Gunny2862

Thank you for your personal story, it shows some background as to how you came to develop your perspective. I come from an area in MO where Black people were treated hideously, kept clearly in a second class situation, politically manipulated by both parties, public lynchings for crimes real and perceived, homes burnt and families evicted not just from their homes but from their communities and towns en mass, in the night. Most left the area, many will not come back even today, not to surprising given the history. As I grew up there was the "downtown school" where 95% of the black population attended and the other 5% were attending in relation to their homes and their parents wishes at four other schools. Not a lot of inter-racial interaction since I didn't attend the downtown school.. As I entered the Military I found a lot of people who had negative racial stereotypes and were bound to keep them, I worked to shed mine by trying to interact and find out about people. My best friends in Boot Camp were a Vietnamese immigrant who barely knew enough English to get by in Boot Camp(not much vocabulary required by the trainees), a Guatemalan immigrant and the Black guy who might have happily punched me himself, but kept the rest of the brothers from going after me because "Hey, the idiot is at least trying". There were times post boot camp where my attempts to find out about and integrate my own thoughts have gotten me punched - would have been much easier to hang with "my own", problem for me was that I saw Green Marines and not racially segregated people in their enclaves. My wife and I have made decisions about the kids education based on our experiences(she is Prior Military also and has a Masters in Counseling, and placed him out of home(lily white)(location of home driven by economics) district into districts that placed him in diverse situations. The Martin/Zimmmerman interaction has plenty of problems without race being injected into it. The worst problem is that a youth and what ever potential he had for society(although in this state, he, like my son would be termed an adult)died. The second worst problem by the nature of how many people it's affecting is this biased conversation that isn't taking the other point of view into account at all, and most of the discussion is based on either racial bias or pure emotion and third hand inaccurate accounts of the events of that evening rather than gathering and looking at the facts - which 30+ days later are still coming in dribs and drabs, good job by the media..., not. The last two are dependent on who the two individuals involved were - something we may never know. The third worst problem is that if the youth turns out to have been a Sheep, that the Sheep dog killed one who was to be protected - may God have mercy on his soul, because no one else will, not even the other Sheepdogs. The fourth worst problem is that Zimmerman, if he was a Sheepdog, who encountered a juvenile Wolf, found out that the Sheep will turn on you in a heartbeat if they can't tell the Wolf from a Sheep.

packsaddle, Great argue with the Department of Conservation and their literature about hunting as population control and the reasons why they strive to keep the herd below a certain level. I'm not getting drawn into that part of the topic as I am not a part of it(other than as a non-participant) IRL.(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)

Very nice on topic post le Voyegeur, I applaud your sensitivity toward wounded animals. Best of luck in providing for your family or in the ability to share your resources with others from animals that if they were unharvested might die of malnutrition, lack of resources, or disease brought on by overcrowding. Conservation principles in vita. YiS

Thanks leVoyager, much better than what I did, now can you contrast with the Objective Risks? Thanks!

SMT224 Hi. I restate my earlier post Thursday, 3/29/2012: 2:19:05 PM addresses your question. I even put in the words Objective and Subjective as signals to what I was doing. Given the earlier direction of the thread your hypothetical seemed weird but I still tried to answer it also. I am Sorry if I misread your intent! But risk management starts before the trip starts, if you wait til events happen then you are doing incident management - a vastly different animal as no pre-planned resources are available, you just have to work with what you have or can get. I'm having a bad run of people misreading my intentions today also, IRL and Online. Probably time to call it a day. YiS, the Gunny.

Lisabob, The fact in question was the refutation of your allegation that he picked out a youth target in broad daylight and walked up and shot him with no provocation. Your post:RE: Trayvon Martin Posted: Thursday, 3/29/2012: 8:32:02 PM quality I'm sorry, but shooting an unarmed child at point blank range in broad daylight does not fit with my definition of "victim." Unless you are referring to the child who was shot and killed. My post: Are you even going to attempt to keep to the facts of the case? "On the rainy night of Feb 26th" http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpps/news/trayvon-martin-case-george-zimmerman-supporters-dpgapx-20120328-fc_18875731(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)

Okay, 1) a)I don't know about this jurisdiction, but in many jurisdictions if you are riding in the car and you aren't a citizen ride along or working then you are in cuffs. b)At the time he was going to the station, the officers hadn't completed the poor investigation they did do. He was facing manslaughter charges at the time. Of course he was cuffed for the transporting officers safety. 2) Unless you have seen different video than I did, their is no way to discern his injuries from the poor quality lo resolution security camera video that was pulled from. Anyone who says differently doesn't know about video. (I have been in video for more than a decade). In addition he would have had access to whatever medical rolled to the scene and been kept there for a while before he was transported - they probably would have cleaned up some of the stuff on his head while evaluating him before turning him over for transport(of course I don't KNOW that any of that happened either, but it's likely). As to the fountains of Blood you may have expected to geyser all over him, that happens on TV, not in real life, if the shot stops the victims heart, the blood ceases to flow except by gravity. 3)This part is confusing to me also, however, if per his statement, he had followed the victim on foot between a row of houses, between the houses, in the dark, on a rainy night, he may have felt the need to upon returning to his vehicle verify where he was for the report he would be making to the officer he was and had prepared to meet via the non-emergency phone call he had made - read the transcript. Remember he was a Police Academy graduate in '04 and would know the value of a proper report and the waste of time of an inaccurate one. Unfortunately this is when he claims he was followed and attacked by the victim, having disengaged as told and having returned to his vehicle. You can dispute the disengaging, but how does that line up with his having returned to the vehicle he had left to follow the victim? 4) There is no evidence to support your claim. Urban Myth, see above. Possibly a timeline error that is being continually propagated. 5) People lose sight of their objective all the time. How many officers lose sight of their prospective perps in a chase, happens all the time. Especially if the objective knows they're being followed, remember this is on a rainy night not down the middle of the streets or on the sidewalks, but between houses. Easily explainable if the victim chose to go around the front of a house and then followed him back on the other side of the houses, when Zimmerman quit following him as instructed and went back to his vehicle. BUT then NO ONE living knows the truth of this part. 6)And per his statement, and what investigation was done and the non-emergency call timeline, the vicitim interrupted your chain by following Zimmerman back to his truck and verbally assaulting him followed by a battery during which having issued a verbal threat to Zimmermans life he reached for the licensed registered weapon Zimmerman had for his own self defense - plenty of justification for Zimmerman to employ it at that time.(Now of course other than that evidence that can be re-constructed via what physical evidence the officers saw on scene, the location of the shooting, what the witnesses were noted to have given (haven't seen this)on the police report, the injuries the officers noted, the non-emergency call, we are relying on the shooter for the rest of the story here. But don't you think having just killed a human that unless he is some kind of psychopath that he was in some form of shock and probably gave the police everything he knew. Next sentence is a restatement of #6, same answer. Next sentence, Then I either join a group, go to a public place, attempt to ascertain if it is the authorities looking for me in what is as totally non-threatening manner as possible, attempt to evade, OR simply proceed to my destination in as confident a manner as possible - none of which involve confronting whoever is following. Next sentence, see above, unless they are continuing to follow and closing the distance in a place where I feel an imminent threat of attack and especially if that a place doesn't offer me the tactical advantadge, in which case the prudent thing to do is still to attempt get out of there rather than engage an unknown assailant whose intentions are unknown. Next sentence, true, but I bet if you asked him and it was in his power he'd go back in time and handle his part differently. Note that in my rebuttal I pointed out the weak spots, as I've done all along. My early comments noted Zimmermans lack of freedom from prosecution if he hadn't disengaged - which was much less clear then than it appears now. I don't have an agenda here other than being fair to both parties.

By the way, disclaimer time, for anyone who thinks I'm some geezer totally divorced from reality... My 6'2'' 17 year old is out tonight, wearing or will probably buy and then wear a new hoodie at a local band "show". The bands tend to favor black as it makes their designs "pop". As always I'll be worried until he gets in, not necessarily because of what he'll do, but because of what anyone else might do. Same way about how I feel in traffic. While he might try to work out the situation if he were attacked, he knows not to be the one who initiates anything. These things DO affect us all...

Same link as previous post... George Hall, a retired Presbyterian minister, said he was Zimmerman's neighbor for 20 years in Manassas, Va., until about 2001. Hall said Zimmerman and his brother attended church, and he wrote a recommendation for Zimmerman for a police academy in 2004. "Their parents taught them to treat everybody with respect. I'm tired of hearing about this race thing," Hall said. "It could be an element in it ... but I never would have thought of him as being a racist. His father was in the Army and was a white American and his mother was Peruvian. That makes him 50 percent Peruvian. A lot of stuff I hear, it irks me because people are drawing their own conclusions with very little evidence." Meza spoke only briefly over the telephone to a reporter from The Associated Press. It wasn't immediately clear if he had talked to Zimmerman since the shooting, but he said other relatives are afraid to comment publicly, even though they think he is being treated unfairly.

Are you even going to attempt to keep to the facts of the case? "On the rainy night of Feb 26th" http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpps/news/trayvon-martin-case-george-zimmerman-supporters-dpgapx-20120328-fc_18875731

By the way just for the disclaimer - I've never killed any animal that wasn't a nuisance, Rabbits in a garden, Mice in house traps, Burrowing hazards to horses. Maybe a fish or two - you do eat fish right? Whats the difference if you kill it or someone else does, if you eat it aren't you as karmicly unclean as the actual fisherman since you drove the demand that caused him to go fishing? I really don't want to hear someone's BS about how I'm some kind of psychopath who wants to teach the lust for killing and the excitement of watching them die. Especially if its some kind of hate speech driven by my having been in the military. Are you a hater, if so, move to frickin France or some other place that has had it's bacon saved by Americans and our thanks is their scorn, you might just fit right in. IF it were true that I were of those opinions, I'd deserve scorn and derision. Since it's not, I find it extremely offensive to be as much as accused of it. 99% of my discussion was in fact steered away from hunting and towards range work with targets. The 1% that you are mis-characterizing but was fun was pointed towards a successful hit on a small target at a long range which coincidentally, terminated a nuisance pest with such a tremendous shock load that it's an entirely human way of neutralizing them, much more humane than the alternative of poisoning, as trapping simply isn't effective enough on a large enough portion of a den to remove the hazard they pose to the horses. Expletives censored. Edit humane for human.(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)And great, made the edit, shows correctly on the edit page and isn't showing when posted - last occurrence of human should read humane(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)

Um, no. Using your example, If the kid is doing the right thing, WHY would he go and accost someone, and having asked them, maybe even courteously, why he was following him (which as far as we know someone else didn't do) he should continue on his way, understanding that if it's some hater of whatever label you want to put on it, he's not going to change his mind and an altercation isn't going to change anything. On that note, Realizing we are relying on the living persons testimony in the real situation, the deceased didn't ask why he was following, a good citizen would understand that in a new neighborhood the neighborhood watch wouldn't know who they were and they might stick out and thus come under observation, he asked if the other "had a problem". Tone of voice is a strong part of communication and neither of us were there... So if that's were in fact followed by "you're gonna die" as reported again by the living person and this was followed by an assault, then... Then maybe as tragic as then ending is, the youth should have done the right thing and not engaged. IF Zimmerman had disengaged - which only requires him to have ceased following on foot as he had, not to depart the area and go home, and his account describes and the investigators on the scene believe him to have been at or near the vehicle when he was accosted - then he's the innocent party here. But that is a nice pseudo racist turn you tried to run, just making someone hate a short haired clean cut fellow doesn't change that it's hate for no reason... It isn't or should be about the stripe or brand of us versus them that causes hatred - it should be about ending the hatreds of whatever stripe. There is no right "we hate you" for what anyone is - maybe for what someone did, but not just because of who they are. I'm not clean yet, I'm not blind to the effect others have on me, but I'm not just letting it ride and try not to be disturbed just by who people are - even when they have no problem letting it be known that they are still harboring all of those kinds of feelings.

And then the part that keeps getting left out. Apparently only one person did the wrong thing here from most of the comments. Are our kids the kind who would go confront the person following them, even after they weren't following them anymore? And then start the physical altercation that proceeded to a tragic end? Or who would proceed on their way home? Had Trayvon done the latter, we might not be talking about this. Fact is both of them could have done different things, and that as WE HAVE ALREADY SEEN, more facts keep coming out. How about we all start holding judgement on this until the facts are out?

Somehow I missed this part,first nice ad hominem, second totally untrue, thirdly I officially note that I am offended - "Otherwise you just want to teach the adrenaline rush of destroying something that God, not you, put on the Earth." My retort has been censored - by me.

Who's being silly? Why did your hypothetical's go on a hike without the ten essentials? They would at least have a Map, thus could plan a way out before it got dark. They would have extra clothing and Rain Gear, and thus they could retain body heat. They would have a flashlight and the darkness would not be as much of an issue, they could at least follow their map. They would have the means to start a fire, generating even more warmth to protect against this hypothetical immediate hypothermia and allow them to decide to stay in place rather than travel at night, if that were the better choice. They would have additional food, also a source of protection against hypothermia as they have the additional calories to burn. They would have some water and possibly the means to purify more found water, thus the ability to stave off dehydration and ameliorating some of the effects of hypothermia again. How about if they just went out properly prepared, "for just about any old thing" they lessen their chances of getting hypothermia due to an errant weather system in the first place? If you'll re-read my previous post, it talks about exactly what you are asking about. IF you choose to start a hypothetical after the trip has started, and they go with out the standard equipment you've abandoned more than 1/2 of the process.

And I absolutely concur with the idea that everything I have been advocating for is in concurrence with this statement by you, "My wife was a competitive shooter when she was young...had to learn everything you mentioned and never killed a living thing doing it ... to teach what you supposedly want to teach...use a bullseye on a range."

And I answer your horse-hockey. At what point did I ever advocate for destroying a living entity for fun? Consistently, and thru out, I have been advocating for the Character building brought on thru learning the skills of Marksmanship. Oh, I bet you are taking my varminting(eliminating a nuisance or pest, e.g. a varmint) on Prairie dogs out of context - it's about preserving the ground the horses walk on so they don't break their legs or having done so don't fall and injure their riders - besides, who eats Prairie dogs?(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)additional thought (This message has been edited by Gunny2862) Clarification, This one is for improper spelling.(This message has been edited by Gunny2862)

By necessity due to the possible expansiveness of the question this is a limited reply... No, the Objective risks may include, but are not limited to: Injury - to include Weather related Injury, Getting Lost, Lack of Water. Safeguards against the above would include: Proper planning, to include a pre-trip weather check (however this may not indicate your hypothetical freak storm), Proper Clothing and equipment (10 essentials anyone? Um, Includes the Flashlight, Map and Compass), Map and Compass, Route plan plus emergency bail out points, Pre-planning water use and checking with the map and if available local sources(The Ranger for an area?) about natural water and including water purification means whether Heat, or Filtration or Chemical. Subjective risks include panic and shock, but having planned and having brought the tools you would need, this is minimized. Especially if one remembers to "STOP" Stay in place, Think, Orient, and Plan for the future actions that will save your bacon(and we know you want to save your bacon) ) in the situation you are in. Or were you just being silly?

In any "good" Safety or Health and Awareness program I have been involved in the acknowledgement is that Safety is relative and runs on a continuum. No one is ever truly safe until they're dead. And even then their body may not be. Nope, risk management is the game. Creating a world of acceptable risk. Does the climbing tower staff ACTUALLY check each climbers equipment EACH time they mount the tower? DO they ACTUALLY record the number of rappels on a given line? Do they actually record a fall on a climbing line and if so is it actually retired when it meets its rated fall quota or what guideline the Responsible party has set? Did the Responsible party as an economic choice decide they could allow x number of falls in excess of the manufacturers rating? Because a Fall can induce Cardiac arrest is there at least one Trained CPR responder available every time the tower is open? I could go on for a long long time and choose to stop now...

Engineer 61 says,"It's just me ... but marksmanship is not a necessary skill for most kids these days." (Open Rant) Okay, really? Um, when was the last time any of us tied a sheepshank for real life use and for it's intended purpose? When was the last time any of us weren't camping and had to start a fire without a match? For that matter whens the last time we started a fire without a match that wasn't a demonstration? When was the last time you had to apply the fundamentals of lifesaving unless you are a working Guard? Well, we can just forget about 90% those Merit badges too since most kids will never use 90% of what they'll learn being exposed to those either? You know what demographically(and I hope this is a bad made up number because it is a made up number) but 1/2 the kids will never vote except maybe that number would rise for a general election and even then about 1/2 of the ones who do vote still won't have put in the time to understand what the effects will be if the issue passes OR fails. So let's quit wasting our time with those Community in the .... MB's too. Nope what we show them has no impact on their daily lives, let's fold up shop and go home... (Close Rant) Engineer 61. It's not about the skill itself. IT's a character program. It's about learning about themselves and others, facing and overcoming adversity. Challenging opportunities which with today's increasingly sedentary and INDOOR lifestyle are easily created OUTDOORS, meaning outdoor activities and we are WAYY more indoors than we were when Baden-Powell thought these boys are to sedentary we need to get them outdoors. Stalking is easily applicable to more things than killing things - Not many nature photographers would be very successful if they didn't understand some fundamentals of stalking - no matter how big a lens they can carry. Learning to fire a weapon "properly" requires self-control, being able to concentrate AND relax, coordinating multiple physical acts and being aware of your surroundings at the same time. It's not easy if you are doing it right, whether you are punching paper or are putting food on the table, participating in sport hunting, or are downrange in a foreign land protecting the rest of us. It is a very tough challenge in self-control to be able to consistently and reliably hit your mark at and beyond 500 yards, In additions to the body control necessary one has to consider if one is actually seeing the target or aiming at a mirage effect, wind effects, elevation, far enough out even humidity and other factors most people would never consider coming into play - and in that world the lazy, and unthinking cannot get it done, as all of these things have to be considered. At 1,000 yards one has to try to not only read the current wind but anticipate it as the wind can change enough to affect the path and impact of the round in flight after any corrective action is possible. Marksmanship is a great area in which to develop character. And it's only part of a good hunting program, where even more character building opportunities come into play...

Beavah, As maligned as Wikipedia may be in Academic circles, it's hardly "chain-mail media". The Trayvon wiki I referenced in the previous post is in fact(at this time) a moderated, protected page so that not just any yahoo can get on and post what ever trivia factual or not. New information may be posted to a protected area and then a group of moderators decides if it fits with the facts they have, an/or what attribution is available before they post it. That said, if the Main stream media outlets would do their job and report all the facts and not pick a side, then those other media sources might dry up and go away.

As much as I am reluctant to use Wikipedia as a source, they seem to have as many gathered facts in one place as any of the media outlets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin According to at least one account, the shooter had returned to his vehicle, then got out to check his location on a street sign(sounds slightly odd but plausible) when he was accosted and attacked by the youth - In this scenario I might revoke my problems with the claim of self-defense. Waiting for further revelations.

I agree that the children of the traveling adults have to get a pass on the lottery, unfortunately for the chances of the others, most aren't selfless enough to leave their child behind while shepherding others kids, often even on a weekend trip. To ask it on a "once in a lifetime" trip that costs 1000's of dollars may really be asking to much. However that also means that that parent and child combo are committed to go on and able to pay for their trip.

Scoutfish, IMHO, when I discuss about Snipers, their targets are either range devices for practice or humans, they are as much or more hunters and intelligence gatherers than marksmen (although they are usually defined by the latter aspect) they may or may not engage at long-distance, although that is a mark of their profession(both for self-protection and the intimidation effect on the survivors of the first round not having any good idea where the shot came from). Marksmen, especially National Match Shooters, may even exceed Snipers in the art of shooting and hitting in a very precisely defined area on a target. But they aren't concerned with infiltrating without detection, detection in place, target acquisition, intelligence gathering, countermeasures, and having an avenue of escape. Both are concerned with all the effects that occur on long-range shots which include factors as small as the drift of the bullet due to the rotation of the specific rifling on the specific bullet and load of the round. At ranges exceeding 800 yards, one can even detect and compensate for differences due to the rotation of the earth depending on the direction one is firing. As far as the difference between sniping and hunting I'd say that you may have most of the right of it, although there a lots of folks who won't hunt because they won't drop the hammer on an animal once they actually are "in the moment". In the same way there are hunters who can't make the leap to the new prey in the sniping world. IMHO, not everyone can become a Sniper, not everyone can be a National Match shooter, but almost everyone can achieve a reasonable level of Marksmanship and with a little bit of thought can become a safe, reasonable practitioner of hunting, assuming they can learn to stalk. Part of being a good hunter is knowing that shots exceeding 300 yards is generally overkill(actually possibly under-kill) on most game unless you're literally shooting ridge to ridge or you're doing some varminting (prairie dogs in Kansas at 300-500 can be a lot of fun and save a few horses ankles) and but a little more stalking might be appropriate, depending on the game and terrain and weapons system. I think le Voyageur has a great idea but needs to be concerned first with range safety(I'm sure he is) and the fundamentals of marksmanship at short ranges(I'd probably start at 1,000 inches - about 27 yards 2 inches and some wiggle - I'm not sure of the ballistics of his chosen rifles but the U.S. Military uses this range as it ballistically is the same point of impact as the aim point for 200 yards with the M-16/M-4, difference being that the impact is on the rise rather than on the fall of the bullet) with progressively smaller targets - think AFQT - the Air Force basic Qualification test. It's short range, easy to administer, targets are reasonably cheap, small range foot print required, and errors are easily traceable to shooter error (lending to correction) rather than environmental factor misreads. Once their skills are honed that they can shoot 5 called shots under a dime there(at least that's the goal with the .223), then it's time to consider extending their range, as they should already be close to being able to call their shots. A skill that is more quickly built by writing down where they think their shot landed in a little book "range book" with a depiction of their current target and a grid system that preferably is calibrate-able to the changes the shooter can make on their rifle with whatever adjustments are available for the sights (other than the initial sighting in, these shouldn't need to be changed again until the 300 and longer range shots come in to play) before looking to see where it impacted and then noting the difference between their call and the actual impact - at 1000 inches normally visioned shooters should be able to detect the impact of each new shot without a spotter or scope.

I like Distance shooting, but until you have honed some fundamentals of marksmanship, many of the same goals can be accomplished by shooting smaller targets at short ranges. While I'll definitely agree that wind and other distance effects play into the fun of long-range. I believe that for beginning shooters, learning to get to the point of being able to call their shot and firing into progressively smaller targets is a much faster and more confidence building method than taking them to further distances. That said, I think it's a great idea and I'd be behind it, but agree that paper targets, with a cease fire for target marking between each volley, or perhaps the range in question has a protected berm behind which the target can be lowered for marking after each shot? At range, for precision shooting, the steel targets will only give you a hit or miss indication - while ok for some purposes, to increase shooting skills a mark of the shot gives the necessary feedback to increase the applied skill. And shouldn't we all be aiming for the x ring, rather than just getting on paper?