Smokin

I'm not defending pulling a gun after the guy was on the ground and apparently disarmed. I'm also not accusing, as it all happened very quickly. Just like some of the anti-police people back in the late 90's and early 2000's that were run through police training simulators and all ended up shooting unarmed people in the sim. Easy to hit pause on a video and say 'at this exact point, the individual is no longer a threat, so the shooting that took place 1/2 second later is unjustified'. Pretti approached law enforcement in the situation where a hostile mob was developing. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know that's a terrible idea. If you want to protest and film, stand on the other side of the street and use the zoom function on your phone. I'm a big 2A guy, but I also keep in mind when I'm armed and am in proximity to law enforcement and that affects my actions. If possible, I avoid being in any situation where I'm armed and within 20 feet, let alone walk up to them with a hostile attitude or insert myself into what they're doing. If the situation gets out of control and I find myself in a bad situation with law enforcement (armed or not) and they are yelling commands at me, that is not the time to show how tough I am. You comply as deliberately and calmly as possible and wait for vindication in court. To do anything else, especially while armed, is stupid and you are putting your own life at risk. Not saying that it is entirely his fault, but Pretti apparently made a series of poor decisions that put his life at the mercy of another person's single decision. A person that was likely very stressed after being constantly targeted by hostile mobs and was probably minimally trained. Or if MN as a state would cooperate with the Feds like most states are, the Feds wouldn't feel the need to do a surge like this.

Anyone that has been to London lately can tell you it is likely too late for that. Western Europe as a whole has committed cultural suicide in deference to the immigrants.

TV cameras present, must grandstand. Party is irrelevant, both sides do the same. Should just ban any video inside the House and Senate chambers and I bet things would be far more civil. Although, then they might get more done, which would likely be bad for us, so grandstand away.

Dude, sounds like we need to hang out, that's pretty much my exact setup, minus the 45-70. My pred guns are both Ruger American; 556 for coyotes if they get too close to the house, and a 308 on the off chance a lion wanders onto the property (sitting in the dining room in case a kid sees it first). For hiking and archery hunting, I carry a 9mm for black bears and lions. Some may think that's under-gunned, but along the lines of the previous post on quality ammo, the 9 has Barnes copper bullets. Those things are legit. I recovered one bullet that went through the front shoulder blade (intentional shoulder shot as the vegetation was crazy thick and trailing would have been a nightmare) and the bullet was fully intact including picture perfect petals. Plus I'm probably getting 3 rounds into a charging animal with a 9mm vs 2 with my 45 (my sidearm for grizzly territory).

I have not had an issue with cycling on my AR with 300BO. The issue with subs for home defense is the hollow point functioning properly. A higher end bullet will really help with that, but you just can't go buy whatever no-name brand hollow point sub and assume it'll work properly. I bought some cheap ones during the ammo scarcity a few years ago because that was all I could find. I shot a pig and it ran off and was never recovered with virtually no blood at all so I'm 99% sure the bullet never opened. I've shot and tracked a lot of animals and this trail never had any hope at all. Only a couple specks at the impact site. If that were a person, there's a pretty good chance they'd still be in the fight after that one hit. Of course, you can and should keep shooting without pause until the person is on the ground and that'll help mitigate the bullet not doing quite as much damage as it should if it doesn't function. Even after experiencing that bullet failure, a suppressed 300BO AR would still be my first choice for home defense.

All these arguments assume that Greenland becoming an actual US territory is his no-kidding actual objective. I'm not saying he's playing 3D chess while everyone else is playing checkers, but he approaches many political topics, especially if he sees a 'deal' to be made, in a business mindset. Right or wrong, he is clearly willing to rattle the saber to get what he wants and use the saber when he thinks its worth it (low risk, high reward like we've seen him do recently). Do I think he's going to actually go to war with most of our closest allies over Greenland? No, but threatening to might make them considering either selling outright or selling large mining concessions. Finally, I think he rightly sees Western Europe as allies of questionable value and maybe this is a more forceful shot across the bow. Most have been drawing down their defense spending for years and would have trouble defending their own countries, let alone projecting power. Also, our values have been diverging. For example, Great Britain has had as many as 30 arrests PER DAY for saying offensive things online. Meanwhile, Great Britain also has anti-Israel protests where there have been videos of protesters holding signs saying "we support genocide" in reference to 'from the river to the sea' that have faced no police action. That clearly selective prosecution and lack of free speech is something I expect from China or Russia, not one of our oldest allies.

That entire case is complete BS and an abuse of power. I'm guessing they thought he was some anarchist dude that was a legit threat, but once they started an investigation they found out he was just into guns. Then they realized they couldn't look bad for being wrong in front of their bosses so had to press charges with what they found. There are so many random laws on the books that if you put enough of a focus on ANYONE in the United States, you'd eventually find them doing something illegal that 'justified' the investigation and could put them in jail. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. However, at the end of the day, if I have to choose between having a silencer and an SBR, I'm going with the silencer 100%. Also, silencer rules super easy compared to the SBR legal spiderweb.

I can see where you're coming from, but when it gets to the courts, it really doesn't matter what you knew or didn't know. Ignorance of the law is not an acceptable defense. A firearms lawyer that is publicly proclaimed as an expert in firearms law that illegally owns an SBR should be held to the same punishment as joe bagofdoughnuts. That link didn't have enough info about if he was really subjected to extra prosecution because of the existing suppressor, but if he was, that is just another abuse of justice thrown into what already seems to be an abuse of the system in that case.

This 1000%. The biggest downside is that I'm now annoyed when I shoot guns that aren't threaded. Especially now being $200 cheaper, you can get an ok silencer for $500 and a good one for $1K. Your only regret is going to be that you didn't buy one earlier.

Case in point, I went TDY to my first ops squadron a little over 4 years after I left it. Other than a nametag on the wall in the bar, there was zero visible evidence I was ever there. And honestly, while slightly humbling, that's the way it should be. Even as a commander, if you are truly irreplaceable, then you've failed.

And at the same time, they wonder half the country isn't listening to them since they're the "experts". Zero humility, zero accountability when they're wrong. And in the last 6 years they don't even seem capable of admitting that they were wrong, instead they double down on what is clearly stupidity. There was a point that doctors thought smoking was just fine. They admitted they were wrong and fixed it. If that were today, you'd have those same doctors recommending to smoke 3 packs a day.

I'm rather surprised its that low. He's been in Congress a while (2019), so if he was really doing inside trading and Peolsi/Biden type stuff, I'd expect his net worth to be well north of $10M by now. Most guys can/should retire from the military with a net worth in the $1-3M range with zero outside help. Max out your and your wife's Roth IRA every year and put another 6-9% in the TSP and you have a good chance at just those three accounts putting you in that range at retirement, let alone years down the road. Obviously divorce or similar major life setbacks can crush that plan quickly.

The only real deterrent, and I doubt if it is legal, would be to hold the lawmakers in contempt of court and put them in jail for passing laws that any first year law student could tell will absolutely be struck down by the courts. Otherwise they pass a law they know will get struck down, but makes life miserable for gun owners until it does. Then once it gets struck, they change happy to glad and pass it again knowing full well what the result will be.

If he can demonstrate a pattern that singles him out then he has a solid case for reprisal. For example, it is perfectly legal to order cop Airman Snuffy to guard the gate on Friday and Saturday night. But if Snuffy can show that after he submitted a complaint, his schedule went from a normal rotation to every Friday and Saturday night every weekend when other guys still had a normal rotating schedule, that's reprisal even if an individual order outside the larger pattern is legal. The larger pattern of behavior that makes the individuals life worse after (and thus likely because of) a complaint is illegal. Just like if you saw some dude complain about a squadron commander filing a voucher that was fraudulent and suddenly that dude ends up sitting SOF four times a week and is sent to safety school when his wife is due. All of those taskings are legal if you look at them individually, but would obviously constitute a pattern of behavior that anyone could see was a result of his complaint. The government has an interest to not make people afraid to make a complaint, so protects against this type of pattern.

Do NOT do this. As much fun as it would be, this is textbook reprisal and would get you in actual trouble rather than just having to deal with BS complaints. Treat him no differently than you did before, other than document everything and obviously watch what you say. If there isn't a paper trail, it is your word against his and he is apparently willing to lie and play minority cards. And I mean document absolutely everything. If he shows up two minutes late, log it. Makes a single disparaging remark about someone, log it. If he walks into your office to ask when something is due, log it. However, and this is going to be the really painful part, you should start a similar documentation with everyone else, except the disciplinary part and maybe not needing quite the same level of detail. Otherwise if this ends up going sideways and you bring the documentation, the other side is going to logically ask to see the similar log you kept of your other employees. Otherwise they can claim you're only documenting him because he filed a complaint, which is also reprisal. When I started to have a problem with a guy that worked for me, I just kept a word document open on my computer. Anytime anyone that worked for me stopped in, I'd put it down. As simple as: "0945: Airman Snuffy asked due date for MFR - Friday". Depending on how often people stop buy or you go to their offices, shouldn't take too much of your day. Finally, if your boss doesn't have your back then you're probably SOL. I'd wait a week or so and ask for a sit down to talk about how much this guy is destroying the workplace. Even bring up the EO complaint as an integrity problem, which actually could be legitimately used against him if other people there will back you. If your boss still won't cover your back, then you're screwed.