Wheelgunner

A S&W 686 would go really well with that Henry.     On a serious note, though, give him some tannerite.  He'll have a blast breaking in his new lever gun.

graycrait - Good info and links.  Thanks for posting.

I used the Wolff springs kit, too.  I installed the 10 lbs. trigger return spring and the 12 lbs. hammer spring in the GP100.  Trigger feels great with the new springs in there, and I have not had a single FTF.  I've read on other forums, though, where guys installed the 9 lbs. or the 10 lbs. hammer spring and had light primer strikes.

Tennessee is absolutely the most dangerous and criminal-infested state in the Union.  That's why, when the normal routines of daily life are interrupted (i.e. extended power outage, "500 year flood," devastating tornado, etc.), you see so much rioting and looting and violent crime.     Oh - wait.     Hmm. 

The thought of a constitutional convention in my own lifetime concerns me.  In spite of that concern, I feel that we the people are running out of methods by which to keep the federal government under any sort of restraint.  With that point in mind, maybe the danger/potential for further government infringement of individual rights outweighs the risks associated with altering the Constitution.   In any case, it is not clear to me how even a measure so drastic as altering the Constitution would accomplish real world protections for individual rights.  After all, we have a federal judiciary that, speaking broadly, is willing and able to "construe" constitutional provisions however is required to expand the power of the federal government.  In modern times, constitutional amendments that purport to protect the individual have generally been used to beef up government power.  Ever hear of the Warren Court?

Wow. I'm impressed with how much ground we've covered here. Good discussion. I'd like to revisit an issue raised earlier. I know I agreed to assume, arguendo, that rights are subject to some degree of regulation by the government. However, JayC provided us with a short video (highlighted by Chucktshoes in post 15) arguing that a right, by definition, can only exist where the holder of the right refuses to compromise on the matter to which his right relates. According to the video, if the holder of the right allows government (or an individual) to limit, regulate, or otherwise curtail full enjoyment of the right, then it ceases to be a right at all and becomes a mere privilege (in the modern sense of the word). So what I'm wondering is this: if a government has the power to limit, regulate, or otherwise somehow curtail a "right" held by a citizen, then how does that citizen's "right" differ from a mere privilege? Regardless of the source from which you believe a right derives, and regardless of what rights you would like to enjoy, can we even still refer to such a thing as a right at all? Could the answer be that it is not possible for an individual to possess a right in the context of the social contract? (Edited to complete my thought)

Agreed.  Thus, we have answered the OP's first question as to the definition of the concept of rights..   The next question, implied by the first sentence in post number 7 (and also by the last sentence by East_TN_Patriot that I quoted above), is this:   Accepting for the sake of this discussion that the rights secured to the people in the Constitution are not absolute and in fact are subject to regulation due to the social contract, what degree of government regulation of individual rights is legitimate regulation?   This question (how much regulation of rights is legitimate) is difficult to answer because we must first decide what the standard is by which to measure legitimacy.  If the standard is fluid and changes with the times or the desires of the people, and if the people themselves favor collective rights, then the standard would be quite lax.  Consequently, a thorough degree of government regulation of individual rights might be legitimate.     On the other hand, if the standard is a fixed one and relates to the philosophical views of the Founders, then because the Founders favored individual rights, the standard would be stricter.  As a result, considerably less government regulation of individual rights could be said to be legitimate.   So which is it?  Or do you define the standard in a totally different way?

Black Heart Brigade (2nd), 101st Airborne Strike!

Blame the firearm for its "enhanced lethality" and they'll pass a federal law further restricting the kinds of arms citizens can own. Blame the TSA for not realizing he was crazy, and they'll pass a federal law allowing even more invasive NSA spying just to ID the needle in a haystack crazy guy. Blame the law itself for allowing a whacko to purchase guns, and they'll pass a federal law linking background checks and a general firearms database to mental health records.   However you want to cut it, the state and statists win.  I'm not sure We the People can win this fight.

I had a stainless 605 and used it as my carry gun for about a year.  The boot grip bugged me, but that was an easy fix with a Hogue monogrip.  My only other complaint was the lockout system.  The keyhole is located just behind the hammer spur.  I prefer a plain old gun that's free of safety features (other than a transfer bar.  But I never had a malfunction of the safety or anything.     Timing was good and lockup was acceptable - although there was a small amount of side to side play in full lockup.  There was no noticeable endshake to the cylinder, either.  It was a good gun and it served its purpose, functioned well.  I don't recall having any problems with normal speedloader compatibility, either.  I was using the HKS twist style J frame speedloaders.    I was in your shoes a few years ago, interested in a Taurus but anxious about the issues people were reporting.  All I can say is, the one I owned was a decent gun.     Edit - One other thing.  If for some reason you want to shoot really heavy .357 loads, this is probably not the gun for you.  Aside from being such a light a gun, the chambers were fine for normal .357 rounds (125 grain or 158 grain) but may be too short (think bullet sticking out the front end of the chamber) for the stuff Buffalo Bore and Double Tap are putting out (180 grain and 200 grain bullets).  I say that only because I remember being surprised the first time I looked at a loaded Ruger wheelgun at how much chamber length was left, like Ruger anticipated guys wanting to shoot ridiculously long and heavy bullets. 

I agree that a 12 gauge is generally a much better choice for home defense than a .22.  And Vistar, you're right about .22 ammo being more finicky than other calibers.  That being said, it's possible the OP already did his caliber cost/benefit analysis and determined that his needs are best met by the .22 LR caliber.     In that case, I would advise him to get a double action revolver in .22.  That way, even if he has a FTF his weapon will stay in the fight.  And if he's using a .22 for self defense, he'll probably need several rounds, so he'll want a revolver with a high capacity.  The Smith and Wesson 617 comes to mind - it's DA and holds 10 rounds.  Also there's the Taurus 94, another DA that holds 9 rounds I think.  I would think long and hard, though, before choosing a squirrel and rabbit caliber to defend against 200 lbs bad guys.

Slappy, thank you for putting this piece together.  Really informative and helpful.

Now what would be offensive is if his vanity plate had the word "infidel" written in Arabic.  With the word written as he requested (INF1DL), I'm pretty sure he could drive through Dearborn, MI and not offend a single person... because no one would be able to read it - or any other English.

Running. There's nothing like a good run that kicks your ass so you can't think about anything other than not stopping.

  In the interest of fostering a better theoretical understanding of our legal system, I'll explain it to you like a professor explained it to me:   A judge should base his understanding of a law on the plain meaning of the statute.  Generally that's all that happens, because most statutes don't contain ambiguous language.  For example, a statute might say "No person shall eat at a ham sandwich on Mondays."  That's pretty clear; don't eat a ham sandwich on a Monday and you're gonna be fine.     But sometimes a statute is not clear.  "No person shall not ever avoid not eating a sandwich, unless said person isn't refraining from eating a sandwich on a day not Monday.  The above-mentioned sandwich shall in no case be of ham."   If the language of a statute is not clear, well, a judge isn't going to base his decision in a case on gibberish he doesn't understand.  So how does he make sense of it?  He goes and looks at what the legislature said about the statute back when it was just a bill.  A lot of times, the lawmakers state on the record what they're trying to accomplish with a bill while they're drafting, redrafting, and debating it.  What they say the intention of a law is indicates what its purpose is, even when the statute itself kinda fails at that job due to incomprehensibility.

(LOL!)   You hit the nail on the head though.  "Needlessly explosive."  If Citrus County keeps him on the force, it's just a matter of time before he shoots somebody for having a tinfoil wrapped sandwich in their hand. 

I thought I read somewhere that Congress alone controls our aggressive entrance into wars. I must have been mistaken.

  Very good point.

So now the President is considering military intervention options, because there is some indication that the Assad regime killed several hundred Syrian civilians with chemical weapons?   If the logic goes that chemical weapons are a particularly effective means by which to kill large numbers of civilians, and therefore "we" have a duty to intervene to prevent said killing of large numbers of civilians, then why have we not done so before now?  In other words, how is this one particular alleged chemical weapons attack worse than the months-long artillery bombardment of whole Syrian cities by the Assad regime?  How is this one particular alleged chemical weapons attack worse than  Assad's forces calling in attack aviation against mixed rebel and civilian targets for months?   My point is that the Obama administration has been content watch Assad's forces kill utterly massive numbers of civilians for the past - oh, I don't know... two years or so.  Ergo, it's absurd for O to draw some arbitrary line in the sand and say, "You can kill thousands of women and children with indirect fire, Assad, but by golly I will not countenance your forces accomplishing exactly the same thing with gas.  When you use a CHEMICAL to kill them, then that's a whole different act!"   No, it's not.   Shifting gears a bit, other members have made some good points against intervention related to the senselessness of aiding nations or peoples who hate our Nation.  I'll add to that line of thinking that interfering in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation is almost never a legitimate means of conflict resolution.  How do y'all think we would have reacted if, during the Bloody Kansas period of American history, Ottoman Turks had deployed an army into the United States because the Sultan couldn't ethically watch the American bloodshed?

You could look at the south end of Murfreesboro, too, near Christiana.  That would put you kinda off the beaten path and in a fairly rural environment.  It would also  give you shopping at the new outdoor mall in M'boro 15 or 20 minutes away from your home.  If I were seeking work in that city, I'd start looking when school starts up in the fall (right about now).  Lots of kids quitting their summer jobs to go hit the books. 

This.   Also consider that these gatherings of the people's representatives rarely remain within the bounds set forth by the electorate.  During the French Revolution, for example, the people voted for representatives and sent them to voice their concerns to the king.  But when the representatives assembled, they sort of forgot the limited nature of their mission, and instead opted for creating a written constitution and instigating something that eventually morphed into the Terror.  My point is that, given the great liberties popular representatives take during tumultuous times, and given the average quality of modern American politicians, We the People might not get what we bargained for out of a constitutional convention.   This is not to say I'm opposed to holding one.  It's just a worry of mine that looms large any time I think about the possibility of actually accomplishing a CC.

Randall53, you're right that these sheriffs deserve props for their position on this issue.   But I think factions like the "Dream Defenders" - who seek to repeal the Florida "stand your ground" law - have caused a great deal of controversy and confusion by conflating two distinct self-defense concepts.  See, they are working to end the statutory provision that governs "stand your ground" type scenarios.  But even if they succeed in causing this statute to be repealed, their action will not change the legitimate use of force in "stand your ground" situations.  That is because fundamental rights we enjoy are not gifts that government bestows on us at its pleasure; rather, they are the legitimate domain of all free men.    This distinction may seem highly technical and thus unimportant, but quite the opposite is true.  It is critically important.  We have our rights because we were born.  We believe all men have these rights.  But we know that governments often disagree with this fact, and therefore memorialized our rights in the Constitution.  The Constitution didn't give us our rights, and we have others that simply weren't written into it but that are no less legitimate for that.      In light of all this, it is clear that only repealing a State's "stand your ground" statute would in no way detract from a free man's legitimate, God-given human right to defend himself, particularly from a lethal threat.  Who knows whether a particular judge would agree with this; it's hardly the point.  Did the Armenians lack a legitimate recourse to defending themselves from the Turkish military in the 1890s because there was no "stand your ground" statute in their homeland?  Were they doomed to "flight rather than fight"?  What about Southern blacks who were attacked by lynch mobs in the Jim Crow era?  Was the legitimacy of their defensive use of force determined by racist laws in their home state?  Clearly not.   Again, it's good that we (the media, the gov't, and citizens) are having this discussion.  But at the end of the day neither you, nor I, nor the people of Florida need a statutory permission slip to exercise our human rights.   (Edited for clarification)

This whole concept of "hate crime" is just as absurd as "gun violence" or "domestic violence."  The conduct (violence against a person) is already against the law.  There's no need to tack on some politically motivated category in order to create a new crime... unless the federal government is looking for a way to assert itself in matters that should have absolutely nothing to do with federal law.

Yeah.  Phony scandals.   Don't you love how when a random black teenager's poor decisions land him in a coffin it's a legitimate national concern, but when a direct representative of the authority of the United States of America is killed by enemy forces in his own embassy, that attack merely amounts to a "phony scandal"?   Modern America is a tough pill to swallow.  Can you imagine the public (and government) reaction if a different ambassador with the surname of Franklin had been killed during the course of his official duties in France?

Truth. Most of what gave us our American identity is self-confidence and stubborn self-reliance on the individual level. These days most Americans don't even have enough self-confidence to take a hard look in the mirror, and think that self-reliance is somehow related to how much they can defraud their fellow taxpayer.