https://apnews.com/article/homicide-shootings-police-jacob-blake-trials-0b0bbd2701e282361495bf815755e080

What could go wrong? A seventeen-year-old kid who isn't smart enough to know which way his hat is supposed to face attends a protest armed with an assault rifle...

Two people are dead and everyone who loved them or depended on them or even just knew them are suffering. A third person is injured by gunfire, and anyone who's suffered serious injury knows that the pain and consequences of a serious injury never go away.

Rittenhouse (the shooter) is facing life without parole, and even if that doesn't stick he'll likely spend decades in prison and certainly be dogged by his actions for the rest of his life. Instead of going to his high school prom he'll get repeatedly sodomized in the corner of the exercise yard that the cameras don't record. I'd bet my life that Rittenhouse wishes he'd never even seen a gun, much less owned one.

In six or ten years when the civil suits are finally concluded, Rittenhouse's parents literally won't have two nickels to rub together. No house, no savings, no pension...hell, even their social security will be taken in compensation for what their son did. Their thanksgiving dinner will be dictated by what's available at the local food closet until the day they die.

And for what??? The expression of Second Amendment rights? Ask Rittenhouse and his family how they feel about the expression of 2-A rights today...

Rittenhouse was a stupid kid participating in a stupid act, that for some insane reason wasn't illegal, but should have been. Had it not been legal for that (or any other) jackass to cary a loaded AR-15 in public none of this would have happened. Stupid Stupid Stupid.

I looked into these in the past. They did not prove to be reliable...at all. I suspect you could custom-tune a load that would be more reliable, but I guarantee it wouldn't be full-house 10mm, and in doing so you loose the versatility of the cartridge.

Too bad...it's a nice, simple set-up. If it was as reliable as the Banshee I'd prefer it.

FWIW, the premiss of a airplane gun is a complete gimmick. I've got just over 2,600 hours of backcountry flying, both private and commercial, and I've never needed a long gun or thought that the weight was worth the utility. If I ever did decide one was warranted, it wouldn't be a PCC.

There is more than one 10mm barrel that will accommodate a smile, and more than a few reloader's who think that they can match Underwood ballistics, and then some. They were smart to leave their brass on the range...

I'd say that the Lee die is a good template for tossing bad brass. Consider yourself lucky to have it.

There are a LOT of 10mm loads which essentially ruin the brass for reloading...bulge being one issue, expanded primer cups being another. People love to push this round, and there's enough case capacity and powder options out there to get way beyond what was ever intended. I liberally discard 10mm brass for a wide variety of reasons, and never use anyone else's fired brass.

I polished the feed ramp of a couple of my Glocks with a dremel tool, polishing head, and green jewelers rough. Worked pretty good...doesn't take off enough material to change the profile. Only takes a few minutes.

Quote from: Sneed on September 11 2020 04:22:02 PM MDT
Good for you - bit what or who are you talking about?

Trump and John McCain. One was a war hero and statesman, and the other is a worthless gasbag who's only contribution to the military has been to insult it. Heads-up, McCain is the only one of the two who ever served...

Quote from: DenStinett on September 11 2020 04:05:04 PM MDT
...
Cherish what we have today .... make your Vote COUNT this November ! ! !

I plan to! I'll start by NOT voting for someone who never served, but insulted and ridiculed a true American war hero, even after he was dead.

As a VERY broad generalization, for getting a 200 grain bullet @ or above 1200 fps:

Blue Dot is the most accurate.
Longshot provides the most velocity.
AA#9 splits the difference.

Those Swift bullets are interesting, but unless you can get them going significantly faster than hot pistol velocities I have a hard time seeing what they will do better than a XTP or Federal's 180 grain Trophy Bonded...a bullet that is already too tough to reliably expand under 1400 fps. I can see them being just the ticket from a rifle or long-barrel Contender, or better yet the 10mm Magnum.

Yes Keiichi, I suspect we probably would enjoy that. You have a good weekend, too.

Well...I think my nudity analogy has been misconstrued...I probably phased it inelegantly.

But I think lines in the sand are being drawn, and there probably isn't much productive reason to continue. I've reached the same point with people who don't think there should be any guns in society...intelligent and articulate people who's opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. We heard each-other out, and agreed to disagree.

Our democracy is made up of people who think all guns should be destroyed and people who think weapons create some sort of utopia and they should be able to open cary assault rifles while grocery shopping...and people like me who think that the balance is somewhere in-between, but absolutely NOT at either extreme.

I'm as comfortable and skilled with firearms as any person I've ever met. I had a distinguished career as a sheriff's deputy in a meth-infested county where it was almost unheard of not to have someone at gunpoint two or three times a week. I went to work every day with three handguns, two shotguns and either a AR-15 or full-auto M-16, depending on the chores that day...I'm not intimidated by weaponry. And I think that in an urban setting the open cary of handguns is ridiculous, and open cary of assault rifles is just vulgar. I do not want to live in a society where either are considered normal, and I have no intention of moving.

There was a time in my life when I was more sympathetic with OC, but that was a LONG time ago and I've matured since then. If I had to choose between OC and going unarmed while in town today, I'd go unarmed...and that's from someone who's carried a gun virtually every day, while mowing the lawn and eating dinner and on vacation and at the dentist office and while getting my tires rotated etc., for just shy of three decades.

I also recognize that in our democracy, majority opinions cary the day. The US Constitution is a document which is subject to frequent interpretation and infrequent but precedented rewriting. Someone said earlier that just because you can, doesn't mean you should. I like that. I wish more people were considerate enough to take it to heart.

Regardless, I don't think anyone has ever had their mind changed on such an emotional subject by internet posts, and the fact that everyone here has at least been willing to listen without overt nastiness is heartening.

Interesting point regarding "accidental brandishing". I guess my two thoughts are that anyone entrusted to cary a concealed weapon should probably be expected to do it with enough forethought and skill that it's not going to be an issue. Also, it seems a WHOLE lot more prudent to simply rewrite the brandishing code to specify that it does not apply to someone who the CCW holder is not in conflict with seeing the weapon in a brief and accidental manner.

Folks have mentioned the issue of people being threatened by the sight of a weapon, but I think that context is key here.

Let's compare it to nudity. A naked person in a locker room isn't unusual...there's a reason to be naked in a locker room, and there's an expectation that if you go into a locker room you may well encounter naked people. It's akin to seeing someone at a firing range or farm field or deer stand with a rifle or shotgun...there's a reason for a person in that scenario to be carrying a long gun.

But encountering the same naked person from the locker room in the toy isle of walmart is an entirely different matter. While the nudity is the same, the context is not, and it's the display of socially inappropriate and illogical behavior which constitutes the threat.

To me, a person who carries a rifle at a downtown event is no different than someone attending the same event without any clothes...there is simply no good reason for it, and both of them just want to wag their junk in your face with no consideration for how it makes you feel. Whether they do harm or not, their motivations and decision making abilities are in grave doubt.

Frankly, I fear a armed person with questionable motivations and decision making abilities a whole lot more than naked one. The gun itself isn't the issue any more than the genitals are...it's the person who chooses to display them without just purpose and without any consideration for how other people might feel about it that's the vulgarity.

No doubt we have people who believe that it's appropriate to display a weapon anywhere. We also have people who feel it's appropriate to be naked anywhere, or to masturbate or copulate anywhere. None of those three activities cause harm to others in and of themselves, and of the three only the first constitutes an ability to physically harm others. But as a society we choose which behaviors are appropriate in public and which ones are not.

Quote from: Mike D on September 08 2020 08:04:21 PM MDT
It's amazing to me that even the gun community has been indoctrinated to think our guns should be kept hidden.

I have not been "indoctrinated" by anyone. My views are the rational and considered opinion of a person who learned to shoot rifles at age six, and handguns two years later. I was gifted a rifle at age nine and bought my first revolver at age 14, and I currently own, shoot and reload for just over thirty different firearms. My opinions are my own...not those of the gun-nuts or the anti-gun faction or anyone in-between. My own.

As for the popularity of open cary, I refer again to the social pendulum...it will swing opposite with equal or greater force soon enough...let's all hope it doesn't swing too far, but if it does you can't blame people who hold views similar to my own for that eventuality.

I'm not anti-gun; I'm pro civility. Pro common sense. Pro compromise in the name of the greater good.

If you really want to put your money where your mouth is, take a year off and go live in Pakistan or Somalia or the Congo or Iraq, and report back on how absolutely wonderful it is to live in a society where a assault rifle is necessary just to go out and buy groceries, because everyone else buying groceries is carrying one. Your opinion might just change. Or not... Either way, until you've seen it first hand, you really don't know what it looks like.

To be clear...I do not believe the unfettered open cary of firearms in civil society is conducive to building or maintaining a safe, secure, cohesive society, nor do I think it has any possible connection to skeet shooting, pheasant hunting, USPSA competitions or any other legitimate firearm recreation or self defense application. I am opposed to open carry in urban settings, and think that people who feel threatened or suspicious or uncomfortable around individuals who open cary are not wrong...they're spot on. I see open cary as not only bad tactics, but bad manners, and ultimately corrosive to gun ownership in this country. I do not see it as making anyone safer or more secure or normalizing firearms for people who are not enthusiasts, but rather just the opposite.

As I mentioned in my first post, I've lived in communities where virtually everyone carries a gun, all the time, everywhere. I did not find them to be places I wanted to live, and I do not want this country to become one of them. I do not want to live in a society where someone carrying a slung rifle though walmart is anything but alarming. I do not support building a society where that behavior is considered in any way normal.

This is all my opinion of course, and I respect that other perfectly intelligent and balanced people will have different opinions...including people who don't think there should be any guns at all. But I think it's incumbent on gun owners who believe as I do to speak up and not to be bullied by those who will say that if you're not 100% pro-gun in any conceivable circumstance, then you must be anti-gun.

I'm 100% for the responsible ownership of firearms, and 100% against irresponsible ownership. I do not see open cary in our nations towns and cities as responsible, and I am suspicious of the motives and/or maturity of people who believe that it is. I will stand against open cary in the public places of our country (especially the open cary of long guns) just as I will stand for personal gun ownership and the right of self defense. I think that more gun owners and CCW carriers who feel the same need to stand up and be heard, rather than be cowed by the fear that any support for reasonable gun disciplines will somehow result in the annihilation of all gun rights and the subsequent enslavement of the citizenry.

Lastly, I would like to complement the people who have been involved in this conversation for their civility. It is admirable and speaks well of this community.

Quote from: Keiichi on September 08 2020 12:48:14 PM MDT

But, we're probably going to have to agree to disagree.

I can live with that. Thank you.

Quote from: Keiichi on September 08 2020 11:43:38 AM MDT
...

I disagree on principle, as carrying a rifle is not inherently an act of violence nor is it inherently threatening...

Openly carrying a weapon in public is not inherently threatening? Seriously? So if you watched a person walk into your kids grade school with a assault rifle and magazine pouches, you wouldn't see that as a potential threat, since that person is innocent until proven guilty? If a person came up to you on the street and aggressively asked you for money in the way many panhandlers do, you wouldn't find it to be more threatening if that person was also carrying a AR pistol on their chest rig?

You can say that there's no reasonable justification for a person to cary a assault rifle into a grade school, with which I agree. I say there's no reasonable justification for carrying a assault rifle at a public protest against face mask mandates. In both scenarios, the presence of the weapon IS inherently threatening. In both scenarios, the potential for public harm vastly out-weighs whatever benefit the rifle carrier feels they are achieving.

Obviously others feel differently. What concerns me greatly is the inability or refusal of people to see the potential future consequences of this most uncivil and unnecessary trend.

One thing I guarantee, even without any large scale bloodshed this public display of hardware is doing nothing to sway neutral people towards gun rights...and their vote counts just as much as anyone else's.

I don't think it really matters whether the people displaying weapons are on the far-left or the far-right or on some non-linear dimension entirely. Nor do I think it matters if you call a weapon a assault rifle or a enhanced sporting tool...any firearm principally designed for efficiency in the killing of people is just that, regardless of what name you give it or how you use it.

I believe the cultural and legal acceptance of people walking the public streets of our towns and cities with more armament than our GI's carried is Vietnam is nonsensical and corrosive to our society and democracy and country. I think it's also fantastically impolite, tactically inept, and one sign of a marginalized intellect and stymied personality. And that's from someone who can match those people gun for gun, magazine for magazine, and more than likely outshoot most of them by a significant margin.

In any healthy society, cultural and political norms are in a constant state of pendulum, and the people who are needlessly pushing the pendulum as far as they can in one direction are simultaneously adding energy to the inevitable opposite swing.

As Americans we like to believe that we are superior, and you need only look at the Apollo missions to see some of the superior things our country has accomplished. But people are people the world over, with the same basic drives and desires and weaknesses. The citizens of Somalia or Lebanon or Sarajevo didn't plan on the civil conflicts that destabilized and destroyed their countries, but it happened anyway.

They used to say that an armed society is a polite society, but what happens when a society is both armed and insolent? If we as Americans cannot voice our opinions or oppositions without having a assault rifle slung across our chests, we're pretty screwed. There isn't any reason in the world we cannot end up like a hundred other failed countries, and peoples' proclivity to punctuate their political or social view with the brandishing of a weapon, regardless of what that view might be, is not a good sign.

I do not understand why it is allowed, either by law or by cultural acceptance, regardless of whether someone is a gun-owner or not.