mcbethr

I like the idea of this, and I've considered it as a range toy, but I just can't get past the mental block of putting my hand close to the barrel to reload. I wish they could make the. 22 version with the same loading port that the centerfire versions have, but there may be technical reasons why they can't do this. Does it feel strange to you to point the rifle up and have your hand close to the muzzle when you reload, or am I just being unreasonably cautious?

What if we sent out questionares to all of the candidates like the NRA does? Maybe this could be an NJ2AS function or even an NJGF function. I doubt that politicians would spend the time to send back a questionare, but they may do an online poll if it was setup securely and had specific codes for each candidate.

I heard that the M&P 9 comes with 16 round magazines. Were yours pinned to 15? Stock 15 from S&W or 10 rounders?

My bad. I said I was going to give an update and I never did. the Mt. Laurel store didn't have them. Nor did the Burlington store. So I can only assume that Dicks decided to stop selling them. Maybe they are being replaced with a newer model, or maybe they weren't profitable? I looked on the Keystone Arms website and didn't see any new models.

You know, I've often thought that if people only donated the cost of one box of ammo every time they went to the range, we would have been to $15K by now. In other words, if you buy one less box and donate that money, you may keep the right to buy that ammunition later. Well, I suppose I should put my money where my mouth is. I went skeet shooting last weekend. A box of Remington gun club load is about $7.00 at Dicks when its not on sale. The donation has been sent. Next time I go to the range, I'll send you guys another box of ammunition. If we all did the same, we would be there in no time.

One additional option for you may be the Kel Tek Sub 2000, which will accept Glock magazines. Since you already own a Glock in 40 cal, this could work out well for you. You should be able to find them for about $300-$350 or so. I own a CX4 Storm in 9mm. You simply can't purchase a better 9mm carbine. I plan to shoot at Ft. Dix this weekend (or if it is raining at an indoor range in Philadelphia). PM me if you want to meet up and give the Storm a try.

I would disagree, although it may depend on the size of the compact. The Glock 19 is probably one of the most popular handguns in the country and a good choice for a beginner. It's considered a compact. But would I suggest the Glock 26 as a first gun? Absolutely not, so I agree with you there.

My son already has one, else I would snatch it up, buy one of the adult stocks from Keystone arms, and throw it on the rifle. I suppose I could rationalize purchasing two, but I just bought another shotgun that I didn't need just a few weeks ago and I need to keep the peace at home. I will tell you this: that Keystone Arms rifle is probably the best darn rifle I own.

I was at the Princeton Dicks buying ammo today when I noticed that the Black and Pink .22 Keystone Arms Cricket rifles were on Clearance and reduced down to $79. If I wasn't on my lunch hour, I would have bought one just to throw an adult stock on it. The store manager didn't know if it was only his store, a regional clearance, or what. EDIT: I went to the Mt. Laurel Store today. They had no Crickets, but they were also in the middle of remodeling. I was told that when the remodeling was over, they would be able to display over 100 firearms in that location. I wasn't able to get to the Cherry Hill store. Will try to hit that store tomorrow, and I'll try to stop by Burlington.

I've been thinking about selling my CX4 to finance yet another shotgun, and I spoke about this with my 7 year old a few days ago after I got back from the skeet range. My son excaimed: "Daddy don't sell it, it's the only gun mommy can use!" He's right, darn it!

Ok, just for kicks, let's think of a "back of the envelope" scenario. Now we have to figure a couple of things in here: New Jersey is fundamentally different than Louisiana when it comes to firearm ownership. If you look at the Washington Post, New Jersey has about 12% firearm ownership. Louisiana has about 44% firearm ownership. My source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/health/interactives/guns/ownership.html I'm going to totally reject the whole "Zombies/Pandemic/Socialist Dictatorship" as either #1. Far fetched or #2. so calamitous that there is basically nothing we can do about it. I'm also going to reject the "boiling frog" scenario where our rights are lost slowly, until we are limited to O/U shotguns and bolt-action .22's much like England is today. I don't see that as much of a possibility after Heller and McDonald. So that leaves us with the "Hurricane" Scenario. So consider this the wargamed scenario from the expert tactical mind of a mildly overweight middle-aged Jewish systems analyst. Hey, I never said I was General Robert E. Lee. So let's say a monster hurricane hits the Mid-Atlantic. New York, Jersey Shore, Delaware and Maryland are hit. Then, by an unlikely set of circumstances, Oyster Creek Generating Station in Forked River, suffers a pump failure, and the workers there cannot cool the reactor. This leads to a fire and explosion in the reactor building. Radioactive isotopes are getting thrown into the air, just like they were at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant in Japan. The NJ State government decides to evacuate a 25 mile radius around the plant. In order to prevent crime and looting in the exclusion zone, residents in the zone are instructed to surrender their weapons when police come to their home as a condition of evacuation. Armed residents may stay in their home, but they may not evacuate with their firearms, they will not be allowed to enter a Red Cross Shelter with firearms, and they will not receive any rescue or police services after the initial request to evacuate. If you stay behind with your guns, you are on your own. This effects almost all of the 576,567 residents of Ocean County and a number of residents in Burlington County. This also effects the largest cities in the area, Toms River (94,660 inhabitance), Brick (76,119 inhabitance) Lakewood (60,352 inhabitants). We have 2,768 state troopers. I don't have figures on the police departments of Toms River, Brick, and Lakewood, but I know for a fact that Camden has 460 officers for a town of 77,344 inhabitance. We can also assume that these Ocean County cities have less crime and hence fewer officers, so I'd assume that these towns probably have a more Cherry Hill like structure of 120 officers per town for a total of 360 officers in those large towns. Add in the small towns like Waretown or Surf City, and I think we can assume that we have about 500 local law enforcement. Now let's cut the troopers by 1/3rd since troopers still have to police the rest of the state, but the majority will be sent to the Ocean County Evacuation Zone. This leaves us with 1826 Troopers. Lets also assume that our state's law enforcement officers are honest (since for the most part, they are). Our police officers are compensated well unlike NOLA police officers, so we probably won't see the 80% desertion rate like we saw from the NOLA police after Katrina. But there may be some officers that just can't work because they have been injured in the hurricane, they really are dishonest or thinking only of themselves, or they simply can't get to work. So let's cut the police by 90%. This leaves us with: 1644 Troopers. 450 local law enforcement. Now let's look at the New Jersey National Guard. This is a force of roughly 9000 soldiers. Let's do the same thing that we did to the police and cut them by 90% because some might still be digging out or chose not to show up. Now we have 8100 soldiers. I know that the Army devotes a couple of support soldiers for every fighting soldier and they call this "the tooth to tail" ratio. A quick Google search reveals ratios of 1-1,1-4, 1-7 and 1-10 for the tooth to tail. So let's average it out and say that the National Guard tooth-to-tail ratio is 1-6. This means that for every 1 soldier paroling the streets, there will be 6 others feeding him, clothing him, and repairing his vehicles. Now, effectively, we are down to 1377 National Guardsman patrolling the streets. This leaves us with 1644 Troopers. 450 local law enforcement. 1377 National Guard. For a total of 3471 Law Enforcement. Let's split this into two shifts of 12 hour days. So at any given time, 1735 law enforcement officers are at work evacuating people in Ocean County. I estimate that it would take me about 5 minutes to knock on a door, speak to the homeowner, inform the homeowner of the evacuation, and move on to the next home. Let's divide the inhabitance by 3 to account for families, children and roomates. So I think we can assume that there are 192189 dwellings in Ocean County. It would take 16915 man hours to speak to everybody in each dwelling and notify them of the evacuation. So if we devote every single one of the day shift's 1735 officers, it will take us about 9.2 hours to notify everybody in Ocean County. Now this means that nobody is controlling traffic or protecting evacuation centers. Law enforcement is just going door to door notifying of the evacuation and letting people know that they must turn in their weapons if they want to leave. The Ocean County area is somewhat more rural and conservative than other parts of the state, so we can assume that there may be more than 12% gun ownership. So let's bump ownership up to 15%. Now of the 192189 dwellings, 28,828 of them have guns that need to be confiscated. I know that it takes me about 15 minutes for me to crack the safe and get everything boxed up for a range trip. It will probably take at least 15 minutes for the police to record each serial number for evidence and confiscation. So let's assume that it takes 30 minutes to confiscate every gun in a home. So now we need to add (28828*30)/60 or 14414 man hours to 16915 for a total of 31,329 man hours or 18 hours. And this is assuming that every single one of the police officers on duty is devoted to going from house to house confiscating weapons. Like I said, this is a back of the envelope calculation. I just don't see how the state could devote the resources to disarming a population when it effectively doubles the evacuation time. If we scale back the law enforcement presence (because you will have police / National Guard at checkpoints and at evacuation centers), you will see that evacuation time increases dramatically. Mathematically, it just doesn't make sense to confiscate anybody's weapons. I don't think that the state would ever have the time or the inclination to do this. EDIT: I just realized that the police or National Guard would operate in at least teams of 2 possibly 3 or 4. Or they would mate 1 policeman with 3 National Guardsman since that is how many can fit in a vehicle. This would bring the best case evacuation/confiscation time to 72 hours or 3 24 hour days. That is a long time when you are trying to get people out of a dangerous area. I just think that the cognitive leap to confiscate firearms wouldn't be there. I could definitely see people being searched before they entered a shelter as a condition for entry (and the Red Cross would probably be confiscating kitchen knives and multi-tools as well). I could see people being asked to surrender their arms before they get into a Coast Guard boat. But I don't see time-consuming roadblocks being set up to confiscate weapons during evacuation. I simply don't think that there is enough gun culture in this state to make the possession of weapons a concern.

I don't think that this is much of a concern. NJ Policeman: "KNOCK KNOCK. Good morning, Citizen. We are violating the Forth Amendment by going door to door confiscating guns due to the state of emergency. Do you have any guns in the house?" NJ Citizen: "What on earth would I have a gun for? Do I look like some kind of mouth-breathing Birther from Arkansas? I want your badge number, how dare you imply that I am some kind of gun nut?" Yeah, I don't think we have too much to worry about. They'd probably give up after the third house.

The Beretta 92FS / M9 has a conversion kit available. I have one myself with the kit and IMHO it is the finest combat pistol ever made. If you live near Philadelphia, I usually go to Firing Line on Front street every Wednesday or Thursday. I'd be happy to meet you there and you can fire my 92. PM me if you are interested. All that being said, handgun ownership in New Jersey is fundamentally different here than any other place because of the permitting process. In other states, if a person buys a gun they don't like, they can trade it for something else. Here, if you buy something, you better like it because you will be stuck with it for at least 30 days. So I would consider purchasing the S&W M&P if you really like it. I'd rather have a handgun I love that I shoot less than a handgun I only like that I shoot more.

Your biggest cost will not be the gun, it will be the ammunition. 9mm costs about $0.16 to $0.22 per round. .45 costs between $0.25 and $0.50 per round. If you plan to go to the range once every couple of months, or you want a special present, get the .45. If you think you may go to the range once a month or more, get the 9mm. I personally like the Springfield XD Sub Compact. You can't go wrong with that choice. Now here's my alternate suggestion: for a first gun, you may want to take a look at the Beretta 92FS/M9, a Sig P226 or a Glock 19. Why? because they all have .22 conversion kits available for them. Get the kit, and you can shoot the same gun for $0.03 per round. There have been rumors of a Springfield XD conversion kit coming out some time soon, so it's still possible that you may be able to do this with an XD in the near future.

I can't blame you. It's a plausible possibility. That department can only cater to 12% of the New Jersey demographic. That isn't necessarily the best business model. But if it wasn't profitable, they wouldn't be doing it. Funny thing is that I've met people who had no idea the Lodge even sold guns.

This was a bit of a concern for me... so I emailed them and asked. This was the response I got: ************************************************************** Thank you for contacting DICK'S Sporting Goods. It is always our goal to ensure our customer’s satisfaction by offering quality brand products, store services and the best customer care to all of our valued customers. We appreciate your inquiry. As of now there are no plans to remove firearms from the state of NJ. We apologize for any mis-guidance you may have received. Your feedback provides us with the opportunity to review our customer's concerns so that any necessary improvements can be made for the future ensuring that our customers have a great experience when they enter our stores. We truly appreciate your time and we value your patronage. Thank you and best regards, Daryl Customer Service Representative **************************************************************

I rented an LCR a few weeks ago and put 50 rounds through it. I noticed a couple of things. I never really understood what a "gritty" trigger was until I shot the LCR. Now I understand. Pulling the trigger felt like I was dragging a piece of chalk across pitted sandpaper. The recoil was punishing to my hands and I couldn't hit a darn thing with the gun, and this was me firing slowly while relaxed at 5 yards. Now all that being said, I think the trigger isn't that much of an issue. I have a feeling that the LCR is designed to be deployed in one way: concealed carry. And it's designed to be shot in one way: all 5 rounds at the threat that has suddenly appeared. I don't think you'll care about the trigger when you are just pulling it as fast as possible to counter the presented threat. If you need a gun for concealed carry - where mere presentation can deescalate a threat, then this may be the gun for you. But if you want something for range shooting or target practice, there are plenty of better guns out there.

I don't understand why people like you even need to keep a ball of yarn in teh house. Just having a darning needle in teh house increases your risk of getting scratched or punctured with one of those things. Just imagine if a child got a hold of one of those needles and brought it to school and accidentally stabbed somebody with it? Or what if he got a hold of some yarn and and managed to strangle himself? You people scare me. I see no reason why you need to have any of that stuff in your home. This is New Jersey, not some town out in teh middle of nowhere in Iowa. If you really need a sweater that badly, teh nearest store is probably just 10 minutes away. This is a gun forum, please keep your paranoid knitting delusions to yourself.

Well, it's *one* way to see change here. Consider lawsuits to be a "top down" strategy. Consider FIDs to be a "bottom up" strategy. I posted a message a few days ago about a woman from Voorhees who was going to pick up her FID application on Monday. She did it, now its off to MorphoTrack. I have another friend of mine, a guy who wants to take up skeet, who is going to file his Cherry Hill paperwork on Friday. I have a third person I'm taking to a handgun range in Philadelphia this Thursday. Every trip to the range that does not involve taking a first time shooter, or a person who may be interesting in getting an FID, is a wasted trip. The real trick will be to use the system against the system. With FIDs come firearm ownership. With firearm ownership comes a vested interest in maintaining ownership. People will vote, get angry, and make signs if they think they are about to lose something valuable. We need to grow the pool of ownership from 12% to 20%, and then legislators will start to listen. And this will happen one card at a time.

I actually just spoke with her minutes ago. She's a native Russian Speaker (but a US Citizen), so I think that she may have messed up some words when she called me the first time. And I was at work. The people here know I shoot skeet, but work really isn't the time or the place for some subjects, you know? Here is the story: It seems like the person who normally does permits wasn't at the police station. But my friend is off work Monday, so it's not that big of a deal. I think this "Interview" might be more like Maksim says than a "What do you need a gun for?" So I'll keep everybody posted. But if anybody had success before with Voorhees, please let me know.

A friend of mine finally decided to apply for her FID so she could get her own .22 target pistol instead of coming with me. She went to the Voorhees police station today and asked for her paperwork, but they told her to come back between 8:00 and 4:00 on Monday for an interview and to set up an appointment for fingerprinting. I've never heard of an in-person interview before. Is this common? How is Voorhees when it comes to getting back permits on time?

It may be the store. 99% of the time when go to Dicks, I buy a case of 12 gauge #8 gun club. I don't think that I've ever been asked to show my FID for that. But I usually buy in Princeton and they know me there. This may not be a matter of store policy, just one of some employees not knowing the law, or wanting to cover themselves. Maybe different stores have different policies at the request of police chiefs? I actually wrote Dicks a thank you letter a few years ago. I thanked them for continuing to sell firearms and ammunition when all of the other big chain stores have pulled out. Yes, you can order online, but unless you are ordering in bulk, it's just not worth it. Dicks prices helps keep the ammunition prices of the gun shops down. So in the end, they are worth it.

I'd imagine it's there for people who are applying for weapons or cards that are job related. If you work for Wackenhut or Pinkerton or Brinks and you need to get an FID card because you are going to work for them as an armorer, or a guard, it negates the need for a separate form. I don't think my employer has ever been contacted. It may just be a box that is left over from the time when armed night watchmen / security was more common.

I'm going to drop my $0.02 in here so you don't make the same mistake I did. The real cost of the sport is not the gun, it's the ammunition. You mentioned that you want a revolver for strictly recreation purposes so I would suggest looking at a good .22 Caliber revolver. The reason? Cost. I think over the past four years I've been shooting 9mm handgun, I've spent about $4500 on handgun ammo alone. Since I got a .22 LR adapter for my pistol, my ammo costs have gone from $15 a box to $4. My handgun is strictly for recreation, so I just should have gotten a .22LR handgun in the first place. There are plenty of good .22 LR revolvers out there. Put in for two permits. If you like shooting for recreation, but then get an itch for a home defense revolver, you can go buy yourself the same type revolver in .38 Caliber with your second permit. Practice your form with the .22 and practice defense with the .38. If you are set on a .38 caliber pistol, that round will do perfectly well for home defense needs, but I would look into a .357 revolver. There is a simple reason behind this: If you ever need it, It's there. I remember what the store shelves were like back in late 2009, when you could barely find anything. So I'd rather have double the options for ammunition, than half. One final note, if you want the maximum number of options, look into the Ruger Blackhawk .38/.357 convertible revolver. This revolver comes with two cylinders so that you can shoot .38/.357 in one and 9mm in the other. Now you've tripled your options. Best of luck.

Makes you think. I got mad when A3807 was introduced. I remember I was in the car getting ready to leave work when I got that email from the NRA. I don't want my property confiscated. I haven't done anything wrong. I never intend to shoot anything but paper - ever. And I sat there reading the NRA news on my Blackberry and I said to my self: "somebody should do something." And when I got home, I looked to my left and my right and I got this sickening feeling that the somebody was me. I've learned a lot about politics and state government in the past few weeks. I've also learned a lot about my assemblyman. When you were a child, were you ever shocked to bump into your grade school teacher in the supermarket - like you couldn't understand that they had a life outside of school? Well, I think that we collectively believe Assemblymen act the same way - that they are not living, breathing people who have lives and existences outside of the bills they introduce. I think that we forget that they have access to the phone and social media too. Heck, they probably have their own internet forums. I don't tend to think that Assemblyman Greenwald is some Snidely Whiplash character, twirling his mustache and flourishing his cape, rubbing his hands together with glee at the prospect of disarming citizens. But I do think that this is calculated, and maybe even coordinated and I'll explain why. I think that the Democratic party knows that they can't keep the House if they introduce another assault weapons ban. So the logical choice would be to slowly try to introduce bills in friendly states. If they can get one or two eastern states to pass new magazine restrictions, they could use those states as examples and say: "Well, those other states are doing it." So this makes me wonder if a bunch of state legislators got together and came up with a plan to throw a bunch of ideas at the wall and see what stuck. New Jersey is naturally sticky when it comes to firearms laws. Connecticut... maybe less so. We'll see if these bills start popping up.