GunByte

We have Black Bear where I live and I bought a .44 Mag to keep in the house just in case. A 300 gr. Keith type hard cast bullet will do the trick on any Black Bear skull. I no longer own a shotgun as there is no place to shoot one around here although they are building a brand new skeet and trap range next year. A handgun is much more handier for hikes in the National Park and in areas where you may encounter wild hogs. Then there is a gator problem. They have been protected so long that they are now a problem. The other day a lady's arm was bitten off. I have seen them walking across the street, in the local retention ponds, lakes, etc.. They vigorously prosecute people who kill them without a license. Black Bear have also been protected the same way but have become a bigger problem. What they did is downgrade the penalty for shooting one to a fine rather than the possibility of jail time and fine.

I am able to live anywhere due to my job and after a few years in NJ I upped and moved to Florida. Definately a more gun friendly State as you can tell by all the negative press lately. I have been carrying for almost two years now and can tell you my experience. Even though I feel a lot safer where I now live than where I used to live up there, I still carry every time I leave my house, even to walk a few blocks to pick up the mail. Two main reasons for this. The first is that my gun has become part of what I carry just like my wallet, keys and cell phone. If I leave it behind I feel the same way as if I left my wallet or cell phone behind. May not need them where I am going but still would feel better having them on me just in case. Best way to describe this is the feeling I would get when I realized that I forgot my wallet with my driver's license halfway to my destination. Although I had not been stopped by the police for 20 years I would worry about what if I was stopped this time. Same feeling if I leave my gun behind. As with seat belts and air bags, once you get used to the extra level of safety they provide, most would not want to buy a car without them. The other reason is to just get in the habit of carrying. I found that if I did not do it all the time it was easy to forget it or to just not bother when I was driving someplace local. Problem was that some of those local trips ended up in places where I wished I had my gun. You never know what will happen to change your plans for the day. Like the OP, I too believe that the more armed citizens we have the less crime there is. I carry, even though most times I do not have to, because to do otherwise goes against my belief. I do not think it fair to stop carrying and let others hassle with carrying a gun daily to support my beliefs.

I normally get 50% of new price for my trade ins unless they are hard to find and very popular guns. What you have to consider is that the shop is not going to give you a price close to what they can get the gun wholesale at. Just because you spent $600 on a gun does not mean that is what the store bought it for.

As someone who loves statistics I find fault with using different number of shootings for each caliber. Extreme example would be one shooting with .22lr resulting in immediate death versus 2 in .45 that allowed the person shot to run away. Both results happen in real life so I think we need a much larger number of cases studied before any conclusions can be made. I am one of those that believes most people being shot will cease the activity they are doing. The first time I saw a civilian shot was in front of an Italian social club. The guy, a big guy, was shot in the stomach with a .22. He immediately clutched his stomach and doubled over and had to be helped to the steps of a nearby church where he died. In Vietnam I saw guys shot with .45s and .223s keep coming after multiple hits. Yet I did not conclude that the .22 is a better stopper. In a defensive round you want adequate penetration to reach vital areas and as big a bullet as you can handle accurately at speed. Large bullets give you more surface area and therefore allow you more wiggle room in accuracy as where the .22 may just miss by a hair, the .45 will not. I watched an episode of COPS today where a guy reported someone shot him with a .22 and it bounced off him due to his thick clothes and size. He was asked if he was shot before and he said yes but only by a 9mm which did not have much of an effect on this 300 lb. guy. I think that this goes to show that you need to be prepared for the worse if you can. I carry a .45 when I can but most often carry a .380 or 9mm due to their small size and weight.

I moved out of NJ two years ago. My FID got lost in the shuffle. Was I supposed to notify the State? If I move back to NJ can they just issue me a new one even though I do not have the FID ID Number?

I think we start at the begining. We first restore the 1st Amendment so that I can yell "fire" in a crowded theater if I feel like it. Then we can move on to the 2nd Amendment rights because I really would like to own a small nuke just to keep my neighbors in line. Personally I just moved out of NJ which solved my problems as I think that any rights written about in the past will always have limitiations to deal with the current world we live in. If not we will be no better than those overseas who live by ancient laws and religions that we all abhor due to the way they treat women and their citizens. Our fight is not with the restoring our full rights but rather making sure that only reasonable restrictions are put on them to limit any harm that unrestricted rights would have. I am sure that no one wants a known criminal or certified mental patient to be able to buy guns and explosives at will. Right now each State is determining the gun rights for their residents and not the Federal Government so the fight is best aimed at the State level at this time. Obviously if enough citizens of NJ wanted better gun laws they would get them simply by making it known that only politicians in favor of more liberal gun laws will get their vote. That does not seem to be the case in NJ as the laws have gotten more restrictive since I moved with the one handgun a month law. In Florida politicians know that they will lose a lot of votes if they are anti gun. Even our new Governor is pro gun and has a concealed carry permit. The power of the vote in a democracy (well actually a Republic) is a good tool for change as it was here. To effect change all you have to do is to get the voters on your side. For some reason that does not happen in regards to gun laws in NJ and NY.

So was I which is why I moved. First things I did when I got to Florida was buy an Automatic knife and get my Concealed Carry Permit. I can now walk into any of 5 gun stores/Pawn Shops (almost every pawn shop here sells both new and used guns) within 20 minutes of my house, buy as many guns as I want with the largest capacity magazines made for them and walk out with them in 10 minutes. Form is name and address, some check boxes and your signature adn that is it. Biggest holdup is NICS check once in a while. I hardly remember life without carrying a gun with me whenever I leave my house. Hard to explain the feeling of safety/security when carrying a gun outside of your comfort zone.

Thanks. I am a former member of the Old Bridge Rifle and Pistol Club. We had to turn the A/C on today. Best part is that I live in a golf cart community and can get to almost anywhere in my golf cart. It is like driving in a really slow convertable with no doors.

You are correct due to the tilt of the earth's access. Just that I sleep until 10am so I do not realize the sun it rising later in the day during the Summer. Plus we have so much sunshine and clear skies that it just seems to be sunny all the time. I am one of those people affected by lack of sunlight and I just love opening my blinds every morning and seeing that sun.

Hello to all. Just wanted to let you know how nice it is to live in a State that allows you to carry concealed and makes it very easy to buy all the guns you want. 19 months ago I woke up and knew I had to get out of NJ. Between the restrictive gun laws and other negatives of NJ I wanted out and I wanted to move to a State with liberal gun laws. Since my wife and I both have relatives here in Florida and the houses and taxes are very cheap compared to NJ, we decided to come on down. I negotiated with my employer on terms to work from home anywhere I wanted to live which gave them more than enough to cover the onsite things I could no longer do but enough to more than cover my new much lower cost of living. Took 7 months but we did it and are very happy after 19 months living here. 84 degrees on Xmas eve. Let's talk guns. As soon as I got my driver's license here I applied for my concealed carry weapons permit (ccw). Filled out a form, supplied a picture and fingerprints and mailed it in and 13 days later I have my ccw good for 7 years. You can even go to one of the bigger cities and do it all at once in person. Very easy. Just a background check and proof that you either took a required course in Florida gun laws, showed that you knew how to operate and shoot any gun or provided you military discharge papers or other proof that you know how to shoot; even evidence of gun club membership or competition. I immediately bought 6 concealed handguns. No permit per gun needed. Just walk into any pawn shop or gun store and buy what you want. The form is very simple, one page to fill out and a signature and that is it. If you have a ccw you take home the guns immediately. Others usually must wait 3 days with exceptions. I can carry everywhere except for a list of places like schools, bars (resturants with bars are OK though), athletic events, Post Office, etc. Stores can post signs but they do not carry legal weight but if they ask you to leave you must or you can be charged with armed tresspassing. In practice, concealed is concealed so it is rare to be asked to leave for carrying a gun in a mall or store. However, we never carry at the prohibited places as there are serious consequences. As far as the fear of the State becoming the wild west, the opposite is true. There is a mandatory 3 year, without parole, sentance for brandishing your concealed weapon. The only time you can draw it is when you are in facing death or serious injury. Can't shoot anyone just for punching you in the nose. In practice those with ccw permits tend to avoid conflict because if you start a fight and then end it with a gun it will not be considered self defense since the other guy is the one defending himself against you. In some respects you are more limited as to your actions when you are armed. I went a little overboard and bought 23 handguns in the last 18 months trying to find the perfect carry gun. Living in NJ I only had full sized service guns and did not know how difficult it was to find the right gun and gun and holsters. I said holsters as we all end up with drawers full of holsters for different occassions and in pursuit of the perfect holster. Anyway I got it down to just 4 guns that I carry with 5 more for range fun and home defense. I mostly pocket carry a S&W J-Frame snubbie but also have a nice Kahr PM9 and 3" Colt 1911 that I carry when needed. Have two very small .380 guns, one of which weighs only 9 oz.. How do I describe how nice it is to be able to go out armed every day? Putting a gun in my pocket or on my belt now feels as natural as taking my wallet with me. At first I felt that everyone could tell I have a gun on me but in reality no one notices anything but themselves. Soon I stopped worrying about being noticed and anyway as long as the gun is covered you are good to go. Heck you can carry it in a paper bag if you want. This year they tried to pass an open carry law but it was not passed and instead we got two new laws. One does not make it a crime if your concealed gun is briefly and accidently exposed such as wind blowing open a shirt or bending over, etc.. No one was ever arrested for accidently exposing their guns in the pass but now there is a law to protect us. Still there is no case law as to what time period "briefly" is. The other and more significant law imposed fines against any non State employee who enforced gun laws different than the State's. Places like Miami and smaller places where the sheriffs reign as kings, had a tendancy to disregard State law and impose their own more restrictive ones. Now they have all fallen in line rather than risk a $50K personal fine. So I can travel from one end of Florida to the other and not have to worry about what places I can carry my gun. Also notice that I said I have a concealed weapons permit and not concealed gun permit. My ccw allows me to carry any weapon concealed, even a machete. It also covers knives although, as in NJ, knife laws are fuzzy and still subject to local interpretation. Anyone over 18 years old can carry a gun in their car without any permit as look as it is covered. In the glovebox is good or even in a shoe box on the seat next to you is legal, although a bad idea if you stop short as the gun will go flying away. I now can easily enjoy my gun hobby as we have indoor and outdoor ranges all over the place and some local farms host Steel and shotgun matches on weekends. It costs me $9 to shoot at my local indoor range so I go almost every week. As far as gun clubs go, there are many, but very few as good as the ones in NJ which was very surprising. The local gun club near me has no rifle or indoor pistol range for instance. Shooting outdoors in the warmer months is brutal so I stick to the indoor range and even then I avoid it in the summer since it is not air conditioned. Lately, Gander Mountain, a large chain store like Dicks, has opened a few state of the art indoor ranges that are great but very pricey; at least for down here. That is about it. After living in a State with liberal gun laws I cannot imagine ever moving back to NJ or NY. I do not know if I could get used to walking about without a gun on me anymore. It really feels good, especially as you get older and cannot physically defend yourself any more, to know that you are not a helpless victim. With reciprical privileges I can go just about anywhere with my concealed gun, except back home to NJ. I had to discover all the wonderful small guns available on the market as they were impractical to own in NJ for home defense, competition or range fun. These are guns made to be easily carried for long times but shot little other than practicing to make sure you can shoot it accurately in a self defense situation. I made the mistake of buying some big guns because they were not problem to carry around the house for an hour or two. However, carrying them as you go about your daily routine made then a literal pain to carry. Now I carry mostly 15 oz. on a daily basis and if going outside of my comfort zone, 25 oz. of .45 acp goodness. No snow, no state and city income taxes, affordable homes and utilities and an extra hour of daylight. Bet most of you did not know we get extra daylight because we are closer to the equator. Sure summers are hot and humid but we are only outside at the pool or to walk from one air conditioned place/car to another so it is no bother. It seems that the kids here are used to it and don't even break a sweat. Even I got used to it after the first year and now am cold if the temperature drops below 76. Hopefully I have conveyed what it is like to live in a less restrictive gun State and what it is like to be able to carry a concealed weapon like most people can do in most other States.