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Yeah, ANOTHER Zimmerman post.  For those of you who are members of the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network, you probably received the August newletter in your email box this morning.  In it, Marty Hayes has an excellent article on Lessons Learned in the Zimmerman Case.  Very well written and informative.  I will share some bulletpoints and my own comments:   1.  Cost of the Case -  Evidently, Zimmerman's cost to date on his defense is over $400,000.  Part of that was $95,000 to his bail bond.  Even the best of self-defense insurance policies won't cover that full cost.  Be prepared to expend HUGE amounts of money if you are ever prosecuted.  The bail bond will be due very early in the case and will likely be significant.  Do you have the ability to make those payments, particularly in a short amount of time?  If not, how would you deal with it?  Are you going to be stuck in jail (i.e., no bail money) or stuck with a public defender (i.e., no retainer fee)?   2.  Ammo Selection - this has been discussed many times, but ammo selection is almost always a key part of a self-defense case.  Not necessarily whether or not your ammo was appropriate, but because of the physical evidence ammo leaves at the scene.  Being able to reproduce (as close as possible) the gunshot residue could be vital.  As a result, handloads have a distinct downside.  Even if you could reproduce the exact load, you would HAVE to testify to show that (and you might not want to testify, as Zimmerman chose not to).  Commercial ammo, particularly from a reputable company that still makes the exact load you used, gives you the ability to recreate the gunshot residue pattern and use an expert witness to bolster your case.  As you may recall, the gunshot residue was significant in the Zimmerman case to show that Martin was on top of Zimmerman at the time of the shooting.   3.  Changes to a Stock Gun -  while not specifically brought out in the Zimmerman case, Marty talks about 4 other cases where he has been a witness recently.  The state produced a firearms expert witness in each case to discuss the gun used, its safety features, etc.  Zimmerman's gun was, apparently, a stock gun, so not much came out about it.  However, changes to a stock gun (such as reducing trigger pull weight, personalized engravings, etc) would have been a big issue in Zimmerman, as it has been in other cases, if he had not used a stock gun.  If you make changes to a stock gun for your self-defense weapon, think about what those changes show to a jury.    4.  Your History - Zimmerman's history of calls to police, his desire to be an LEO, etc. were major issues for the prosecution.  If Zimmerman had made online postings that were negative, rest assured the prosecution would have used them.  Before you tell people how you would defend yourself, or before you post something on TGO, think about what that statement or post would look like in front of a jury.  There is a current post about whether someone needs to take a butt-kicking before defending himself.  I would suggest just looking at those posts and asking yourself whether or not you would want to have a jury viewing those posts if you were on trial.  Some of the posts would be fine, but I think there are a few that I would not want to have to defend in court.   If you are a member of the Armed Citizens' Legal Defense Network, please read that article.  Marty has the experience and knowledge that really helps to understand and learn from the Zimmerman case. 

Those of you who think he's stupid need to take a closer look.  He's anything but that.  Belligerent, careful, methodical, vengeful... perhaps all of those.  But not stupid.  Law Enforcement realizes this and they handle him with a 10-foot pole now.  Unfortunately they're just not swinging it very hard.

If you have no shame, how could you be embarrassed?

These darn whippersnappers. I had to earn my 50's.

  You know would probably vomit at the use of this quote to defend Leonard's actions?  Thomas Paine.

Isn't he just a Kardashian without the tits?

  He's mainly just pro-Corker.   - OS

  Nice guys don't go after people as vengefully as he's done to several over the years.  Nice guys don't post my HCP and my wife's HCP and my wife's birth certificate on their web pages and make sexually explicit remarks about my wife on their web site.   Leonard doesn't like me very much because I was one of the forum admins that booted him.  The feeling is mutual of course, but some people don't have class.   Maybe Brad Thor will offer to buy a new gun for whichever citizen finally smokes this clown during his next publicity stunt.  As has been said, sooner or later he's going to scare the right person and they're going to perceive him as a threat and end this bull#### for all of us.  But I'm sure Leonard has briefed his wife completely so that she will know precisely how to sue that person in civil court and try to provide the sort of life for her and their kids that he seemingly can't any other way.... so I hope they have a good lawyer.   Those of you who think he's a great guy and who support him financially through your firearms purchases have dozens of other choices on where to spend your money locally.  Why this guy?  Does something about his character resonate with you?

running a filter on it will help reduce that to a certain degree.  so would running a light that isn't as bright.  The down fall with both of those is you loose a little bit of the disorienting effect that the light has on the bad guy.   If you have good night vision as it, you shouldn't be relying on the light until you are reasonably sure you know where the bad guy is. At that point you should either be leaving the light on or turning every light in the house on.  there isn't much reason to go back to darkness once you've found the threat.   There are some things you can do with your home lighting to give you the better tactical advantage as well.  For me i leave a small light on in my washer dryer area.  This provides very dim illumination to the living room and kitchen area and will still silhouette a person in the hall way.  I leave the rest of my house blacked out.  Basically add just enough light to silhouette the BG throughout their likely avenues of approach while leaving your avenue of approach to high threat areas a dark as possible.   Your pistol light should only be used to illuminate a threat for final target identification and shoot/don't shoot decision.     For one person home defense i really do not suggest attempting to clear your entire house.  Clear forward just far enough that your family is safe behind you and establish a solid defensive position at that point.  Single person room clearing is the most difficult and dangerous type of room clearing there is and although knowing the area offers you some advantage it is still not preferable.    Hope this was somewhat helpful.

Well, I guess I'll stick with the tradition and say a lil something. First and foremost, thank you to TGO David for everything he does and to the mods for everything they do. I have really enjoyed my short time here. I wish I'd found this forum a LONG time ago. I've only met a few guys from here but I'm sure I'll make a few more friends before it's over. I am by no means a firearms guru, but I love the camaraderie of family and friends going shooting together. There is much taught and learned at every gathering, much like every time I log on to TGO each night....Oh and yes, it's every night! :usa:   I love the Show and Tell, I've learned about weapons that I'd never seen or held. Made me want to buy a few of them, and made me drool since I'll probably not ever have some of them due to $$$ I know there are a few guys on here who like to claim the jerk titles, but most of them I have learned a lot from, just reading their responses to other members questions. And of course, there is also much entertainment, whether intentional or accidental :rofl: Thanks again everyone and I'm very glad to be a member!!!

  Who knows. It's Kwik.   - OS

I just talked with a member of the school board and figured out the idea behind this. They obviously couldn't just GIVE these kids a 50, because that wouldn't be fair. But it's also unfair that some kids have 100s and some kids have below passing grades. So they're going to take points from the kids with 100s and give to the kids with less. They call it a "grade tax." This way, all the kids prosper and can get into good schools. It may lower the grades of those kids with 100s, but what do they need such high grades for? Now, what are they going to do if they run out of points to redistribute and kids still aren't passing you ask?! And the answer is equally as genius. Knowing that plenty of kids have done well for several years and, for lack of a better description, "put 100s away for years," they're going to go back to those years and pull points from those previous years and give to kids now. By raising everyone's grades in this manner, the class as a whole will prosper and less kids will be forced out of high school.

There is no liberal radio for the same reason there is no Kindergarten radio.

No.   He was simply one of the numerous GOP senators who voted to end filibuster and take up the Manchin-Toomey Background Check Bill back in April, the actual passage of which both he and Lamar voted nay.   - OS

If you watch the dashcam footage at about the 3 minute mark you hear what sounds like the officer texing on a phone while waiting for dispatch to get back to him. Probably texts his budies. "Holy s### I've got George Zimmerman stopped" lol

The other day, after we had installed our Roku, I spent the afternoon pausing and restarting the wifes movies with the Android tablet from across the house.   Kept telling her..."well, I guess this digital streaming stuff doesn't work well.  I guess we should have not got rid of Comcast TV!"  (it was her idea).   Plenty of entertainment until she caught me :hiding:

I don't have one to sell but I use one every day. The best battery ever on a phone. I hardly ever have to charge it during the day, all others 2 pm at best before needing charged. Love the phone. Good luck picking one up.

5.11 tac-lite pro pants and shorts are awesome.

It is actually terribly flawed. So flawed in fact I could eat a bowl of alphabet soup and crap a better argument, but if you type with more caps it might make it more applicable to... something. The flaw is that your example describes examples of specific acts of aggression towards an individual. Voldemort actions, stupid and ignorant as they may be, were not specifically aggressive towards anyone, just generally inflammatory and of a nature designed to elicit response from LE. ETA: I cannot believe you got me to defend that assnugget. I hope you are proud of yourself.

Ok, first I dismiss your flawed example...  Your example is nothing like what happened.   A more apt example would be a man carrying an anti-union sign walking back and forth in front of the local union hall, then blaming him because the union thugs took the bait and beat him senseless.  That because he dared do something perfectly legal it's somehow his fault for the over reaction and illegal actions by the other party?  Now one can make the argument that the attack could have easily been foreseen, and that a prudent and smart man would avoid such activities...  but it's not the mans fault that the union thugs over reacted and beat him up.   More importantly do we really want people working for us as police officers who can so easily be baited into violating the law and the constitution?  Or do we want rational thinking officers who realize he's attempting to bait them into a trap, and instead go out of their way to avoid  while still protecting the public.   Officers could have more easily followed him around and watched him until he broke the law, which would have cost the taxpayers a lot less money than we're going to spend on this incident (even without a possible lawsuit).     

What rights is he defending if everything he is doing is legal? Anyone got an answer for that? I could walk around town telling every dude I see that I banged his wife last night as a way to exercise my free speech. Then, when one of them knocks me out I can sue them. Nothing I did was illegal, but then again, who said that it was? It would all be in poor taste and a generally douchey thing to do all in the name of making money in a subsequent lawsuit. This is what Voldemort is doing. Those of you comparing him to founding fathers are clearly allowing your dislike of authority to cloud your ability to use reason and logic. HOW IS WHAT LEONARD DID ANY DIFFERENT THAN THAT SCENARIO I POSTED???

  I have a whole lot of Libertarian in me. In this case, I would be just fine with them hitting Lenny between the eyes with a big black stick... 'cause he deserves it. I share your concerns about our constitutional rights too, but that shouldn't even come up in a conversation about Lenny. He's doing this for personal gain, and it's obvious to everybody. There won't be legions of lawyers showing up to debate both sides of the "Justice for Lenny" issue.   This little piece of theater is a sideshow, and won't generate anything meaningful. Lenny will wind up being bug juice on the windshield, again.

He will need to make a case that wrapping plastic around a gun and putting a lock on it makes it a case, or even if it does it was protected from search. I will agree though, it appears they knew who they had and they should have just got a warrant. Or, they could have decided they weren’t they wasting any more time with this idiot and did what they had to do to get him off the street. No cop in good conscience could let him walk away without checking that weapon. His HCP was revoked saying there was a likelihood of risk to the public, he was trying to make it clear to everyone that he was carrying a rifle, and he added the body armor for effect. There is no way I would have allowed him to continue if I were a cop. This threat was real. I don’t think law enforcement is banned from challenging and stopping an open threat.

All he had to do was show that the weapon wasn’t loaded. There was PC for a stop and there was PC to check the weapon. When a person can step out into the public carrying a rifle and dressed in body armor and the Police can’t stop him until he starts dropping bodies; the patients are truly in charge of the asylum. The Officer in the video was right. If they let him walk away, knowing full well that he was a nut case and a Judge had revoked his HCP because he believed him to be a potential danger, and he started shooting people; the public would be blaming the PD for not acting.

Who exactly is being a coward?  Do you think walking down a city street in body armor and an AR is being brave or "fighting" for anything (other than attention)?   From the standpoint of our laws we are where we are...bitching about them or pulling incredibly stupid stunts like this only harm, not help that situation.  There is a way go effect change, this kind of idiocy is not it (not that changing it is his motivation).

Should have given the dog to Kwik.

Kwik seems to be TGO's case of the clap. No matter what kind of shot this forum gets, it still has periodical outbreaks.

This "gentleman" is doing nothing but hurting the cause (our cause) by his attention seeking self centered behavior. I concur he needs a serious mental evaluation and mental health help. He's doing nothing but negatively impacting RESPONSIBLE gun owners with his outlandish behavior and attention getting stunts. Sad.

Agree or disagree with Voldemort, this is a terrible line of thinking. Laws do not give privileges, laws infringe on rights. The idea that we have to seek permission from the state to exercise natural rights is what got us into the sorry state we are in now.

Good motives????    :screwy:    If Leonard Embody is a "gun advocate" then I'm an flying unicorn. The only thing Embody is an advocate of is getting his name in the news and I suggest he has a serious mental condition that needs to be evaluated.   RESPONSIBLE gun owners and true advocates for our unalienable right to arms DO NOT BLATANTLY break the law nor do things that may be just shy of breaking the law just to get our names in the news.

What a freaking idiot. Body armor and a long gun walking in a crowded downtown area, it's a wonder sombody didn't take him for an active shooter and shot him. If something like that would have happened to that clown it would have been a justifable shooting. I'll argue for my 2nd.Amendment rights all day long but there's something mentally wrong with Embody, he's addicted to drama and confrontation and that's probably the least of his problems. If he gets charged with a suppressor and doesn't have a FFL, i'll assume that will be a felony and an end to all his 2nd Amendment rights. Now I disagree with the law on suppressors but i'm sure not going to rally for Embody's defense. Dude has a serious missfire in his brain.

lenny can sue all he wants he wont win this law suit either.  I hope the ATF yanks this guys FFL.

And people wonder how terrorists blow up planes without ever raising an alarm...

TMF is a respected member here; I hope he doesn’t take your bait.

And btw tangojuliet, senators and reps don't "sign" final legislation anyway.   - OS

So you wouldn't view me walking up to you and telling you I banged your wife as an act of aggression? Cool. What's your wife's number?

Oxygen thievery.

Where he can ride his multicolored unicorn and snort his pixie dust.   He, and his type, are the biggest threat to this nation.

I've never been happier to weigh over 250 lbs.

Another show about finding nothing, with what appears to be a bunch of inbred obese idiots. Bound to be a hit.   The only one of these type shows that's any good is River Monsters, as at least the guy does catch something or other most of the time. :)   - OS

  Good God, I can't stomach watching any more of that self serving narssisistic idiot.

Whatever you do, don't say that name 5 times into a mirror....

  Maybe you should join Voldemort in rising up against the tyrants.

I am very pro-Second Amendment and I carry with a HCP. But I question the tactics some posters seem to endorse.   " Let's go out and scare the hell out of those woosies who outnumber us and are on the edge of voting to  pass anti-gun legislation."     That seems to me to be right up there with poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick. 

It was a rifle. OC with a rifle is going to raise eyebrows. It probably would not have gathered the attention he obviously wanted, or he would have tried it with a pistol AGAIN. It became old hat after Radnor and... crap, where was the Navy pistol in the hand stunt? Are you just being obtuse for sport?   Some time ago, he pulled a traffic light stunt between Hendersonville and Gallatin. Traffic law says that at a non-functioning signal, you are supposed to come to a complete stop. There was a signal that wasn't just not functioning, but was still bagged and not ready for use. Dorkenstein goes back and forth on Gallatin Rd, stopping at this "signal" every time, disrupting traffic flow, until an officer finally shows up. Of course, he cites statute and all about how what he's doing is correct according to law. Couple days later, the signal was taken down.   This asshat has had ALL the benefit of the doubt anyone should get in a lifetime. Stop trying to make excuses for someone who's intent is obvious. He wants media attention and lawsuit payoffs, plain and simple. He has no interest in furthering ANY rights of any kind. He IS a "flaming douchetard." (MAN, I LOVE that phrase!!!)

Don't you guys watch Bear Grylls? Just drink your pee.

It's probably safe to say he didn't violate any laws, since I'm sure he's been planning this for a while and likely made sure he had all his bases covered, but it still demands the question... WHY????   Imagine you are downtown having lunch with your kids and you see a man walk in with a rifle slung wearing body armor.  I can tell you that your first thought would not be "well it looks like this upstanding gentleman is simply exercising his rights to be a flaming douchetard."  You will likely think that he is on the first leg of a shooting spree.  Not "if" but "when" he gets gunned down for being an idiot I hope he lives long enough to regret being a effing moron.

As far as what happens in 2014 I see no reason why dems would lose any seats, on the contrary they might just gain.    The republican party is a fubar'd mess and they are not winning the hearts and minds of young voters.  If they quit harping on gays and abortion they might do very well, but I don't see that happening. 

Here is mine: I bought it a couple weeks ago off Gunbroker. It's not a typical Glock, it's their Professional Line, noted as "GL23PL, or PL23 for short. It's now my daily carry. I like it because with the included holster, you are guaranteed not to shoot yourself if it discharges negligently because of where it is pointed when holstered. And trust me, it discharges negligently a lot. It's worth it though because not only do these discharges replace my CW badge (because I no longer have to display that I have a gun when everyone can just hear rounds popping off in the distance while I am walking), but it also looks different too when I have to toss it to the ground shortly before being tackled to the pavement by the LEO's I now know by name. Top of its class though. Top of its class!

As a former Police Officer that has participated in high risk entries without having to dress up in tactical gear; I have always opposed this. The possibility of someone flushing some dope should never been a reason for putting people’s lives at risk.   High risk means just that. Unless someone’s life is in danger there is no reason to kick in a door in the middle of the night; especially when there is any chance you have the wrong house.   If you have to make entry it should be made by Officers in a standard Police uniform that people recognize.   What can you do? You can put this right at the feet on the only people responsible for it, and in every department that is one man or woman; the Chief or Sherriff.   We saw it happen with disastrous results right here in Lebanon a few years back; needless death of an innocent man because the Officers were not prepared or trained for what happened.   This reckless conduct puts the citizens and the Officers at a risk that cannot be justified in everyday use.