Cruel Hand Luke

We are in 100% agreement on those. And I would hope that most logical people would see that stacking the odds by improving your ability to perfornm the basic skills is a huge advantage.

Maybe. maybe not. Impossible to answer for EVERY possible situation. But IF they CAN do this then they are far and away more likely to survive a situation that ends up requiring gunfire to solve. My 77 year old father can't do these things. Is he LIKELY to survive a 2 on 1 assault? NO. I wish things were different but he just is NOT likely to survive that. And THAT is how life is kids. The world isn't fair. There are damn few people on the street who are going to beat Randy Coutoure in a fight. Is that fair? No. No matter how much I'd like to I'm never gonna play NBA basketball. My skills are not good enough and my body is not geared for that. I accept it and move on. I play to best of my ability. But I don't suggest that I have no need to learn how to throw a bounce pass since a chest pass is statisticly more likely to be able to be thrown......And I don't try to play with Division 1 college guys any more. I can't hang with 'em so I avoid 'em. Same with the street. If you dont have the skills you need to practice HARD CORE awareness and avoidance so you have plenty of prior warning. But that is sound advice for Delta guys too.... FEW situations REQUIRE gunfire to solve if you pay attention to what is going on around you. In fact all the shooting is the last 10% of the solution. The other 90% (prefight) is where most people screw up and end up HAVING to use the gun. So again the question was minimal skills. I submit that getting the gun out, hitting your target are MANDATORY. Clearing malfunction and reloading are CRUCIAL because empty and/or non functional guns are of little use in the fight. And THAT is what these DRILLS test. If someone ersonally wants to just do as LITTLE as they can..... fine. But that rarely leads to success in ANY endeavor -especially under stress. Luck is fickle and can't be counted on. I'll stick wth stacking the odds in my favor.

There were over 1000 assaults in Memphis Tn involving multiple assailants last year................. You still miss the point and frankly I don't think I have the patience to answer the same questions over and over again. The drill is NOT a gunfight replica. It is an ARTIFICIAL TEST OF SKILL. Can you get the gun out? Can you hit what you are shooting at? Can you clear a malfunction? Can you reload the pistol whether it is mid fight, or just getting it back up and running IN CASE THERE IS AN ACCOMPLICE YOU DIDN'T YET PICK UP ON. And can you do them wth some artificial stress (timer) induced? These are the skills that I consider minimal.

And if you CAN'T clear a malfunction (that happened because you got a crappy grip on your pistol when you pulled it out or you fired it in contact with your body or his) then what? Call time out? Sorry. MAlf clearance (at least tap/rack) is a crucial skill.

You either see the big picture or you don't. This is not a replication of a gunfight. It is a 15 round, 2 drill TEST of whether you can run your gear or not. The time limit is to induce stress. Do you think that a gun fight MIGHT be a LITTLE stressful? The malfunction clearance is because guns malfunction in fights rather commonly. Not 95% of the time obviously, but enough that malfunction clearance is a real issue. The 8" target at 7 yards is so you have to actually AIM the pistol. The reloads are because if you shoot ANY at all your gun is no longer full. If the BG (or more likely the BGs) have friends then you want a gun loaded back to capacity quickly. And if you have a "limited capacity" gun you may well HAVE to reload to finish the fight. The pass fail is because gunfights are like that you pass or fail. Whether you LIKE this or not is not the issue . The issue is these drills test(under time stress and the possibility of failure stress) the core skills to running a handgun. If you can't run your gear under stress what makes you think you will rise to the occasion when it is real?

Back to original topic. Here are two drills that will work the minimum skills. Drill 1. At 7 yards at an 8" target. Pistol loaded with 6 live rounds and a dummy round a spare mag on belt (or wherever you carry it) loaded with 3 live rounds.You will fire 9 total rounds. At the buzzer step off the "X", draw and fire until the gun goes "click", clear the malfunction as you take another side step, fire the remaining rounds, sidestep again as you reload and fire the 3 rounds in the spare mag. All hits must be in the 8" circle to count. Time limit- 15 seconds. Pass or fail. Drill 2. Pistol loaded with 2 rounds, 2 spare mags loaded with 2 rounds each. At the buzzer draw, step off the X, fire 2 shots, do an emergency reload as you sidestep again, fire the 2 rounds, step again as you do another emergency reload, fire last 2 shots. All hits must be in the 8" circle. Time limit- 15 seconds. Pass or fail. These drills work the BASIC skills someone SHOULD have a grasp of if they are going to responsibly carry a pistol on the street. It tests your ability to A.Get off the X (out of the way so you hopefully don't get shot cut or stabbed) as you go for your pistol. B.Get your pistol out. C.Hit what you shoot at. D.clear a malfunction. E. reload F. get back on target and hit it again. These are really the CORE skills to have to fight with a pistol. These drills work those skills and it only takes 15 rounds.No real "scoring". Either the hits are all there and you make the time or you don't. If you can do these drills in the time limits and make the hits you are far and away better than the average guy on the street. Obviously the faster the better, but 15 seconds per drill is a good baseline or something to work toward if you are not there yet.

Not what I'm being told. It is a seperate statute. And again, everyone has to make their own choices in life. The possibility of a class A misdemeanor conviction for being caught carrying a gun in a place where it is restricted is a REAL legal concern. The possibility of being the victim of violent crime and being killed or crippled is a REAL survival concern. Each person has to weigh them in the balance and see which is of more concern. I'm NOT suggesting any specific individual take any specific course of action. I am just saying WHY some unnamed individuals might follow a certain path. There IS a mechanism in the TCA (39-17-1322) that prevents prosecution for defensively using a firearm-even where it is not legal to carry it. You in all likelihood WILL lose your permit for carrying in a place that does not allow it, but if you actually have to defend yourself the mechanism is there to avoid prosecution for the USE. So if it is not OK to carry, but you are covered for the use......I'll let you do the math.

And THIS is why we say concealed means concealed.

New Hampshire (According to Massad Ayoob) and Pennsylvania. In PA you can DRINK in a bar with a gun. And you do not hear about drunken gunfights in bars in Pa. At NTI (National Tactical Invitational) in Harrisburg PA, we met in the hotel bar every night that week and no one left their pistols in their rooms..........No one got DRUNK, most armed professionals do not, but the presence of beer and guns didn't cause otherwise normal people to turn into bloodthirsty killers either.....

A largely useless piece of legislation as the key to the law presently (until this is passed) is whether you were in legitimate fear of death or grave bodily injury. Location (house, street, car) did not matter. If they NEEDED to be shot there was no duty to retreat. This bill was NOT needed. What IS needed is less effort on this and more effort on making it legal to carry in parks and places that serve alcahol.

Anyone have a quick link or can print the "new language"?

Amen.

Knowing what I know I'd say that's an overly broad generalization not at all relevant to my specific situation, locale, or the local DA. (but then again that may have been a joke and I just didn't pick up on it-the old lack of voice inflection in internet forums thing.......) That is the wonderful thing about the legal climate here. It really doesn't matter WHAT you shoot them with as long as they NEEDED to be shot. If lethal force is required (justifiable) the delivery vehicle is pretty much irrelevant. This isn't Illinois, Cali or Mass. It's still a "free" part of the world!

Yep. They do. But honestly that doesn't apply here. You might as well be comparing apples and diesel fuel. In MY situation-civillian USA, if I fire SEVERAL HUNDRED ROUNDS it will be on CNN and I will be in the encyclopedia .Besides, I don't carry that much ammo with me........ So that hot handguard issue is just not really a concern to me. Context. Within the REALISTIC operational context of my "real world" that is a non issue. Besides I'll take a hot handguard as a trade off for the ability to shoot through cover more efficiently. You, in all liklelihood look at this through YOUR "real world" operational context. As you should. What works for cops in Franklin Tn (just pulling that out of the air) is NOT AT ALL relevant to what works clearing cave complexes in eastern Afghanistan or hunting rebels in the jungles of the Phillipines or civilian self defense or natural disaster/shtf scenarios. What Delta guys do room entry with is as relevant to my life as what aliens use for toilet paper. Not relevant at all.

The robustness I refer to is the fact that you CAN use it as a club and not worry about breaking it. You CAN drop it on concrete and not worry about it going Tango Uniform. You CAN do bayonet drills without breaking it....I know someone who broke 2 M16A4s doing bayonet drills. I'm all for precision....when it is needed. In civillian SD it just really is not often that necessary to be able to shoot 1" 100 yard groups. And we ALL know this. But for ME,my situation,and my skill, I'm more worried about it going bang than I am about me being able to direct the rounds to the target. Aks are PLENTY accurate enough for me. The less I have to worry with "what if it doesn't work" the more I can concentrate on what I'm doing. I can have anything I want (or can afford). I'm not having to deal with something someone else issued to me. In a " social" gun I don't want something that I have to EVER worry about whether it will go bang when I want it to. But I'm just practical like that.... And guys, there is no RIGHTor WRONG here. If guys like M16s... fine. I like 'em too. If guys like M14s...fine. I do too. If you like FALs cool. I too like them. If you like MP5....great. I like 'em too. But honestly my UZI will do 95% of what an MP5 will do and do it when it is much dirtier AND...... the UZI is much easier to clean to boot! And I'd much rather clean an AK than an M16.... The weapon is not nearly as important as the mindset and skill of the operator. Hell, that is the same with anything-golf, tennis, auto racing. So a guy who has internalized his gun handling and marksmanship so that that stuff runs on a subconscous level so he can concentrate on winning the fight not running his gear is much better armed with a lever gun(or a sharp stick!) than most folks are with an HK416. And we all SHOULD know that. I know you do Mars.

No I would not demand a ticket. But I also would not "EXPECT" to get out of it either. Stories? I was not referring to any website. I was referring to when people out in the public hear about cops avoiding tickets for speeding or avoiding parking tickets or whatever. It DOES happen. I know. My 2 best friends are cops. I majored in criminal justice in college. I know and have been around my fair share of cops and their families. Certain things occasionally get "fixed" or over looked BECAUSE cops look out for each other. But that is NOT unique to the LE profession though......I'm sure gas station attendants, garbage men and circus performers look out for each other too.....The issue though is that with cops it undermines public trust.The public percieves this as " If little stuff gets swept under the rug then does big stuff? I KNEW it! All cops are dirty!" And THAT perception becomes a real problem. And some folks ARE definetly resentful of authority. In fact I really wondered whether the guy in the original post suffered from that affliction. I still have a hard time imagining that the original post situation was ALL the cop's fault. Almost always those situations are exacerbated by a smart ass who "knows his rights". (THAT DOES NOT MEAN I THINK YOU SHOULD NOT ASSERT YOUR RIGHTS. IT MEANS DON'T BE A SMART ASS ABOUT IT!)

And that, combined with the robust design and lack of need for intensive maintenance is why I like them. In other terms. I agree that the 1911, PROPERLY tuned, and set up is probably the finest combat pistol out there. The problem is that they require more maintenance and greater "start up expense" to get them right or to build them right from the ground up. The design just does not lend itself to modern production methods. It NEEDS to be hand fitted.But properly set up it is finer than anything else out there...IMHO. On the other hand the glock requires virtually no maintenance, works straight out of the box and will shoot as well as as the shooter in REALISTIC interpersonal conflict distance where pistols are likely to be used as a primary weapon. I'll take robust and "good enough" over "the best" albeit finicky every time. But YMMV.

The issue though is the percieved inequality. Some pigs are more eqaul than others I guess. (NO that is not a cop joke....read the book). When citizens feel cops see themselves as above the law then there are problems. This is just simple human nature. We can't have it both ways. You can't appear to be letting other cops break the law and expect the general public to respect the law...after all, if the cops don't respect it, why should the citizenry at large? If you have an "us vs. them" mentality then you will get an "us vs them" reaction from the public.You can't logically complain about citizens not respecting cops if cops act in a way that breeds disrespect from the average citizen. Just like a citizen can't complain for being treated like a criminal if he acts like a jackass to the cop. If cops (or anyone) APPEAR to be taking advantage of their position then they will not be respected and will be reacted to with contempt. If someone appears to be polite and courteous he will usually be reacted to the same -at least by decent citizens. The criminals will still lie to you and try to kill you, but that is just what they do anyways. So if you let your buddies off for speeding but not the average joe then the average joe will become resentful to you. On the other hand apparently if you write tickets for EVERYONE -including cops and their mothers, then the cops will be resentful toward you. A no win situation I guess......

I agree. For certain applications there are better systems.I like my M4. I like my Colt Commando. I like my M1A Scout rifle. I also like my AK. They all do different stuff well. But for a robust system with rugged reliability -that is NOT intensely maintenance dependant-with a cartridge that will shoot through stuff and still do something after it gets through stuff, and in a somewhat lightweight package with a healthy mag capacity, that is affordable and affordable to practice with enough to "own" anything you can see out to 150-200 yards (and especially at 50 and less where things REALLY happen in civilian world) then the AK is pretty hard to beat. But that is just IMHO:D.

VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!

Hard to argue with a website ostensibly devoted to "horror stories" about cops getting tickets from other cops. How tragic.... BUT....We don't make the situation any better when we (as armed citizens) get confrontational when we encounter police. The point I was making earlier about OC was that IN MY EXPERIENCE most who open carry seem to have an "It's my right and you can't do anything about it" chip on their shoulder. ***** AND AGAIN...If that does not apply to those reading this then this is not directed at those reading.***** If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard someone at a gunshow or a gunshop or on the phone at work go on and on about how they would "put the cop in their place" and how the" cops work for them " and how "no jack booted thug would disarm them", I'd have A LOT more dollars than I have now.... These guys who open carry to draw attention and then argue with the cop DO NOT help us. Be respectful, be courteous and then call Internal Affairs and file a complaint if that is warranted or call an attorney. Don't tell the guy he doesn't know what he is talking about and exacerbate the situation....But in MY EXPERIENCE if no one sees it to begin with there is no issue to be dealt with. I carry 365 days a year. I carry to protect my family, me, loved ones and MAYBE depending on circumstances third parties who are in imminent danger. I don't carry to make a political statement. I don't carry to "be cool". I don't carry to make people think I'm a bad ass. In fact I don't want ANYONE to even give me a second look. When I am out in public I look like just your average big guy (6' 240) who probably used to wrestle or play football and who probably still lifts weights.I'm usually dressed kinda preppy (untucked polo shirt and jeans or cargo shorts) no "insured by Smith and Wesson" or "Glock Perfection" clothing. No visible gun. No visible spare mag. No visible second gun. No visible knife. No visible Fox labs pepper spray. No visible blow out kit. All that stuff is covered up and I look like everyone else. And you know something? Cops don't come single me out to talk to. I've been pulled over 5 times ever. Only 2 of those asked if I had a gun in the car. I just don't fit the profile, I'm courteous and I don't start arguments. I know my lawyer will do a lot more damage than my arguing with the officer will. It is knowing WHEN and HOW to get your point across. So back to our original post in this thread. What do you HONESTLY think the bystanders who saw this thought? Did they think "Hmm that cop is a dumbass and the guy is right" or did they think "what is that guy's problem with the gun on his hip. I hope he's not a danger to us. I hope the cop gets this under control." I'm NOT against the right to open carry. I am against open carry WITH AN ATTITUDE and against open carry without using common sense. And I may be wrong but I have a hard time swallowing the "he forgot to untuck his shirt". I can't remember ever being out in public and NOT knowing whether I was carrying openly or not.........I just pay attention like that....

I took it to mean he is tired of the police officers who think they are above the law. But that is just my guess. I may be COMPLETELY wrong. Just my guess with the limited amount of info posted.

Sorry to hear that. Check your PM.

No probably not more dognappings, but the sign gives intel and prior warning that otherwise the BGs would not so easily have. A little anti freeze marinated hamburger meat and the dog is no longer a problem. Or a can of mace for Spot. Neither of which would the BG be likely to bring had you not been advertising the fact that he would need them.