Artbrooks, I congratulate you. You are right on top of the thing. It seems that the Supreme Court was judicious, cautious and quite narrow in its ruling. Just imagine if they were as narrow in the interpretation of the First Amendment.

Stigweard what has name calling got to do with anything. False characterizations are all the same as "Straw man" arguments and it is really beneath the level of the rest of the dialogue on this subject from both (or more) sides. You don't know me. You don't know what I do. Just because someone takes steps of precaution does that automatically make him a blustering coward, which is how you have sought to portray me?

Whether you like it or not armed citizenry is, in part, what this country has been about from its inception. It is what the Battle of Lexington fought for. It was about the common man shaking off the tyranny of the Throne and the Aristocracy and the birth of Democracy. Join the Revolution, my friend, and rejoice that the power now lies in the hands of those once oppressed. Before, you had NO CHOICE! Today you can decide for yourself whether to be armed. You can decide to speak your mind without fear of the knock at the door. I do not condemn your stance as it is your right to have freedom of conscience. It's just that YOUR rights cannot super cede MY rights, so let it go at that, OK?

Concerning .410 pistols. I had an uncle who carried one on his dairy farm for shooting rattlesnakes. Every arm fills a niche somewhere. This single shot "pistol" had a very long barrel but I never got the chance to measure it as it had been disposed of before I reached an age where I could handle it. I once shot a Derringer chambered for a .410! What an insane weapon! It felt as though a bomb had gone off in my hand! Once was enough. So, OK not EVERY weapon fills a niche!!!

During WWII the Army Corps of Engineers built a revetment that served some purpose of their and served the local high school as a football stadium. After the war the school put in a bullet backstop and began teaching marksmanship! Different world, eh? Kids would bring their guns to school. Gun racks in pickup trucks were a common sight and no one thought anything of it. What has changed? I would proffer the erosion of morality, the loss of respect for others in general and Godlessness, but then that's another thread altogether, isn't it?

The sport of pistol hunting has been on the rise for more than thirty years. The "Thompson Contender" company which makes a platform for interchangeable barrels has been one of the pioneering companies in this movement. Big game is now often taken with pistol. Paper punching probably still represents the widest use of pistols but pistols ARE sporting weapons.

One of the things I hate to see is where a bunch of jerks have gone out into the country to shoot and leave there trash and target materials and brass lying all over the place. They help to give genuine hunters and sportsmen a bad name. Same goes for morons who go out and kill everything they see. These types ought to be and are prosecuted when caught. The same goes for those who drink and shoot or "hunt". Along these lines, my father finally gave up deer hunting in the Sierras as crowds began coming up from LA and went crashing about in the underbrush, shooting at noises and sudden movements! These type folks have no business fielding a weapon. Now THAT is scary. My Dad then took up hunting upland game, that is, quail, chukar, pheasant, dove and that is what I cut my teeth on. We always made sure we knew where everyone in our party was and if any others were about we made sure they knew where we were. No one was ever hurt or even came close to being injured. We would ALWAYS police up after ourselves and we would leave the land as we had found it, or better. And if we had luck, we'd always offer the land owner part of our take. Gentlemanly conduct goes a long way to further the sport of hunting. In fact, gentlemanly conduct furthers many causes. I highly recommend it.