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Ken, I'm not playing with shades of grey, I'm posting hard facts for the debate, as requested. Added: Scotland had the 2nd worst mass shooting K-12, with a vanishingly small percentage of private gun ownership. I contend the number of people in the USA that perform mass shootings, relative to the number of gun owners, is a vanishingly small fraction as well.

Your most recent quote claims the NRA received as much as $38.9 million since 2005 (7 years) from "the gun industry" In fiscal year 2010 alone the NRA took in $228 million dollars. How do you calculate your 74% as quoted above?

Ken, as stated in the title those are the worst K-12 shootings in history. Period.

The Worst K-12 Shootings in History #1- Sandy Hook, US in 2012 - 26 victims (20 children, 6 adults) #2- Dunblane, Scotland in 1996 - 17 victims (16 children, 1 adult) #3- Erfurt, Germany in 2002 - 16 victims (2 children, 14 adults) #4- Winnenden, Germany in 2009 - 15 victims (9 children, 6 adults) Two in Germany, and one in Scotland, both of which have much more strict gun control laws. In fact, at the time of the Scotland shooting, only .1% of the population owned a gun in that country." Apparently, making it difficult to access a gun does not prevent mass shootings.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yes, very nice. I find myself wearing the Frosty Flake more than anything else in my box. There's just something about how these things ride on the wrist.

Angelina Jolie?

Well, we've passed 22,000 gun control laws and it hasn't helped much. Maybe gun control isn't the solution?

"Very rare"? Hmmmmmmm. Cough cough. I doubt it. But THIS one is rare. And also for sale.

My best piece is a Snowflake that JustAsGood cleaned and regulated. All my others are within a minute over several days, but the JAGflake is spot on.

Looks fine to me. Don't be so worried about the "purists" here, if you like it, go for it!

Take a look here: http://www.rwgforum.net/topic/137889-crown-info/

You don't EVEN want to know how cheap these were back then. Tears, I'm telling ya. Tears. Big ones. $275 brand new.

Verrrrrrry nice!

@Tomhorn, how about a taste of radical patriotism for your Friday? This comes from Thomas Jefferson's letter to his friend William Smith. Jefferson was concerned about the new Constitution, specifically the role of the Executive branch, which he thought would be too powerful. Shay's recent rebellion had scared the elite, who began to support a stronger Executive branch out of emotion, not reason. Jefferson recognized this as passions clouding judgment, resulting in an atmosphere of panic and fear. Sound familiar? Here goes: "Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. "Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. "God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. "We have had 13. states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? "Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."

Precisely. Many foreigners don't understand that. Each of the Many States is sovereign and establishes its own government as well. People are free to relocate to a State that governs to their liking. Power and consent flow from these sovereign States to the federal government, not the other way around. The Constitution they ratified spells that out. By law, the federal government cannot rule over the Many States, unless given prior authorization by the States. Should the States decide they want to change their "right to keep and bear arms," then the States will amend and ratify the Constitution again.

Did you notice where that writing originated? Pravda.

As long as we're posting meaningful thoughts from news sources around the world............. "For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases. As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike. They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack. What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head, that is why they are a maniac, because they are incapable of living in reality or stopping themselves. "The excuse that people will start shooting each other is also plain and silly. So it is our politicians saying that our society is full of incapable adolescents who can never be trusted? Then, please explain how we can trust them or the police, who themselves grew up and came from the same culture? "No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear. "So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect." Stanislav Mishin http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/28-12-2012/123335-americans_guns-0/

Ken, the Papers were written to explain the intent and thought behind the proposed Constitution. They were sent to the Many States to persuade them to ratify the Constitution and agree to allow a "federal" government be created. At the time each State was sovereign and governed itself (hint: they still do, or should). A federal government would intrude on their sovereignty and they needed some mollification to go along with the program. It gives us insight into the thoughts of the men that authored the Constitution, so when a detail seems vague in today's vernacular, we can get another perspective of what they "really meant."

You cannot arbitrarily connect two facts and extrapolate causation. But categorically-related facts are more likely to work. It is also true that it's unhelpful to relate crime rates between countries. We each have our own problems. From another site: PER CAPITA ROBBERIES Spain: 12.3265 per 1,000 people Mexico: 2.02555 per 1,000 people Portugal: 1.6237 per 1,000 people United Kingdom: 1.57433 per 1,000 people Poland: 1.38838 per 1,000 people United States: 1.38527 per 1,000 people PER CAPITA BURGLARIES Australia: 21.7454 per 1,000 people #3 Denmark: 18.3299 per 1,000 people #5 Finland: 16.7697 per 1,000 people #6 New Zealand: 16.2763 per 1,000 people #7 United Kingdom: 13.8321 per 1,000 people #8 Poland: 9.46071 per 1,000 people #9 Canada: 8.94425 per 1,000 people #13 Switzerland: 8.06303 per 1,000 people #17 United States: 7.09996 per 1,000 people PER CAPITA ASSAULTS United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people #7 New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people #8 United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people #9 Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people #10 Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people #11 Finland: 5.32644 per 1,000 people PER CAPITA CAR THEFTS Australia: 6.92354 per 1,000 people #2 Denmark: 5.92839 per 1,000 people #3 United Kingdom: 5.6054 per 1,000 people #4 New Zealand: 5.45031 per 1,000 people #5 Norway: 5.08143 per 1,000 people #6 France: 4.9713 per 1,000 people #7 Canada: 4.88547 per 1,000 people #8 Italy: 4.19755 per 1,000 people #9 United States: 3.8795 per 1,000 people PER CAPITA RAPES Australia: 0.777999 per 1,000 people #5 Canada: 0.733089 per 1,000 people #9 United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people PER CAPITA SUICIDE AGE 15-24 New Zealand: 26.7 per 100,000 people #2 Finland: 22.8 per 100,000 people #3 Switzerland: 17.9 per 100,000 people #4 Canada: 15 per 100,000 people #5 Austria: 15 per 100,000 people #6 Australia: 14.6 per 100,000 people #7 United States: 13.7 per 100,000 people

One comment I'd add regarding home defense, if you're using a powerful gun you MUST pay attention to what's down range. This includes the bedroom beside you, the basement below you, the neighbor's house, his neighbor's house, the house across the street, etc. Your round can easily penetrate two houses away if you aim recklessly. I use a 12 gauge for this very reason. The first couple rounds are light shot so they have good stopping power and almost no penetrating power. Even though there are no houses near my home. The last 4 rounds are heavy slugs. Knowing this, I still pay close attention where the barrel is aimed. In all the gun safety training I've given, the words "gun control" mean "use both hands, and watch down range."

A couple of thoughts: An insert that's worn so much around its inner perimeter tells me "fake wear". That part should be right next to the domed crystal, and almost never get any mechanical wear, but the same amount of UV and saltwater. The wear should be even across the width of the insert, perhaps slightly more at its outer perimeter, if it isn't clicked down into the bezel correctly. For aging hands, make some strong creamy espresso. Then using a q-tip pick up a small dab of the foam, NOT the liquid, and paint the entire hand. The bubbles in the crema will burst, and it will retreat to the edges and crevices, leaving a darker stain there than in the exposed middle. It also makes a nice residue on the metal itself.

Great writeup! I tried this in Okla-stinking-homa when I was stuck there for 3 weeks and nearly dead from the unbearably mind numbing boredom. Good LORD I wanted to kill something. So I turned to my trusty all-original vintage MBW ca. 1997. I tentatively, carefully dropped the insert into straight bleach, poised hawk-like to dump it out into cold water at the first glimmer of fade. I held my breath. Nothing happened. So I left it *gasp* for another 30 seconds! Nothing happened. So another minute. Nothing happened. I left it in the bleach ALL NIGHT and in the morning it was beginning to look a little blotchy. MBWs got good paint.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me if Gun Law #20,001 will be the magic law that finally makes the bad guys clean up their act.

That is a common definition, yes. So when the government passes yet another gun control law, expecting it to produce a different result this time, are they then acting sanely? There are arguably 20,000 laws nationwide regarding guns. Will number 20,001 be the magic law that fixes everything? I doubt it.