E4 No More

Sorry to hear that.

What would we ever do without Chinese slave labor?

Cancer sucks!

I'm reminded of the saying, "Don't quit your day job," when reading that article.

Well, I sure wouldn't have kicked her out of bed for eating crackers.!

I can certainly relate to that.

My wife has claimed for years that I need hearing aids.

Helen Reddy died today at the same age of 78.

Oak Mountain in Alabama is great. Their sites put Tennessee to shame.

Can't go wrong with those and Rock Island. Cumberland Mountain is good too.

Reminds me of first generation night vision scopes.

Welcome.

See above.

We had a snake on the front porch scoping out the nest of Barn Swallows that they had made up under the overhang. My wife and two daughters lost it. They freaked-out when I picked up the snake up and tossed it to the other side of the creek.

That would unnerve my wife a LOT of bit!

True that!

I don't disagree with that at all. I disagree with it being prerequisite for a right.

You can go ludicrous all you want, but a right is not dependent upon training...period.

That doesn't matter. The pretense of the argument is that training prevents such things. It matters not how many.

@chances R Because this method of discussion is not the best for conveying ideas clearly, let me put this bluntly: American citizens have the right to protect ourselves from ANYONE who wishes us harm whether that be from a foreign army, our own government, or a criminal, and that right is not contingent upon receiving training from anyone. Is that reality? No, because we've compromised that with either ignorance or acceptance for whatever reason that sounds good to us. Although I haven't researched and compiled the numbers, I'd bet that the average driver gets far more safety training than the average gun owner, yet more people are killed with automobiles than guns, (not including suicide like the liberals like to add).

I disagree. If forced training were a requirement then it would have been written as such. You can't convince me that the same Founding Fathers who wrote such well thought-out documents designing our government had a brain-fart when it came to that part of the 2nd Amendment. And while militias were prevalent you cannot convince me, without evidence, that the 16-year old male in New York City had the same expectations as the 16-year old male on the frontier facing the Shawnee. You also seem to forget that Washington had a hell of a time whipping his "militia-trained" citizen soldiers into fighting shape. If they were so well-trained they wouldn't have needed any further training. And during a war has absolutely NOTHING to do with getting shot by accident regardless of the fact that his people knew he was out scouting. You're suppose to 1. Identify your target before shooting, and 2. Challenge people approaching the sentry line. According to some "trainers" that shouldn't happen. Again, I don't fault someone for making a living out of training those who want to purchase your service, but that doesn't entitle anyone to try to change the constitution to fit their belief system.

I don't see the relevance to safety or right to carry arms safely. Might I remind everyone the Stonewalll Jackson was accidentally shot by one of his own, very trained and experienced men?

And that's my point: training does not guarantee safety 100% of the time no matter how much you train. I would argue that under combat conditions the five basic rules of firearms safety is not in the forefront of anyone's mind. Under a true case of fight-or-flight, your true instincts take over. Now, you can train yourself to have some of those things be instinctual, but how often does someone actually train for safety like they do to actually survive the fight? What I'm getting from you is that you think that professional training will drive that from someone and thus entitle their selves to somehow be more qualified to carry a gun outside the home than someone else, and that simply isn't true. Luckily, I have never had to shoot someone, but I have come within a half a trigger pull on a revolver, (cylinder turned and hammer about to drop), from shooting someone. I experienced the tunnel-vision of fight-or-flight. The only thought that I can recall having was seeing a brick wall behind the suspect so I was clear to shoot if I had too, but that was more of an observation than a cogitative thought. I was not thoughtful of keeping my finger off the trigger. Quite the contrary, I'd bet that I very much so had my finger on the trigger as I brought the gun out of the holster. As I was concentrating on the threat I was completely unaware of whether or not my barrel was pointed in a safe direction or if I swept someone else. What I do recall the most, however, is how angry I became at the suspect for making me come so close to taking his life over something so stupid as to him trying to lay a baseball bat against someone else's head over a parking squabble. I wanted to beat the every lov'n out of him!

I actually made a bullet stop out of stacked railroad ties up over 8 feet high in a stretched "V" shape locking them in with rebar pins. I then piled dirt up against the inside of the "V". My back field is long, flat, and kept mowed giving me up to about 300 yards to shoot from. Woods and distance back-up the bullet stop. I wish it didn't get so danged hot so quickly during the summers. I pretty much only use it in the spring and fall.