Casper

I think I'm going to use this to explain to my wife why I'm setting up my own backyard range. It's all about social distancing. That $300 metal shooting tree is an anti virus solution.

About a week ago, we had a lawn care business hanging fliers on everyone's doors! Other than that, it's quiet. Neighbors still get visitors and groups of kids from 2 or 3 families still acting like everything is normal.

Things were slowing down a bit here, more stuff becoming available. But I hear 30 minutes away, it's still chaos. Nothing to be found and people starting to argue and fight.

I agree they're issued due to political posturing. After all, you can't be the last to issue a shutdown or you'll take hell politically for not doing anything. That might be partly why trump didn't jump as early as possible, because he thinks it was an overreaction. As far as laws or orders themselves; there's a subtle difference between selective enforcement and officer discretion. And I realize this is a bit off your point, but bear with me... Can you tell me you wrote every ticket you could to everyone you dealt with on the job? Or violated everyone's parole/probation each time they did something on the "don't do" list? (You did that job after your leo career, I believe. Forgive me if I'm mixing it up). I'm guessing no, and that you took into account other factors to give someone a break here and there based on the needs of the moment. In a perfect world, the discretion to not enforce a law is how we deal with personal situations that warrant giving someone a break. Someone running a red light to take an injured person to the hospital, for example. Or arresting kids sneezing on produce at the grocery store and charging that in relation to stay at home orders in order to increase the penalty because of the additional panic and unrest that causes today versus 6 months ago. The problem starts when discretion or selective enforcement isn't used uniformly. But isn't that impossible in every situation? It's bad to abuse your powers, but good to use discretion to not arrest a 90 year old woman with no criminal record who didn't realize she forgot to pay a speeding ticket from 7 years earlier. Maybe we're looking at it from different points of view. You're saying the politicians shouldn't issue the order, and I'm saying once the order is issued, officers should still have discretion.

I hear you, John. But we have all kinds of laws restricting certain things for the safety of the public. This isn't much different, but it only gets enforced during a state or federal emergency. And so far, everyone is saying it's not really going to be enforced. Does that mean some citizen isn't going to test it? No. Does that mean some officer somewhere in the US isn't going to get a bug up his rear and enforce it when it's not really prudent to do so? No, that might happen, too. But it isn't going to be the norm. Rumors will be the norm... but I imagine 99.9% of us aren't going to have any issues whatsoever. And as soon as some agency starts randomly asking people for their travel papers, we'll see it on video and all over either social media or the news. It won't just be a rumor that nobody can verify.

Rumors are rumors. Nothing fact based about a rumor. Basically designed to be unverifiable.

Taos, Sorry I participated in getting off topic. Didn't mean to crap on your post. But if you're still there in 5 years, you'll probably meet both my kids when we visit. Too young to dedicate a long trip like that right now. Plus, my youngest is not the rule follower the older one is. Ha!

Well, I guess we'd have to look at each individual law in each state and municipality and see how it's written. My point is that people are overreacting. My point is that your freedom to visit your neighbor hasn't been taken away and enforced by a nazi style 'i need to see your papers'. Nor do I think that will happen. I never said it's ok to make unconstitutional laws. But again, we'd need to look at one specific example to be able to discuss its individual merits.

That was just me talking out of my rear end. No need to take my statement that literally.

Which law enforcement agency can you reference with an article or quote from their spokesperson saying "yes, we're out here arresting people for violating a stay at home order"? Show me something that says these people were arrested and jailed. Yes, like I said, there are sanctions a city, county or state can take against a business allowing people to congregate, or a non essential business to remain open. But that's an action against a business license, not a criminal offense. But any police action would be a misdemeanor at best and the articles I've read say the goal nationwide is not to take police action. There will probably be some idiots who try to force the issue and get arrested for disturbing the peace, but that's on them. And I'm sure there's a politician or two threatening police action to scare people into staying home, but they aren't the ones enforcing the law. The only threat I've seen so far is to my sense of smell when people aren't able to wipe their own a$$ completely.

That's just it,we still have our liberty and freedom. People on social media around here are asking about having "travel papers" and who is allowed to travel or which non essential stores are allowed to open. Nobody is checking papers. Nobody is setting up road blocks. It wouldn't work anyway. We need people to work and we need people to shop at the grocery stores. There's no jailable offense if you decide to randomly drive around town. There's no legal authority for police to shut down your store or jail you for walking in public. It's possible you face some legal sanctions or fines if it's determined you helped spread the virus. But this isn't a communist nation. People wouldn't put up with that anywhere up or down our system. Not only that.... but who the hell wants to grab people and arrest and fight with them just because they traveled somewhere? Do any of you want to do that? Neither do the cops. Nationwide they're letting people out of jail to keep the virus from spreading. They're not going to refill the jails with people arrested for "travelling when advised not to." Not. Gonna. Happen. Sorry, not directed at you TG. People just going crazy over speculation. We've been through this before. We'll come out ok.

Sad to see the public ranges close. But it would be worse if half your staff died. I'm really interested to see what happens a year from now. We'll be able to look back and see if all these closures and stay at home orders were overreactions or good ideas.

I would have learned more about the plants, bushes and trees in my area. I feel like I have a good grasp on how to survive in the desert, but I'm not sure which berries are safe to eat 100 feet behind my house.

I was wondering about that aspect. She probably had contact with a ton of people throughout every class she takes. I'm wondering if college aged (less at risk) people should just be kept in their dorms, away from sick or elderly people. I feel like sending them home is spreading it around more than keeping them there. Still bet it feels good to have her home.

Long term, I don't see this being bad for the gun industry or for gun owners. Other than a virus killing a huge percentage of our population, that is. Otherwise, a lot of people are going to stock up after this dies down, when they can. Anyone buying stock in Mountain House or similar companies?