freddy333

Interesting that you cite this book. I saw Lott speak at a conference some years ago &, as part of his talk, he used 2 pictures that made the point about the effectiveness for & need of gun ownership very clear. 1 picture was a suburban house with a sign in front that read 'Gun Free Zone' with a peace sign below it & the other picture was a suburban house with a sign that read 'Signs don't stop violence. Armed citizens do! with the moniker 'NRA Member' below it'. He then put it to the audience, which, up until then had not been too open to Lott's opening comments, which they thought a criminal would be likely to target. It was clear from the audience's reaction that his point had been made with at least a small majority of the audience. Just sayin...............

A common problem & the remedy requires removal/repositioning of the inner plastic ('ceramic') insert & recementing. Because of the possibility of damage, I have not attempted this on any of mine, but you should be able to locate a few threads by other members who have attempted this.

There is no point in debating 'facts' from a group like that.

A couple of points - For 1 thing, banks contain money, which criminals want. This differs from schools & movie houses, which only contain targets. A successful bank robber leaves the bank with money that he can use to buy things. A successful mass murderer always loses his life or ends up spending the rest of his life in prison. Point being that the goals are different, so, in comparing arming schools/movie houses to banks, you are comparing apples & oranges. Still, the reason banks have guards & spend alot of time, effort & money to implement other anti-crime defense strategies is because banks learned long ago that if they continued to rely on the police to foil bank robberies, they would all end up with empty safes. The way I see it, you have 2 options - either you take away ALL guns, which would require a constitutional amendment & result in an insurrection or you grant the innocent the option to protect themselves. Enacting more laws & regulations that abridge lawful citizens' rights to keep & bear arms does little to stop criminals & the insane (who, by definition, ignore laws & regulations). Like I keep saying, there are no perfect solutions when dealing with imperfect human beings. Like choosing rep watches, you have to select the option that contains the fewest warts & work from there.

I just did. Now let me suggest that regurgitating commentary from the likes of the VPC, whose public & unconstitutional statements include the likes of 'Handguns should be banned from future sale except for military and law- enforcement personnel' & '(the ATF should) take immediate action to stop the sale and distribution of firearms', tends to delegitamize your point.

I am not positive, but I believe the dials/hands for ETA 28xx movements are interchangeable.

That is completely inaccurate. The NRA is funded by gun owners, some of whom may sell firearms or defend their homes/businesses or hunt or shoot for sport or just collect guns. According to the NRA's own stats, the majority of its members are simply private citizens who own guns.

The point is that having an armed guard at your daughter's school (as is already the case for schools where most politicians' & celebrities' send their children) will deter all but the truly insane. And, with an armed guard on premesis, your daughter would have a better chance of surviving an attack by the truly insane. Again, because criminals who commit crimes, by definition, do not follow laws, there are no perfect solutions. But I have been convinced that having the ability to protect oneself & ones' kin is a better alternative than relying on the government to take legal/political action after lives have been lost.

Ken - I see your point, which is the same 1 I used to make myself. The parents of those kids in Newtown thought they were safe too. Trouble is that we are all safe...........until we aren't.

Not a big fan of straps on Subs, but, otherwise, looks good.

You cannot post .zip files. You need to upload the .jpg images to photobucket.com or a similar site. Then, copy/paste photobucket's Direct Link URL into the editor here. Also, I would limit each image size to 1024x768 or thereabouts. If smaller, details are difficult to see. If larger, the entire image is hard to fit into most monitors.

As far as that online map of registered handgun owners goes, I think, since the information is publically available, the newspaper, under the auspices of the 1st Amendment, had every right to print it. However, in my opinion, this type of information (private info on law-abiding citizens), whether it be of registered gun owners, AIDs patients, traffic speeders or other publically available data, should only ever be accessible by way of a court order. And, then, only in those cases where a crime has been committed. But, again, this is another issue altogether.

The problem with registries was made clear in the recent posting of names & home addresses of registered (legal) handgun owners within an active online map. What next, an online map of the names/addresses of those infected with AIDs? Or those with STDs? Or those with prescriptions for medical marijuana? Today, it is a list of people whose lifestyle you disagree with, tomorrow it may be you & your lifestyle that ends up on an interactive list. That is why it is generally best to keep the government out of the lives of private citizens. Not. Although I am not a member, I have been following the NRA for quite some time, both as a private citizen & as a journalist. Not only have I never heard any NRA official suggest that criminals or the insane be granted free access to firearms, but, quite the contrary, the NRA has repeately petitioned the US congress to enact laws that prohibit sales to them. Unfortunately, as I said, it is nearly impossible to pass any laws (that have teeth) that some clever lawyer is not able to find a way around. Sad, but true. Frankly, as as been said for several years, the key to setting things in the right direction is (retroactive) term limits for both houses of congress. Eliminate the ruling class & you remove a whole host of political & social ills. But, that, of course, is a whole other kettle of fish.

Well, no one wants to address that fact because it is not politically fashionable.

I am a life-long democrat & not an NRA member, so I cannot say. Can you quote a source where conservatives are the 'first ones to propose cuts for on-duty police offiers'? With all due respect, in an age where the US is leveraging the government faster than the EU is deleveraging, you have to cut back somewhere.

No, not the only way &, possibly, not the best way. But it is the most realistically effective option I have heard to date. It is like putting the National Guard on the southern border to block aliens from sneaking into the US illegally (an act, by the way, which is punishable by jail in Mexico). Not the best option, perhaps, but it is the most realistically effective 1 that I have heard. Actually, according to law enforcement, it is usually very angry individuals who commit mass shootings. And they generally go after what are termed 'soft' targets - locations where the perpetrator expects little or no armed opposition. As I said, when faced with a choice between a soft & hard target, you would have to be insane to go after the hard target.

The NRA has called for off-duty police in schools. While not a perfect solution, it would likely deter most, if not all, of the loonies who commit these types of crimes. Anyone who would attack a school so protected must, by definition, be psychotic. And, with the current laws in America dealing with psychotics (who have not yet killed or harmed anyone), the government does not appear to be motivated to do anything beyond trying to find more politically fashionable words to describe the insane.

Still wearing my '39

Obviously, you have not read my posts (above) regarding the option to amend the Constitution if a majority of Americans disagree with its contents, instructions for which are also written into the Constitution. Considering the state of the rest of the world, I would say the jury is still out on that 1. But in the United States, the Constitution has only been rarely amended. And, judging from the number of people from the rest of the world that continue to come to live in the US, the US must be doing something right.

Ditto. Please debate & keep the personal comments out.

I do not have the exact retail price, but I think it was about $198 or thereabouts. Certainly, below $200.

A good question & yes. Until my 30s, I was fiercely anti-gun. Anyone who knew me back then knew that, were it up to me, I would have confiscate ALL firearms, except those of the military & police. However, a number of things changed my opinion over the years, bringing me to the opposite side. But none more than an incident that occurred during the LA riots of the early 90s. CBS had sent a female reporter & camera crew out to cover the riots, setting up on a hill just outside the actual riot zone. Compounding the problem, by this time, the police (government) had decided to evacuate the city, leaving the innocent citizens to fend for themselves. It was an interesting scene, because they had set up the camera behind a group of soccer mom types (some with their kids) with the reporter, looking visibly shaken herself, asking the women what they were going to do when the riots & fire reached them? From their vantage point, you could see the actual line of smoke & fire splicing through the city below & working its way towards the position of the moms & CBS crew. 1 of the women, crying, said she did not know what they were going to do because she had forced her husband to get rid of his gun. That, for me, was the smoking gun that proved the point.

Wearing my '39 today

DayDate. If you look closely, it is written below Rolex. If you remove the bracelet on most Rolex watches (including this 1), you will see the model & serial number between the lugs. I cannot remember what the dial design is called, but it looks to be 60s vintage.