ZenDog

I found someone willing to train us and give us a baton certificate - looks very patriotic to me.... But I dunno why y'all wanna carry one of those things in public - I'd be a bit embarrassed to carry one myself.

The way I see it, my duty to protect my loved ones from harm transcends any laws made by any men anywhere, and my duty to protect them certainly transcends an establishment's incorrectly posted (not legal) effort to dissuade me from entering while armed. Whether or not I choose to enter such an establishment then becomes merely a question of tactical necessity.

The written is easy- unless you have a brain/memory defect or something. We had two people fail in my class of about 20 or so - they failed because of the shooting component- They had never handled a handgun and they were both shooting all over the place. Several instructors tried to help them to no avail. My wife had never fired a handgun before when she took her class- made a perfect score using the G19 furnished by the range.

Merry Christmas y'all--- Waiting for the coffee to finish so I can wake up.

I carry everywhere, even the Bathroom, because I am a certified Bathroom Ninja. And I got a certificate to prove it. I can competently carry in the shower because at the Tacticool Ninja Academy, we practiced wet naked soapy shampoo semi-auto hot-water steamy shower firing training- They set up a real hot shower on the firing line, then we had to get naked and they would put shampoo in our naked eyes, and while we were gettin' the burnin' soap out of our naked eyes we had to exit said shower, grab our pistols with our soapy hands, slippery wet feet, and soap-blinded eyes, and then neutralize 10 ninjas bearing samurai swords charging into our "bathroom" with our water-resistant air-soft training glocks. That farce-on-farce training experience taught me to carry everywhere. The farce-on-farce Bathroom Ninja training only costs $2500 for the week-end, and they give you a certificate and even supply the ammo- I am certified to both Dry Fire AND Wet Fire, and Hair Drier Fire, too. And soapy fire, and lather-rinse-repeat fire, too. We also did some toilet training- but I'll post an in-depth AAR on that later in a more appropriate forum.

Once I was in a PX in Germany on Christmas eve- it was about 1 hour before closing, so whoever was there was doing very last minute shopping. I was trying to find a couple more gifts for my wife. I was in the women's lingerie department. I stopped shopping for a minute and just looked around- there were about 20 guys besides me all in Woodland Camo BDU's all shopping in the lingerie department. Warriors shopping frantically for panties, bras, and other underthings. Surreal. I love Christmas eve.

I try to take all of this sort of "news" with a big grain of salt. The media spins it, the cops spin it, the "victims" spin it, the lawyers spin it- if you aren't there, all you can know is someone's spin. We rarely actually get accurate news reports about anything, IMHO. In a past life I worked in a secret squirrel SIGINT operation in Europe. We would hear what was happening because we eavesdropped (mostly legally) as the news was happening- we were listening while they talked live on their radios, etc. Then we would read about it in the paper or see it on TV in a day or two. It was never the same. By the time it got to the media it had been spun into a mostly true but slightly different version that favored whoever was reporting it. If the commies reported it, the US was the villian- if the US reported it, the commies were the bad guys. Usually the "truth" was not reported by anyone, and those who actually knew what happened were ordered to be silent or told to stick to the official story. It would be nice if we still had a free press.

Off work all day and the rest of the week- enjoying visiting with my daughter in town from John Deere in Moline Illinois.

We have had a few folks fight them in Germantown- if they lose (most of them lose) they pay court costs. One guy claimed he had something like a $50,000 violin on the back seat and he was headed to play it at the symphony-- he was afraid it would be damaged if he stopped suddenly. Nice story, didn't get him out of it. Paid the fine and court costs. And, as others have said, in Germantown they fine you if you cross the line after the light turns red. If you are in the intersection before, no harm, no foul. Oh, and the Germantown judge who hears the red light cases was my defense attorney 10 years ago- he is a very smart man who served me quite well- I have a clean record, thank you very much. I wouldn't want to argue with that dude.

When I was stationed in Germany I got caught by one of these radar-camera things- took a picture of me and the license plate on the front of the auto. It was a nice B&W photo- you could see my eyes and my mustache- no doubt who it was. I was nailed. There was one guy who purportedly got out of it by claiming an unknown friend had borrowed the car while he was indisposed, drunk and passed out, for which he had witnesses. The photo showed the driver was wearing a pig mask- there was no way to ident the driver, so they let the guy off the hook.

Wow- I hope all are safe and they don't find any bodies later. It made the local TV news in Memphis, by the way.

I think this book is overpriced, but I think some of the ideas in it are quite helpful to someone just beginning to look at the idea of emergency communication. He covers FRS/GMRS, CB, HAM, antennas, laws, licenses, encryption/security, etc. If you can find it used for $10-15 it is probably ok, but I thought it was too high at $30. But I read it. Communications for Survival and Self-Reliance (Paperback)

If the Bics are all gone, there is this cool little doodad called a Swedish Firesteel - the thing actually works. It helps a lot if you have some easy to start tinder.

Called in sick- cancelled all my patients for the day. Problem is, I AM sick- cold-flu sort of thing. And, I am self-employed, so no sick pay for me. Sick Sux. And, Merry Christmas- I get to play on the net all day.

Prepping the house and fridge for my daughter's Christmas visit- she is driving to Memphis from Moline, Il. It was -6 there this morning.

I joined JPFO about a year ago, even though I am not Jewish-- they do some good work, and I wanted to support them. They are also pretty good at pointing out when the NRA has sold out in some sort of political compromise. I bought their film "Innocents Betrayed" -- everyone I have shown it to has come away with a deeper understanding of the need to defend the 2nd Amendment.

I voted AK. I find that an AK or two with a couple of 75 round drums is a really helpful utility weapon here in Memphisto. I use mine when I buy gas, do yard work, or shop in the Hickory Hell area.

My murse is done in ACU pattern fabric- tacticool. But whenever I set it down I can't find it again cuz the cammo is so good.

I only have one identity (please don't tell them about my secret identity) so I just use a single identity wallet. So far no one has suspected that I have a secret identity 'cuz I keep that ID behind my hcp badge on my tacticool vest with my flashlights and fake handcuffs and fake radio. U can get all this stuff at the paintball store.

I like the Glock 17 in 9 mm- it conceals well enough and has 17 rounds. Not a pocket pistol.

I have one- I like it, I use it-- I keep the key to it on my keychain. It has a steel cable that loops around the seat rails- it is pretty tough- the casual smash-and-grab thief will be deterred. If they have super dooper bolt cutters on steroids, I dunno. One guy I read tested it- he said he had to beat the H$ll out of it with a hammer and chisel to get it open. Took a long time and a lot of muscle.

Congrats- Love is grand. I bought my wife a brand new 642 yesterday for her Christmas present. Last year she bought me a Glock 19. True love.

I liked this blog post - made a lot of sense to me. Training trumps tech. Here is a link to the original. Meditations on stopping power from The LawDog Files by LawDog One of the Holy Grails of the gunny world is "stopping power". Arcane formulas combining bullet weight, velocity and diameter in various proportions are proposed, established, fretted over and adopted -- or discarded -- in search of a pistol/round combination that will "guarantee" that the user will emerge victorious in an armed confrontation. And choices once made are defended with religious fervor. *sigh* To my mind, none of these formulas are capable of quantifying the most important part of stopping power. This is not to say that your choice of sidearm and your choice of calibre aren't important in your search for "stopping power" ... but there is another variable that is much more important than bullet size and velocity. You. It doesn't matter how big a hole the bullet makes ... if you don't carry the gun that fires it. It doesn't matter how fast that bullet is going ... if you never practice with the gun that fires it. I see that I have lost some of my Gentle Readers. Allow me to explain. One of my training officers carried a Colt Lightweight Commander in .41 Avenger. This round was -- and is, to the best of my knowledge -- a custom affair, involving a .45 Winchester Magnum case trimmed to .45ACP length and then necked down to .410 inches. From what I've read about the .41 Avenger, it is a perfectly adequate self-defence round. This officer bought the pistol in the late 1980's, and fifty rounds of the bottle-necked ammunition came with it. In 1994, he still had 36 rounds left of the original 50. In ten-plus years of carry -- patrol and otherwise -- he had only fired two magazines worth of ammunition out of that pistol. Now, some of the canyons that dot the Panhandle caprock are full of prickly pear cactus. On slow patrol days, it wasn't unusual for gun-savvy officers to utilize these plants for impromptu shooting challenges of the "Right, ten yards, low, two fruits -- GO!" sort. The one time we were able to chivvy this officer into shooting with us -- he was unable to consistently hit a prickly pear pad at seven yards. Folks, .410 inches; 170 grains; 1100 feet per second looks almighty good on paper -- but if you haven't practiced enough to hit what you're aiming at ... what good are those numbers doing you, exactly? Another gentleman of my acquaintance -- not a peace officer, but a gunny type -- had become enamoured of the 10mm. My paw to Freyja, the man had a ten-minute speech -- spiced with multiple quotes from Colonel Jeff Cooper (pbuh) -- regarding the merits of the 10x25mm. Not being able to get his paws upon Messers Dornaus and Dixon's Bren Ten pistol, this gentleman had settled for the next best thing: a Smith and Wesson 1076 "FBI Special". And -- as with the round it fired -- he would happily opine at length as to the man-stopping abilities of that particular pistol. The thing is, didn't matter where he was, what time of day it was, or what he was doing -- if you asked to see this wonder of gunfighting tools ... he'd go and get it out of the safe. .400 inches; 200 grains; 1200 feet per second are "stopping power" stats you can't argue with -- but if they're in the gun safe at home when you're face-to-bad-breath with a critter in the mall parking lot ... what bloody good are those statistics doing you, exactly? In contrast, allow me to introduce an older gentleman. He carries a three-inch Smith and Wesson revolver in .38 Special. Now, most tactically-aware gunnies will be quick to tell you that the .38 Special is towards the low-end of the so-called "stopping power" spectrum. Matter-of-fact, most would tell you that .358 inches; 158 grains and 900 feet per second is the bare minimum. Thing is, that old gentleman shoots a minimum of 200 rounds out of that pistol every month. He plinks dirt clods and charcoal briquettes with it; he hunts jackrabbits on his oil lease and turtles in his stock tank with it; he's taught his children, grandchildren and multiple acquaintances to shoot with it; and he shoots in several formal and informal matches each year with it. That pistol is a part of him. He puts it on each morning, and takes it off each evening. The bluing has etched away from the thousands of draws from leather he's practiced; and the grips are worn to match his hands. If the eco-friendly fertilizer hits the rotating, oscillating, vector-flow cooling unit, that .38 is not going to be sitting useless in a gun cabinet: it's going to be where it's been for the past several decades -- because he carries it. He's not going to flinch, he's not going to fumble his draw or muff his shot; and each round is going to go exactly where he wants it to -- because he practices with it. That, Gentle Readers, is stopping power. LawDog

Congrats! Stay vigilant. Weird stuff happens. I was talking to a guy today who has been carrying for many years- told me that just a week or so ago he went out to dinner, walked up some stairs at the eatery, and watched in shock as his shiny revolver with a 6" barrel exited his holster and went sliding across the floor in full view of his friends, other guests and the hostess---- He just picked it up and holstered it and dinner went on as planned. My Glock went sailing across a parking lot once when I first started carrying- it had somehow worked loose in the car and I didn't check it when I got out of the car-- it slid maybe 10 feet across the asphalt. I don't think anyone noticed....

these laws are in the references at the top of this forum, btw. I would get one of those underseat lock boxes- they stop the casual common thief. 39-17-1309. Carrying weapons on school property. — It is not an offense under this subsection © for a nonstudent adult to possess a firearm, if the firearm is contained within a private vehicle operated by the adult and is not handled by the adult, or by any other person acting with the expressed or implied consent of the adult, while the vehicle is on school property.