mcbethr

I'm more of a shotgun guy too. I'm not a big fan of polymer pistols, but you may want to consider one critical feature. You are used to shooting revolvers, you may want to consider the Glock, XD or basically any other kind of striker fired pistol, and there is a very simple reason why. You are used to the "point and shoot" ergonomics of a revolver, the fine motor skill of flicking off a safety may seem very strange to you. The Glock and XD have no external safety for you to "forget" about if G-d forbid you ever have to use it. There are probably plenty of Glock and XD Fans on this board who will be more than happy to let you try theirs out to see what feels best in your hand. I see that you are in New Egypt. Lots of people here shoot at Ft. Dix and would be happy to meet up. Lasermax makes "guide rod" lasers for handguns, which will replace your slide's guide rod and ride inside the spring. It's an aftermarket part. I've seen integrated factory-installed lasers before on handgrips from Crimson Trace, but they usually seem to be on Berettas, Sigs and 1911's. If you get a later Generation Glock or Current XD, you have a rail mount underneath the lower receiver where you can add an light/laser on a rail. I would consider a rail mounted flashlight to be more important than the laser for home defense needs. But if you are set on it, you can get both in one package. Caliber has been discussed over and over again. If I just wanted a semi-auto for home defense that I was never going to carry anywhere and only shoot once a year, I would go with the .45. You can get 13 rounds with the modern polymer pistols. The limit in New Jersey is 15. Barrel length? I don't have an opinion on that. You can't concealed carry in New Jersey anyway, so there is no reason to pay a premium for a sub-compact. I would buy a full-sized or compact, whatever fits in your hand. With kids around, you have to get a safe. Depending on where you live, you may not need one of those $200 biometric safes. You can get a simple bedside or keyed or combo safe for about $30. I have one and I use it for transporting a handgun to the range when I shoot in Philadelphia and don't want to drag my shotgun case there. http://www.amazon.com/Secure-Handgun-Storage-Safe-Key/dp/B000HBB15U This works well for transport. If I ever chose to use my handgun for home defense, I would have confidence that this would deter my kids, although it won't stop a determined thief. Best of luck.

Ok, hold on everybody. Deep breath. Let's get our ducks in a row here first. #1. We haven't even seen the text of the law. #2. We don't know if this law will ever get out of committee. #3. We have a Republican governor who will draw the ire of the RNC if he even thinks of signing this into law. #4. This is an election year. I think that this issue would be plutonium for some politicians, even Democrats. #5. NJ has a population of about 8.7 million. Of that roughly 6.7 million are adults. If we estimate 12% gun ownership, this means that we have roughly 804,000 gun owners. This is larger than the standing armies of Britain, France, German, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Austria and Italy COMBINED! That, my friends, is a lot of letters, and a lot of votes. I would also concentrate on the fact that a law like this could potentially turn 804,000 gun owners into instant felons, especially those that own a Henry lever-action rifle. I would also propose a change in language. Call the 15 round magazines "Factory Standard Magazines." Call the 10 round magazines "Legislatively Reduced Capacity Magazines." We have to play Realpolitik on this one. Be polite. Be respectful and let's see where this goes.

I applied for 2 permits back in May of last year. The women behind the counter didn't bat an eye. Of course, I came from work and was wearing a nice suit. Or maybe they just treat balding, middle aged, overweight Jewish men differently? ("It's ok boys, he's from the EAST side! It's just going to sit in a safe.") Cherry Hill was fantastic - they got my permits back too fast. I was interested in a Beretta PX4 Compact, and they got the permits back so fast that the permits expired before the PX4 Compact came out! When I extended my permits, they even let my wife pick them up. I have nothing but good things to say about Cherry Hill. I ended up buying nothing. This was fine with me, since I'm more interested in clays and the PX4 would have just sat in the safe looking mechanically interesting. But maybe some kind of sea change happened when Agent DiChurchio left? Maybe it's time for me to apply for a permit that I don't intend to use, just to see the process myself? -Bether

I normally shoot at Ft. Dix, but the weather has been much too cold, so I started shopping around for a winter range. Hagues was much too expensive, everything else was too far out of the way. I stumbled upon Firing Line in Philadelphia a few weeks ago and I finally got a chance to shoot there today. I was very impressed. Membership is only $100 per year. When you go there, you occupy a lane and you can shoot for as long as you want. Guests are $10 each, and so are gun rentals. Best of all, the range is considered a private club, so don't be surprised if you see some members and staff lounging and smoking cigars (a nice surprise for a cigar smoker like me). You do have to buy their ammunition, which is Ruger UMC. A box of 9mm is $18.00. A box of .38 is $19.00. A box of .22 is $3.00. This is a little expensive for ammo, but pick your poison. At Hague's membership price of $350 a year (minus the Firring line $100 membership), I would have to buy 13 boxes of ammunition to equal a Hagues membership, and best of all I'm not driving for 45 minutes to freeze in the cold at Ft. Dix. The store has off street parking and all of the snow was plowed when I went there. The range is normally open until 9:30, which is great if you want to go there after work or once the kids are in bed. The staff was very easy going and friendly and there are about 10 lanes, only one of which was occupied when I went. The range is pistol-caliber only, although you can shoot pistol caliber carbines like the CX4. I rented a GP100 and fired a few boxes of .38. The GP100 was dirty and some of the cylinders were sticky when ejecting, but that is to be expected for a rental. I didn't check out any of their other range guns, although they rent the Beretta Cougar and CX4 This was a very positive experience and worth the money. Check it out if you are in the Philadelphia area and are sick of driving to Fort Dix.

You pose a very interesting question. I don't foresee something like this happening anytime soon. For this to happen, we would need the population of 38 states to agree to modify the 2nd Amendment. About 230,000,000 people would suddenly have to agree that they didn't need their guns anymore. I can tell you that from personal experience, many people in New Jersey are not exactly anti-gun, they are just ambivalent about them. My wife is one of those people. She doesn't like guns, but she doesn't mind the fact that they exist and that people can purchase them with restrictions. Would citizens in our state vote to repeal the second amendment? I don't know. I think that even people who don't own guns would prefer to be able to buy one if they thought it was needed. I point to the Los Angeles riots, where many non-owners flocked to gun stores during that crisis, only to be told that they had to wait 10 days before taking delivery. If something like that ever happened in New Jersey and all of those wealthy middle aged men who were ambivalent about guns suddenly had their rights denied, those FID laws would be repealed very quickly. I know there is precedent for citizens willingly disarming. This happened in England back in 1997, where citizens who could afford it sent their handguns to clubs in France. Other citizens dutifully turned in their handguns to be destroyed. But England is somewhat different. There is more respect for authority and willingness to submit to the government there. Years ago, there was a TV show called "The Weakest Link," where a strict British woman berated contestants about their stupidity when the contestants answered trivia questions incorrectly. The show was a hit in England, but it failed here. I'd imagine that it failed because the average American does not easily cow to authority. I suppose I could live with the satisfaction of saying that I wouldn't need to turn in my guns because I don't own any of the guns that people seem intent on banning. Skeet shooters would probably be the last people effected by any sort of ban since our guns tend to be of obvious sporting intent. People have seen skeet played in the Olympics and on cruise ships. But I always take the side of the pistol shooters, CCW guys and black rifle fans because I've never forgot that Martin Niemoller poem: "First they came for the Jews..." By the time they come for the skeet shooters, nobody will be left to speak out for me. But I haven't answered your question, have I? I think that if our country ever got to that point, there would be an insurrection. It's hard to imagine me dutifully turning in my Berettas at a police station. Of course, it is equally hard to imagine a balding, middle-aged man storming the barricades with an Over/Under in one hand and a Molotov in the other. Both extremes are unlikely and both extremes are very frighting. Back when Germany marched into Austria, it was all perfectly legal. Gun restrictions for Jews and gun registration in general was also perfectly legal. Turning your Jewish neighbors into the police was perfectly legal as well. But my wife is alive today because Christians in Austria helped spirit her grandmother out of the country, in violation of the law. I suppose there are times when you know in your heart that a law is wrong. The real question is whether I would have the courage to do the right thing, whatever that right thing may be. And I honestly don't know. But we have to make sure that it never comes to that.

I thought about this for a while. Fact is... we live in a nation of laws. If we don't respect the law, we have anarchy. For one reason or another, the people of our state have decided that concealed carry is not a priority. You may think it is wrong, it is silly or it is dangerous, but the fact is that it is still the law. We are free to petition for redress, speak out against the law, elect new assemblymen to change the law, or move to a place that is more gun-friendly. There are people who know that I shoot skeet. I don't hide it, and I invite friends and neighbors to come with me whenever I can. Some don't like the fact that I own shotguns. Some don't approve of it. One woman will not let her child play with my son at my house, even though everything is locked up in a safe. But these people don't harass me about it. I've never come out to my car to see the words: "Orange Clay Killer" scratched in the door. My anti-gun neighbors may not like the laws that let me own guns, but they have never done anything illegal to prevent me from exercising my rights. If my anti-gun neighbors abide by the laws that let us keep arms, we gun owners must abide by the laws that allow us to bear them. Not doing so violates the principles that we hold dear as Americans. We resolve our differences with votes, not anarchy. I have no desire to carry a gun anywhere, but I do believe that it is our right to do it and I would support any responsible citizen that makes that choice. But if we violate the law, we are no better than the criminals. -Bether

I'm kind of scratching my head on this one as well. I can understand letters of reference, but once you take that form to a notary, aren't you increasing the pool of people who will know that a gun will be at that residence? What is to stop someone from making a photocopy of the form ("for internal records - we have to do this") and then using that information to steal said gun in a few months? I'm all for background checks - I understand why they are necessary. I can kind of even understand spousal notification as well, although that could hurt a woman who was purchasing a gun for defense against an abusive husband that she intends to divorce. But can you really trust that clerk at the UPS store who is notarizing your document? How well are *those* people background checked? It sounds like Cherry Hill is setting itself up for a lawsuit. I live here and I'd rather the town hire a new teacher than pay a defense lawyer. -Bether

Let us know how it turns out. I've never been that interested in handgun sports but I would spend the $18 + $2 for a permit and simply let it expire just to get them to follow the law. Kind of a shame we have to do that...

You *may* be able to look at a Beretta Neos pistol and then order the Carbine Conversion kit... but I think then you would have an SBR and I don't know its legality in this state. If you are not wed to a magazine fed weapon, I can give you one option. I don't know how old these beginners are, but my son is 7 years old. He has a single-shot, bolt action .22LR Cricket from Keystone Arms. You can get one for $109 at Dicks sporting goods with $10 off right now since their rifles are on sale. I will admit that this little .22 Cricket is the most fun gun I own. There is something about manually working the bolt action on a rifle and dropping an individual cartridge inside... it's not shooting, it's riflery. You get down to the fundamentals knowing that there is no quick follow-up second shot if you miss. I'd follow that up with a Ruger Bearcat revolver that shoots .22LR. It's single action and has little in the way of recoil. It's a little more expensive than the NEOS, but you won't have any magazines to worry about, and it is light enough for you to use as a teaching tool for a younger student.

I suppose I should have been more specific. When I think of South Jersey, I think of my friends and neighbors in Cherry Hill and Voorhees. Very Liberal. Very Jewish. Granted I'm a liberal and a Jew as well, but I caught the Skeet bug a number of years ago and I never looked back. But when I think of South Jersey, my little part of the world comes to mind. And of course a town full of hunters like Audubon, Berlin or Atco would be a lot different than Cherry Hill, but it would still be considered South Jersey. My bad. I recall hearing that during the LA Riots, people flocked to gun stores in California to buy a weapon to protect their home - only to find out that they had to wait 10 days. And why did they have to wait 10 days? Because they voted for those laws themselves. If you ever find yourself thinking "boy, I really wish I had a shotgun right now" it too late to get that shotgun. But I could imagine my neighbors driving to Dicks over the objections of their wives to buy a shotgun, only to get a harsh lesson in reality when the employee can't even take it off the shelf for them.

I think this is a non-issue. If it were that bad of an emergency, you wouldn't have to issue an executive order to close gun shops. NJ NICS would be closed for one reason or another, making firearms transactions impossible by default and resulting in a stoppage of transactions for bureaucratic reasons. I also think that the purpose of these "State of Emergency" laws is to prevent mass waves of panicked people from running off to the gun store and buying their first gun just because something Very Bad happened on the news and they suddenly want protection. The merits of this policy can be argued, but that's not the point of this response. Unlike other states, in NJ you have to have a Firearms ID card to purchase weapons or ammunition. I would imagine that most FID holders already own a gun, which was probably purchased the very day they got their permit. There may be some FID holders who have sold all of their guns for financial reasons, but I'd say that for all practical purposes, every FID holder probably owns at least one gun. That being said, I think that the odds of FID holders running out and purchasing weapons in an emergency is very low because they will already be at home with their gun and darned if they are going to leave. In New Jersey, the average person cannot suddenly decide that they want a gun and go get one the very same day unless they have an FID. So closing gun stores would do little or nothing because FID holders won't go out to buy them and non-FID holders probably don't even know where to go to buy a gun, and wouldn't be allowed to buy one anyway if they did. I'd imagine that closing gun stores is far down the priority list for anybody in state government since access is limited anyway. It would be interesting to be working at a gunshop in South Jersey if some sort of emergency happened and all of the wealthy middle-aged men who have something to lose suddenly converge at Dicks to buy a gun to protect their homes. When they are told that they can't buy a gun with out an FID, background check, and 30 day wait... well I'd imagine that Noah probably saw the same kind of looks as he closed up the Arc.

It is grim. I did consulting for a commodities trading company (we traded coffee) and I still keep my ear to the ground in the commodities trading market. I think that we are going to be in a lot of trouble in the next couple of months with hyperinflation. I've mentioned this to a few close friends and family. Some of them agree with me, some of them don't. But let's do an exercise: Let's say that I run the tiny country of Betherland. Betherland has a dollar based economy and currently has $10 in circulation within its population. I decide to print money, which is an option (almost) all governments have. So I print an extra $10 and I release it into the population. Now there is $20 in circulation. I've effectively halved the value of my country's money. If you had $1, technically, your $1.00 is only worth $0.50 now. Betherland imports coffee from other countries. Coffee costs $1.00 a pound. When the coffee traders realize that their money will be worth less tomorrow than it is today, they will buy coffee on the world market. Demand will spike. Prices start to creep up in Betherland. Here is how hyperinflation happens: you can't print more coffee. You can't print more wheat. You can't print more soybeans. So if a dollar will be worth less tomorrow than it is today, you buy that commodity. There are plenty of banks that are holding onto US Treasury securities. This is the "debt" that you always hear about on the news. Our government just committed to buying back $600 billion in treasuries with ... printed money. So let's say that you are big bank that holds a lot of US Treasuries. Suddenly, the US offers to give you cold, hard (printed) cash for those treasuries. What are you going to do with the money if it may be worth less tomorrow? You buy commodities. I think that we are going to see inflation creep up in the winter months as the banks do this, but the funny thing is that no new jobs will be created. The government will point to that and say: "Look! A recovery! It must be, we see inflation!" But then prices will go higher. And higher. You might see shortages on the supermarket shelf as people buy with the cash they have before the price goes up tomorrow. I don't think that you will see food lines, ration cards, riots, or police and National Guard at grocery stores. But I think we are in for a heavy dose of reality. I think it's possible that families who were on the edge before hyperinflation may see themselves skiping a meal or two so their children can eat. I think it's possible that you'll see prices on eBay and Craigslist fall as people flood the market with their possessions so that they have money to buy food. I don't know about buying Gold. Gold is pretty high right now so you won't be able to buy much of it, and have you ever tried to trade gold for food at a supermarket? When you sell gold back to a dealer for cash, they will take at least a 10% cut. And anyway, a commodity is only valuable if someone wants to buy or trade for it. You can't eat gold. Silver may be a better bet since the price is low and there are industrial applications for silver. It may not be a bad idea to have a couple of hundred dollars in gold and silver to help protect your wealth, but it wouldn't be a main priority. I wouldn't buy guns or ammunition either. America isn't going to turn into a Mad Max world of biker gangs and roving armed bandits. There will still be laws and consequences for breaking them. Is it possible that robberies will increase and people will break into houses to steal food... but you don't need 2,000 rounds and 10 guns to deal with that. (Quick note.. I'm all for having 10 guns and 2,000 rounds of ammo - so don't flame me- I'm just saying if you are preparing for hyperinflation, your money may be better spent elsewhere). Ammunition as currency or for barter seems unlikely as well, since this is New Jersey. If only 12% of the people here own a gun and hold an FID, so you only have 12% of the market to barter with. But 100% of the people in this state eat food. So stocking up on canned goods and nonperishables may not be a bad idea. It may also be a good idea to purchase a couple of large 5 gallon gasoline cans and fill them up. It wouldn't be used for barter, but it may help get you to work for a few days if all of the gas stations near you are temporarily out of gas. I can tell you one thing. I hope I'm wrong. -Bether

I got a box of Rocky Patel The Edge Cigars from my two boys. It will be a fine smoke the next time I go out to bust some clays.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the State of New Jersey can argue that they are a special case because of their geography. I'm not a law enforcement officer, but I think some assumptions about crime can be derived logically. Basically, New Jersey is a big suburb of New York and Philadelphia. I would imagine that Route 295 and The New Jersey Turnpike are basically gigantic pipelines that feed narcotics into New York and Philadelphia. Camden, Trenton and Newark/Jersey City are ideal staging areas to efficiently package and distribute drugs before they are moved into New York and Philadelphia. You can reach Boston and points West from trains that connect from Trenton. Now that we have the River Line, you don't even need a car to move drugs from Camden to anywhere you want in the country. New Jersey is in the "perfect" place to distribute narcotics. Now imagine if you let every one of those drugs mules or drug dealers carry a gun. All they would need is a clean record, have three references, pay the $100 fee, and just like that, you have a drug dealer carrying a legal weapon and there isn't a darn thing the police can do about it. Now, I recognize that this argument is absurd. Anyone who is already committing one illegal act (carrying drugs) will not be concerned about committing a second illegal act (illegally carrying a gun). But I would imagine that the defense could raise the specter of having someone who is already committing an illegal act trying to obtain a legal carry permit. I can even give you an example. I know a man who used to have a NJ Permit to carry back in the 1980's because he carried large sums of cash. He had a storefront business, but he also sold Cuban cigars on the side to friends and friends of friends. For those of you who are not cigar smokers, Cuban cigars are illegal under the 1917 "Trading With The Enemy Act" and have been since February of 1962. This man was caught, tried and convicted. He is now a convicted felon who can no longer own a firearm. But he had a permit to carry and he had that permit while he was committing illegal acts. In this case, the act may seem innocuous (the absurdity of the Cigar embargo is another story) but it was still a federal crime. So that is one argument that could be raised. I can think of one more argument - the current New Jersey carry permitting system works to prevent gun deaths. Think of it this way: remember that old statistic about how a gun is more dangerous to the owner than to a criminal? If you want to get technical those anti-gun folks are absolutely right, it is impossible for a person who does not posses a gun to accidentally shoot himself with a gun. It is impossible for a person who does not own a gun to have his own gun used on himself. If the state restricts those who can legally carry a weapon, there will be fewer shootings (justifiably or otherwise) because logically, there will be fewer guns carried in general. Now if you want to talk about *violence*, well, that is a different story. You can do violence with just about any object, but if that object is not a gun, then you will not have a shooting death. It may be a death, but it won't be a shooting death. In that sense, the anti-gun people are absolutely right. New Jersey's system helps prevent shooting deaths. The New Jersey carry permitting system has, in essence, put a chilling effect on gun sales. By reducing the reasons to own a gun (of which personal carry is only one), restricting places where you can take a gun (to the range/gunsmith) and increasing the barriers to own one (with FID/Permitting), you effectively decrease the pool of available guns. Remember every illegal handgun starts out as a legal handgun. If you have fewer guns available to the law-abiding, you are technically reducing the pool of guns available to those who do not abide by laws. New Jersey may be able to argue that their weapons restrictions are a reasonable curb of rights under the same logic that makes it illegal to use your First Amendment right to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. From a Liberal's perspective (and yes I am a Liberal), it's hard to say the New Jersey is wrong. I've never been a victim of gun violence. I've never known anyone who has been mugged. If an area is generally unsafe, I just don't go there. Are the laws a pain? Yes. Do they work? Honestly, they just might. But this is coming from a Cherry Hill Jew. I don't have to live in Camden, Trenton or Newark so I can't even put my brain into one of those dangerous places. But this is the kind of thinking that clouds the minds of my friends when the topic of guns come up at barbecues and cocktail parties. I live in a place where safety is a way of life. I'd bet you that all of the New Jersey defense attorneys and judges live in some pretty nice areas as well. Now that being said, let me stop the flamethrowers before you light them up. I may be a Liberal, but I am a Second Amendment Liberal. I don't personally desire to carry a gun, but I feel that should be a matter of personal choice, not one of government mandate. Do New Jersey's laws work? They just might. Are they unconstitutional? They just might be. But freedom isn't a Chinese Restaurant. You can't pick one amendment from Column A and a different amendment from Column B. It's all or nothing. This whole carry issue comes down to one thing: Are we a United States with One Constitution, or a we a United States with a constitution that can be applied differently in different places? I know what I choose, and I know there could be consequences to that choice. But it is the choice that I make to live in a free society. The people of this state should have all of their rights, not just the rights that lawmakers think we should have: all. -Bether

If you are talking about a ban against assault weapons, I think that one of the most effective arguments is one of definition. What is an assault weapon? Consider something that Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography and obscenity: "It's hard to define, but I know it when I see it." I think many people base their definitions on whether a rifle looks like it is a piece of military equipment. Things get murky when you are trying to define something that means different things to different people. To some people, any gun is an assault weapon because its purpose is to kill. To others, only weapons with select-fire capabilities are assault weapons. So one argument you can make is that assault weapon bans are only "feel good" legislation since engineering will always find a way to work around a ban. Consider the Hammerhead rifle grip for "California" guns and you will see how silly this game of legislation and engineering can be. http://www.exilemachine.com/ Also consider NJ's ban. New Jersey bans bayonet lugs as one of the features of an assault rifle. I don't know how many bayonet attacks we had before we enacted this legislation, but the presence or absence of a bayonet lug does not change the ability of a rifle to shoot. Also note that one of the best arguments you can make is the Supreme Court's recent McDonald V. Chicago ruling which allows people to own "weapons in common use." If 48 other states (other than NJ and California) allow assault weapons, then it is hard to argue that these weapons are not in "common use."

Like Malsua said... there are no legal issues keeping ammunition in your car. When I'm picking up ammo from Dicks, I usually just throw it in the trunk and lock the trunk. When I travel to the range, I put my ammo in a Sentry petty cash box that I got from Officemax. The box will fit about 6 boxes of Remington Gun Club loads, and I don't shoot more than 6 rounds of skeet at a time anyway. I'd say it will fit 800 rounds of 9mm if you consolidate the boxes. I think the cashbox was about $20. Using a lockable cashbox for ammo might be going overboard, but it can't hurt.

I've taught my kids not to touch guns since they were old enough to identify one. I also don't let them play with toy or Nerf guns, not even at a neighbor's house. Call it the bleeding heart liberal in me, but I just don't like the idea of a child pointing a gun (no matter how toy-like it is) at another child. No cops and robbers for my kids, but they would rather play baseball anyway. That's just my $0.02. I don't have a problem with other parents making their own choices. My oldest son is 7 years old and has his own bolt-action, single shot .22 Cricket, which I love almost as much as he does. I keep the gun and ammunition locked up, although he can dry fire it with a snap cap or clean it any time he wants, he just has to ask me to get it out for him. I think he was around 6 when we started shooting. I taught him the Eddie the Eagle rules first, followed by the 4 safety rules. He now must recite those rules from memory before we get in the car to go to Range 14. When my oldest boy was about 4, my brother bought him a realistic-looking Indiana Jones type revolver as a Hanukkah present. Naturally, I was mortified, and I put the toy revolver away in my gun safe. Last year, around Halloween, I thought about selling the toy revolver on eBay since there seemed to be demand for Indiana Jones costumes. I brought the toy revolver up to my office to take pictures of it. When I was done, I left the toy revolver on my desk. Then, I went upstairs to get a snack and I forgot about the toy revolver. My son came and found me a few hours later and he looked very serious. He said to me: "Daddy, why did you leave a firearm on your desk where a kid could get to it." I'm serious. He said "firearm." So I thanked him. I told him that he was right and I was wrong. And I took the toy revolver and put it back in my safe. I've used that story a number of times with ... not anti-gun ... but gun-ambivalent friends and neighbors to illustrate why you should teach your kids about the dangers of firearms, and why you should keep them locked up.

Depends on what you want. If you have a Cougar and GP100, you are pretty well covered when it comes to home defense. So I think the choice now comes down to fun. I'm a CX4 owner, so naturally, I would drift toward the CX4, although you may have trouble finding the Cougar version & may have to install the magwell adapter yourself. The CX4 is hands-down the best gun I have... but I own it for a home defense purpose because my wife is too small to shoot a shotgun. If home defense isn't a factor, I would lean toward the lever-action that can work with your GP100. That just sounds like fun. But keep in mind the 9mm Storm would be less money in the long run. If you want, PM me. I'm planing to go to Ft. Dix Range 14 some time in November and you can try the Storm out and see for yourself.

I thought about leaving the bolt locked open, but I don't like the idea of storing the rifle under pressure like that. One neat thing about the Storm is that the safety can engage with the hammer forward. So I can store the rifle with the working parts forward and the hammer fired. That way, nothing is under tension. That extra cocking handle was only $18 and well worth it for my wife, as well as for general use. I primarily use the CX4 as a "starter gun" for friends or neighbors who are interested in shooting. I don't want to start them with a shotgun because of the recoil. And I don't want to start them with a handgun because their groups may be all over from flinching or bad grip. The Storm has effectively no recoil and just about anybody can make paper-plate sized groups out to 50 yards - a big confidence builder. If they are a lefty, the extra cocking handle makes it that much easier for them to charge the weapon and get used to the gross motor skills of using the cocking handle.

Ditto on the Storm. There was one for sale on this board at some time. I know that Hagues Gun Range in Paulsboro carries them in stock. You can even rent them to see if it is for you. I can't vouch for the Hi-Point or Kel-Tec, but I can give you one advantage of the CX4 Storm that swayed me. My wife, height and size wise is in Snooki territory. She does not have the upper body strength to hold a shotgun. She barely has the strength to cock the Storm. But the Storm is totally ambidextrous, and allows you to place two charging handles along the side. We don't keep guns in our house loaded, but if she ever needed to load it, she can slap a magazine in, shove the barrel into the carpet, shove the buttstock into her chest and use both hands on both charging handles to chamber a round. That isn't something you can do with the Hi-Point. By the way, if you are married, and your wife is petite like mine, this makes and excellent argument for spending the extra $300. Because it's... you know... for her. -Bether

In a way, this kind of reminds me of an old Jewish joke that was made famous in Annie Hall. Two Jewish women were at a Catskill resort eating dinner. One woman says: "The food is horrible here." And the other woman says: "I know, and what small portions." We're kvetching like yentas here. Let's look on the bright side. This is a victory. These are baby steps. This is the first time we're been fed in years and we are complaining about the taste and portions and the price. The Senator's bill has to get out of committee first. Then it has to pass, then it has to be signed (something I think out Governor would do - he is a very pragmatic and sensible man). This law could change some things for the better. Sooner or later (under pressure from minority business owners, the Pink Pistols, or a group of women who have been stalked), the prices and requirements will go down. Let's concentrate on a victory first. -Bether

Well, when in doubt, look at the code, specifically code: 2C:3-4 Use of force in self-protection. http://law.justia.com/newjersey/codes/1600/163a.html You have no "Duty to retreat" to a safe place and: "The use of force or deadly force upon or toward an intruder who is unlawfully in a dwelling is justifiable when the actor reasonably believes that the force is immediately necessary for the purpose of protecting himself or other persons in the dwelling against the use of unlawful force by the intruder on the present occasion." So basically you have to assume that you are under immediate threat. I'm mainly a skeet shooter and home defense is pretty low on my priorities. But I do have one shotgun and 5 rounds of buckshot in my bedroom closet under the same logic that lead me to put a fire extinguisher in the closet by the stove. I don't plan on being robbed or having a fire, but you never know. So you prepare. I think that every home invasion or robbery is unique. I don't know if you can plan for every situation, but the general family plan is that if anything ever happens, the wife and kids retreat to the master bathroom which is protected by 3 walls and has a window where they can escape if they have to. I stay at the top of the 2nd floor with the shotgun and we call the police. Any intruder is free to take anything they want from the bottom floor of the house... TV, Wii, computers, whatever. They have 10 minutes until the police arrive and can back up a truck and shop till they drop. My TV is not worth a human life. If the intruders try to come upstairs, they have probably met the criteria of immediate threat. Nothing they could want is upstairs but my family and I would do anything to protect them. I have no intension of going around the house looking for an intruder unless someone in my family is at risk. The police can do that better than me. Who knows what you will do in a situation like that? But just for reference, I searched news records back a few years. It looks like the last "self defense" shooting was the case of the 70 year old woman who fired a warning shot at a man who was on her property with a tractor. (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/bridgewater_woman_fired_shot_a.html). That case is still up in the air. But I had to go back to 2008 to find something topical in the news about a burglary that resulted in a justified shooting, and that was in Lakewood ( http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/07/one_injured_in_lakewood_shooti.html ). The story seems to end there, which I would assume means that the homeowner was justified. Know the law. Do what is right and you will probably be okay. One edit, I changed the year two paragraphs up to the correct year. I thought about this some more when I woke up today. I think that the general trend is that most intruders are unarmed. You you want the easiest target for the most gain and least risk. Carry a gun, and you increase the risk of jail time if things go wrong. When only 10% of the state owns a gun, you have a 90% chance that the people in the house are unarmed. Those are pretty good odds. I also think that most intruders would leave quickly once they figured out that a person was in the house whether he was armed or not. Your risk level just chanced, you so you need to re evaluate the situation and recalculate the reward potential weighed with the risk. I would agree with the assessment that most burglaries happen during the day now. My town has plenty of landscapers and workmen that are always coming and going. We have teenage kids who break into cars for iPods and houses for prescription drugs. Like I said before, they can have it, it's not worth their life. Then I started thinking about why I had to go back 2 years to even find a robbery that involved a shooting in self defense. There were plenty of news stories about shootings, but most involved the police, drugs/gangs or jealous lovers. So trying to find a case of justified self-defense during a burglary was pretty hard to do. I would assume that this is because this state has such a low rate of gun ownership. It's like trying to find cases of accidental electrocution in Lancaster county. If you don't have electricity, you can't get electrocuted. If you don't own a gun, you can't be in a justified shooting. There probably are plenty of burglaries, but not a lot of shootings. So this brings us back to the initial question of whether a in-home self-defense shooting could work out poorly for the homeowner regardless of the potential for immediate harm. Is it possible that this happens so rarely that prosecutors wouldn't quite know how to handle it and assume that you are at fault, purely because you are a gun owner and therefore was looking for an excuse to kill? Is it possible that you could be under more risk of prosecution if you had a "tacticool" shotgun as opposed to a $1300 Over/Under? I have a Mossberg 500 that I use as a "starter gun" for people when I take them to the skeet range so they don't have to touch anything expensive. That gun has wood furniture. It's also my home defense shotgun because of the capacity, reliability and low cost. When non-gun owners heft that Mossberg for the first time, I think they feel better about handling it than they would if I gave them and all synthetic version with rails and tactical lights. It may be silly. It may be the same gun. But it's all perception and its true. I think that the way your gun looks could be part of the equation if there was a shooting and you made a mistake that blurred the line of justification. But like I said... Follow the law. Do what is right. Keep your head about you. Call the police. And I think that you will probably be okay. Bether

Happy 5771, everybody. Life live to the fullest this year.

I can honestly say that I've never had a problem at any Dicks and I usually go to the ones in Princeton, Burlington, Cherry Hill and Mount Laurel. But then again, 90% of the time when I go, I'm on my way home from work and in a business suit. If they are profiling, they aren't targeting balding, middle aged, overweight Jewish businessmen. I normally buy gun club loads, but I buy handgun ammo occasionally. I always have my FID out when I get to the counter regardless of whether I am buying handgun ammo or skeet loads. Sometimes they ask for my DL, sometimes they don't. If they do, I don't mind. I've gotten to know some of these employees. We BS about shooting skeet or about what firearms are selling. I've actually considered applying for a job in their lodge, not because I need the money, but because I think it would be neat to help people out with their firearms purchases. I'm quite grateful that we have Dicks in this state. Wal Mart won't sell ammo here. K-Mart stopped years ago. Without Dicks, we would be forced to buy overpriced gun store ammo or travel to PA. -bether

I've wondered about whether the whole key thing could work in an emergency. I think it can. My wife and I practice removing the key and opening the lock... probably once a month. And it seems to work for us. I have it down to about 15 seconds. I'd imagine that you may have trouble opening a lock with a key if you are under duress and your hands are shaking, but the same would be equally true if you were trying to enter a combination. However, you can forget the combination to a lock. I was once in a car accident where I was so shaken up that I couldn't remember my phone number (this was back before cell phones). So to me, a combination lock would have two points of failure: hard to manipulate under stress and the potential to misremember the combination. Of course a key can have two points as well, you may have trouble manipulating the lock and you may lose the key. But I think the odds of opening the keyed lock are better.