other things.  However, I think that the ones who are the most upset are the ones who don't have that much spare money to stockpile, who also don't have the spare income (or time) to go around to every place that sells ammo and buys everything they can get their hands on.  It's even worse when these people are buying it all up specifically for resale at two or three times the original price and it's those same people who are stuck either doing without or being forced to pay well above what the market value really is.   This practice is not about free-markets because there is no free market when a small group of people are creating a false market by controlling ammo supplies.  This is no different than people who run to Lowe's before a hurricane, buy up all the generators, wait until the power is out, and then set up in a parking lot asking 3 or 4 times what the things cost.  Part of the free market idea is that people are guided by some level of ethics, and it's this sort of unethical behavior that leads to government intervention in the market.  Now, I am not saying the government should get involved in this issue, but as I mentioned much earlier in this discussion, part of a free market means that I can complain about other people's business practices all I want.     I also think it does nobody any good to complain and accuse "others" of unethical practices without naming these people and giving evidence to support the accusation.  

I've read that those are every bit as good as any currently produced Springfield.  

Thanks for the feedback.  I was a police firearms instructor in Florida (95 percent of what we did was handgun related), so I know that there are others out there that could teach me a lot, especially with the rifle.  I also know I don't have much patience with instructors who spend half of the class quoting their resume as was the case in the CCW permit class I had to take when I moved to Tennessee.  I'll give them another look.   :up:

Those grips are bad to the bone!

I was a police officer in Kentucky from 1997-2000 and when I was there, the law did not prohibit the carry of any firearm, loaded or unloaded, as long as it was in plain sight or in your trunk. Loaded handguns could be kept in your factory-installed glove compartment (dashboard only; center console didn't count).

I read plenty of accounts of people who ended up with bent op-rods and just as many who said they had no issues with commercial .308 ammo.  Some commercial .308 ammo is specifically marketed as M1A safe, so I think there's probably something to it.  I figured for what one of those rifles cost, I didn't want to wonder if I would bust my rifle if the surplus ball ammo dries up.   I also had the one with the full length barrel and wanted the 18" barrel.  A barrel swap on one of those isn't simple at all.    

Howdy neighbor! The fellow that owns the farm next to our subdivision has a little pistol range set up on his property. He hasn't invited me to use it, but he shoots quite frequently. I need to do a better job making friends with him. :-)