Doc

My blood-pressure raises a little everytime I hear somebody saying "we don't need them". Who has the right to say what I do or don't need? I really don't need any home defense ..... unless somebody is breaking down the front door or crawling through a window. Who has the right to dictate that I am legally required to be less well-armed than your average home invader? Who do we trust with those kinds of life and death decisions in our lives? ..... The anti-gun crowd? If they can guarantee that those that would do me or my family harm would abide by any laws (existing or proposed), then maybe some negotiations might occur. Until that time, I have no interest in having people tell me what I need.

Actually, this January thaw has been pretty complete. There is almost no snow on the hill right now. All those scrapes and trails are exposed right now. And of course this is the best time to check for sheds. Couple up the shed hunting with scouting and get out there before the snow buries everything again.

Early spring is a good time to check out the previous year's rut and travel patterns. Scrapes and rubs and trails will be clear until the foliage starts to come on the under-story. Very often, the same areas will be used annually unless something happens to the area like maturing of trees, the change or elimination of food sources, the destruction of bedding areas, etc. Once in a while Mother Nature will throw you a curve like she did this hunting season in my area. We had a failure in the production of all acorns and wild apples. Since that is the primary (almost exclusive) food source that draws most of the deer into their fall travel, feeding and bedding areas, I had to rely primarily on in-season scouting trying to figure out the new and strange patterns. What I found was that without a concentration of these traditional food sources, and since we have not been an agricultural area for many decades, the deer travels were not very concentrated, and they ranged over a much wider area with very little obvious sign. If you are hunting farmlands, it might be worth your time to have a conversation with area farmers to see just what crops they intend to put in and where. It can be good intelligence to gather while you are refreshing your hunting permissions.

I think this may be a case where political idealogy is getting in the way of reasonable recognition of what is really happening in their personal lives. I would guess that if you are a devoted Cuomo/Biden/Obama fan and voted for them, it may be a bit difficult to admit that they are attempting to dismantle your rights to use your gun. It's interesting to watch people wrestle with that conflict. It's got to be tough.

It's just simply one more spin-off effect of gun registration. The info is out there now, there's nothing legislators can do now except perhaps pass laws that keep new gun registration info from being released.

I don't exactly disagree with what you are saying. But I do understand the practicalities on the receiving end of these letters and the fact that inspite of the content, it will be used simply as a "yes" or "no" opinion count on further gun control. So, just for the sake of getting counted on the right side of this issue, I went through the process. I do believe that any law that is on the books needs to be enforced or deleted. In terms of governmental issues regarding mental health, I guess I don't know enough about the issue to have much of an opinion on it. So, I guess I don't have any serious problems with the content of what they composed. By the way, I am still composing my own emails and letters to send out to legislators. I want these people to be buried in letters, calls, and e-mails so they understand that this is a matter taken seriously by the voting hunters and gun owners. So this little process by Ruger is simply another additional method of "piling-on". It won't effect my current letter-writing campaign.

Unfortunately, I believe you are right. These guys don't have time to read all these letters and e-mails. What really happens (as I understand it) is that staff members record "yea" or "nay" as to whether the mail is indicating support or opposition to new gun control efforts. All the details of your comments are disregarded. However, I have included some of the high-lights of my thoughts and reasoning just to make the correspondence look like a serious opinion.

I wonder how many "trigger words/phrases" on this thread alone have sent up red flags in the computers of the offices of homeland security?

Added another one. 90659 If you want to have a little fun just hit the screen refresh button on you browser and see how quickly the number is growing .... lol. It's amazing!

Of course, there is no end to this hysteria. Look, when they have defined a front handle on the forestock as being a rifle feature that makes it a threat to society, that tells me that there is no limit to their intent to remove every gun. So those that would defend additional gun bans and restrictions, and defend those that are calling for them, understand that your whimpering about so-called assault rifles and such is just feeding the frenzy. And if you have any guns that you think are safe from this "ban-mania" it should be starting to occur to you just how extensive this movement really is that you have chosen to align yourself with.

Was that an assault compound?

The best answer to the "need" comment is to ask back if they would feel the same way if they were in the middle of a home invasion.

I'm still unclear as to whether they are using the term "ban" in the sense that these guns will be banned from being manufactured and sold, or whether it is used in the sense of banning possession.

SH-H-H-H-H ..... Don't be asking questions like that.You know how they are .... they won't be lowering the fee in AR WMUs, they'll just crank up the fees in the non-AR WMUs. Don't give them any ideas ..... lol.

I have seen some crazy long shots on TV that really make me wonder if it is really hunting, or just long-range target shooting. These guys hire some guide to actually find the animals and then sit back from a distance that the animal wouldn't flee even if they saw the hunter. I understand that with some of these extreme mountain critters that's about the only way you could ever get them, so I don't get all upset about it .... lol. But eventually it all boils down to a challenge and success for technology, and the "hunter" is simply a trigger-puller. Not my thing, but more and more it is getting to be the scenario of preference. To each their own, I guess.

I think I already answered that.

Sounds like a reasonable move to me. I don't know why they wasted their time attending Biden's meeting in the first place. Everybody knows what he is about.

You know, I can't even think of a place where I could see a deer at 700 yards. And then if I could, I would probably be breaking the law about shooting across a road.

I refuse to get sucked into the world of the paranoid by the Timothy McVeigh types and those that would associate themselves with the mindset of the Ruby Ridge crew. Democracy is what we've got and Democracy is what I intend to stick with, and I am not yet ready to replace it with armed anarchy. I have no need or desire to begin sounding like some whacked out militia recruit. If we can't figure out how to keep our Democracy intact, then we probably don't deserve it.

I guess I had the nature of this meeting confused. Wasn't this simply a meeting between the NRA and whitehouse representatives? I mean, once the two participants reached a defined impasse, what choice would you have but to leave?

There do you feel better now? ..... lol. At least you paused for a bit from your deluge of anti-gun links to actually express a real thought of your own. That alone is an improvement. Look, I have no problem with posting links (do it myself occasionally), but when you post 4 or 5 of them in a row without any personal comment of your own, I have to admit that I was beginning to wonder just how long this string was going to last. Give Google a rest for crying out loud ..... lol.

The bigger point is the demonstration that no matter what you make illegal, obviously it can still be obtained.

Look, there is just one way to fight this onslaught of gun laws. That is by joining and supporting the organizations that we have in place that have the infrastructure for taking on these wackos. This in conjunction with individual letter writing campaigns are the only realistic ways to avoid further 2nd amendment infringement. Let's keep our eyes on the target, and not be distracted by activities that go after the wrong targets and that will not work.

We were not in the room. We do not know the level of arrogance that might have been displayed by the administration. We do not know what kinds of hardline ground rules that were set down in concrete right from the get-go. I do know one thing .... It usually doesn't take a lot of time to discover when your opposition is totally intransigent. And when confronted with that situation, it is foolish to just sit there.

My guess is that there will be no gathering of firearms. It will be a proclamation that it is illegal to possess, and enforcement will come whenever anyone tries to bring one out and use it, or gets caught in possession during other incidental contact with authorities. It all comes back to a question I asked a while ago: what good is owning something that you have to keep buried in your yard or boarded up in the wall. If they make the penalty severe enough, I fully expect nearly 100% compliance. This stuff has to be fought in the legislature, courts, and any other legitimate venue that we can come up with. Depending on the difficulty in enforcement is a losing position. They will figure out a way to enforce the law or make violation of the law pointless. As far as creating new criminals I really don't think that they give a damn about that. They already have the engrained mindset that if you own a gun, you are probably a criminal. Let's keep our attention on fighting this gun-hysteria and not be lulled into complacency by hopes of enforcement problems. I hope it never gets that far and we had better be concentrating on seeing that it doesn't.