Brandon

Its nonsense because you seem unwilling to consider that there may be another explanation beyond him just being a thug who obviously brandished the weapon with the intent to use it. There may well be other, perfectly valid explanations that don't involve malicious intent and, in fact, one of them may be a lot closer to the truth.

That's what I suspected. So, basically, it was just a fistfight between him and his old man. Big deal.

We definitely don't. But given the fact that he wasn't taken to the county jail, I think its likely that he actually didn't draw the gun with an intent to use it and all parties (except the neighbor) realized this.

That's pretty much what I think happened here. The neighbor saw them arguing/fighting and mistook Hardy removing the gun for him drawing the gun.

If I had to guess, this was just a fistfight or a shoving match, and Hardy was setting the gun aside.

The key word there is 'apparently'. In truth, we don't know what happened. The fact that the police didn't haul him to county leads me to believe that it was indeed a misunderstanding by the neighbor.

I agree. That damn constitution is outdated. They couldn't imagined this world we live in today. We should be limited to only the tools of the day for exercising any of the rights laid out in the Bill of Rights. So I'm guessing you'll be among the first to shut off your internet and throw away your phones, TV, computer, radios, etc? Afterall, you still have print media, which was all that was available in the late 1700s. That's good enough.

LOL. I've never understood why people freak out because someone has 'too many' guns. Who cares if he owns 50 legal handguns? How many can he use at once? Hint: He only has two hands.

No, but at the same time, they don't live in a bad part of town. If that were the case, I very well might.

You mean that's not a good enough reason to lock the guy up for the next 20 years? What is this world coming to?

I agree. Who cares about waiting to find out exactly what happened here? Since when are facts important? Ban him and throw him in jail. And while we're at it, lets break out the torches and pitchforks and march on OBD for drafting him.

Why shouldn't he be carrying it and why should he turn it in? If he hasn't committed a crime here, he has as much right to own and carry it as anyone.

I agree with you, it does seem to be an overreaction without the facts. That said, while you do have a constitutional right to firearms ownership, you do not have the right to go around pointing them at other people under most circumstances. We don't know what happened here, but if Hardy did pull a gun on his father, he probably shouldn't have. I doubt that his life was in any danger, which, IMO, is the only time you have the right to do so.

Don't dump me in that group. I changed my mind after the whole pro day incident.

In most cases, all you find on June first is overpaid, over the hill junk that no one else wants.

It doesn't matter to me at all. As long as he's motivated by something, its a good thing.

Nate Clements was the top rated CB in 2001.

Hope so. The best thing I can say about that pick right now is that he's probably better than their backups, although perhaps that's more a reflection of my opinion of those guys than anything.

They could try that, no doubt about it, but on the flip side, it would seem to mean that there's one less guy out there for his blocking ability than there otherwise might be.

I'm a little skeptical of his impact in the return game. He still has to beat out McGee on kickoffs and Parrish on punts, two of the best in the business at what they do.

I think there are still some areas that need to be addressed, but I agree, there are few gaping holes. TE appears to be the only one, really, while C and perhaps FS could also use upgrades. QB and WR are probably both still 'wait-and-see' and we may need another DE if Schobel didn't simply have an off-year, but has hit the wall (and I think he probably still has 2-3 good years left). So the situation is getting better, but there are still quite a few areas of concern, I think.

I hope its just a case where they really did think that most of the guys available on offense this year sucked, both in the draft and FA. I've never been a big fan of building a team that is strong on one side of the ball, weak as a kitten on the other. Hopefully, its just the intense frustration and skepticism I've developed for this Bills offense over the last 4-5 years talking, but I see a team that's weak right up the middle, both in the passing game and running game (lack of a quality C and TE), and I think its going to haunt them until they fix it.

Yeah, when I heard that comment, it definitely made me think they had a TE targeted higher than they actually picked one. You certainly can't complain with how they filled the other three major needs.

Taken alone, maybe, but don't forget that they still have the boat anchor on the other side of the ball to deal with. If the offense doesn't show significant improvement this year, this defense is going to look an awful lot worse than it really is because they'll be on the field the whole game. Hopefully Hardy will hit the ground running, but they've given themselves no plan B this offseason and if he struggles as a rookie, there's not much reason for optimism about this Bills offense, at least IMO, and its going to translate into problems for the defense as well.

Trust me, you don't want to know what I think of the overall direction of this offseason with so much concentration on one phase of a team that was hideous in two. While I really like the guys they added in the draft as individual players, as well as those they picked up last month, I'm far from convinced that the sum of these additions is going to make a significant difference in terms of wins and losses in '08. I hope I'm wrong about that.