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AR-15 Rifles, Pistols & Tactical Gear | Gun Store in Roanoke, TX

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Personal Safety

Tennessee law: deadly force allowed for property defense?

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The video above covers a Tennessee bill that would let people use deadly force to defend property, not just life. As of this writing the bill hasn’t become law, and legislation like this gets amended, stalled, or killed all the time, so check the current status of Tennessee law before you act on anything you read here. I’m not a lawyer either; I’m Lance Rankin, a gunsmith and FFL dealer in Roanoke, Texas, and I watch this stuff because my customers ask me about it every week.

It’s worth watching, because this debate is coming to more states than Tennessee.

The case for the bill

The logic from supporters is blunt: don’t steal, and none of this applies to you. Property isn’t just stuff. A stolen work truck or a cleaned-out small business can wreck a family’s livelihood, and the current law expects the owner to hesitate and second-guess while the criminal acts without any hesitation at all. One representative’s line about owners being “expected to wait, expected to hesitate, expected to second guess” got quoted a lot during the debate, and I understand why it landed.

Supporters also argued that jail time has stopped deterring theft in a lot of places, and brazen daylight crime reflects that. Raising the stakes, in their view, is the only deterrent left. The bill isn’t a blank check: it requires a reasonable belief that deadly force is immediately necessary with no other option, it explicitly doesn’t cover shooting someone who’s running away or has their back turned, and a jury can review the whole thing afterward.

The case against it

The concerns are real too, and I won’t wave them off. What happens when someone misreads a situation? During the debate, a representative raised the example of a person with dementia wandering onto the wrong property. Add the wrong-driveway and wrong-door incidents we’ve all seen in the news, and you can see how a law like this could end in a tragedy that no jury instruction fixes.

There’s also the older moral question: theft alone isn’t always a threat to a life. If a thief is grabbing and running, is lethal force the right answer? The bill leaves more room for interpretation there than I’d like, and gray areas in deadly force law get resolved in courtrooms, at the defendant’s expense.

Where I land

Here in Texas we already have some of the broadest property-defense law in the country, and my take after years behind this counter is the same either way: what the law allows and what’s wise are two different questions. A statute might keep you out of prison. It won’t un-fire the shot, and it won’t spare you the civil suit, the legal bills, or living with a mistake.

So I’m sympathetic to the bill’s premise. The burden should sit on the person who chose to commit the crime, not the person who worked for what’s being stolen. But if you carry or keep a gun for defense, your plan should be built around protecting people, with property a distant second. Know your own state’s law cold, and know what comes after the trigger; my post on what to do and not do after a self-defense shooting covers that. Better yet, invest in the prevention side so the question never comes up. My guide to surviving and preventing a home invasion is where I’d start.

Watch how this one plays out in Tennessee. Whatever passes there will show up in another statehouse soon enough.

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Practical preparedness: home defense and firearms without the panic

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Every time the news gets ugly, my phone rings more. That’s been true for as long as I’ve owned this shop, and I get it. But here’s the thing I tell every one of those callers: preparedness that starts with a headline usually ends with a rushed purchase. The better version starts on a quiet Tuesday when nothing’s wrong.

I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport here in Roanoke, Texas, just north of Fort Worth. The shop’s been here since 2007, and I’ve watched enough buying panics come and go to have opinions about them.

Buy before the rush, not during it

When demand spikes, the good stuff goes first. Anyone who tried to buy ammo or a quality rifle during the 2020 rush remembers empty shelves and doubled prices. The pattern repeats every few years, and the people who shopped calmly beforehand always came out ahead of the people paying scalper prices in week three.

That’s not a scare tactic to get you to buy today. It’s the opposite. Take your time, do it right, and do it while you have the luxury of options.

There’s no one-size-fits-all gun

The right firearm for your plan comes down to three honest questions:

What’s the actual job? Concealed carry, home defense, ranch and varmint work, and range days are different problems. A gun that’s great at one is often mediocre at another. If home defense is the priority, I’ve laid out my thinking on a home defense AR-15 setup and the best home defense handguns.

What’s your experience level? A tool is only as good as the person running it. There’s no shame in starting simple. My guide to the best AR-15s for beginners exists because “just buy what the SEALs use” is terrible advice for a first-time owner.

What’s the budget? Reliable doesn’t have to mean expensive. There are price points I won’t go below because the guns aren’t dependable, but above that line there’s solid gear at every budget. I’d rather sell you a $600 gun you’ll train with than a $2,500 gun that makes you skip the ammo budget.

Gear is the easy part

A safe full of rifles isn’t a plan. The plan is knowing where the gun is staged, who in the house does what when the alarm goes off, and how you get everyone to a safe room. I walk through all of that in my post on surviving and preventing a home invasion, and it applies whether you own one revolver or a whole collection.

Training belongs in the budget too. Dry-fire practice is free, range time is cheap compared to the gun itself, and both matter more than the next accessory.

Ask somebody who does this all day

Barrel profiles, calibers, twist rates, AR-15 versus AR-10: the spec-sheet rabbit hole is deep, and you don’t have to go down it alone. This is what I do for a living. Tell me what you’re trying to accomplish and what you want to spend, and I’ll tell you what I’d buy, including when the honest answer is the cheaper option.

You can browse the store at westernsport.com/shop, or reach me directly at [email protected] or 817-393-4000. We ship nationwide through your local FFL and do local pickup by appointment here in Roanoke.

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Rankin Industries AR-15 16.25 inch suppressed rifle

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This one’s mine. Not “mine” as in a brand we carry, but mine as in I build it. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and Rankin Industries is my own manufacturing line, the stuff that comes off my bench with my name on it. The 16.25 inch suppressed rifle is the build I’m proudest of, so let me walk you through it the way I would if you were standing in the shop.

The idea behind it

I wanted a rifle that’s suppressed all the time, not a rifle that sometimes wears a can. The suppressor on this build is permanently attached to the barrel, and the combined length comes in at 16.25 inches. That number is the whole trick: because a permanently attached suppressor counts toward barrel length, the finished gun is legally just a rifle. No short-barreled rifle registration. The suppressor itself still needs its normal tax stamp, since it’s an NFA item, but that’s the only stamp involved, and in my opinion if you’re going to be on a registry for something, a hearing-protection device is the thing to be on it for. I covered that whole line of thinking in my post on converting AR pistols to rifles.

The practical result is a package about the length of a bare 16-inch carbine that shoots quiet, shoots soft, and never has a can hanging off the end making it front-heavy.

What goes into the build

Because the suppressor is a permanent part of the barrel, I get to tune the whole rifle around it instead of guessing. Suppressors change everything downstream: more back-pressure, more gas, a different recoil impulse. On a build like this I set the gas system up for suppressed fire from the start, so the gun runs clean and flat instead of overgassed and filthy the way a lot of rifles do the first time somebody threads a can onto them.

The suppressor uses a baffle design I settled on after plenty of trial and error, and it takes the edge off both the noise and the recoil. I’ll be straight with you about what suppressed means: it’s not the movie “pfft.” A 5.56 rifle is still loud. But it’s a dramatically more pleasant loud, easier on your ears and on everyone standing next to you at the range.

Inside, the rifle runs my own Rankin Industries SP4-coated bolt carrier group, which matters double on a suppressed gun. Suppressors push carbon back into the action, and the SP4 coating means that fouling wipes off instead of baking on. If you want the background on why I coat my BCGs the way I do, that’s its own post. Furniture and configuration are flexible; since it’s built to order out of a Type 07 manufacturer’s shop, we can set up stock, trigger, and handguard the way you want them.

Trade-offs, because there are always trade-offs

The can is married to the barrel forever. You can’t move it to another host, and when the suppressor eventually needs service, the barrel comes with it. You also wait on the ATF for the suppressor approval before you take it home, and I can’t promise you what that wait looks like the month you order. If you want one suppressor to rotate across five guns, this isn’t your setup. If you want one rifle that’s permanently, properly quiet, it is.

See it and hear it

There’s video below so you can hear what it actually sounds like instead of taking my word for it. If you want one, or want to talk through a variation, email me at [email protected] or call 817-393-4000. We ship nationwide through your local FFL, and the shop has current availability. I build these myself, so when you ask a question about one, you’re asking the guy who made it.

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Why it pays to buy your firearms from a reputable dealer

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Every gun I sell, somebody’s safety eventually depends on. That’s how I think about this business. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and after years behind the counter and the workbench, I’ve seen what happens when folks buy from the wrong outfit: gray-market guns with no warranty support, “new” firearms that were clearly returns, transfers botched so badly the buyer waited weeks. Here’s how to avoid all that.

Your three basic options

Brick-and-mortar stores let you handle the gun and talk to a human before you buy. That’s worth a lot, especially on your first purchase. The trade-offs are real too: smaller inventory and usually higher prices, because retail floor space isn’t free.

Online dealers offer the widest selection and the sharpest prices. Buying a gun online is legal and, done right, completely routine: the dealer ships to a licensed FFL near you, and you do your background check there at pickup. If that process is new to you, I wrote a step-by-step guide to buying a gun online. The catch is that you can’t put your hands on the gun first, and you’re trusting the seller’s honesty about condition, which is exactly why reputation matters so much online.

Private sellers can be a source for discontinued or collectible pieces, but you get no warranty, no recourse, and no quality check beyond your own eyeball. Know your state’s rules on private transfers, and if you’re not experienced enough to inspect a used gun properly, bring someone who is, or have a gunsmith look it over. That inspection is a service we offer, and it has saved customers from some genuine lemons.

What separates a real dealer from a website with a logo

Track record first. Reviews across years, not just a burst of five-stars from last month. We’ve earned over 300 five-star Google reviews, and I mention that not to brag but because that’s exactly the kind of signal I’d look for if I were shopping somewhere else. A physical location and a phone number a human answers count for a lot too. So does a clean record with outside organizations.

Second, factory relationships. An authorized dealer gets its inventory straight from the manufacturer or its distributors, which means full warranty support and no mystery about where the gun’s been. We’re an authorized Daniel Defense dealer, and that relationship exists because the manufacturer vetted us, not just because we found somebody with stock to flip.

Third, expertise on staff. A good dealer can tell you why a gun fits your needs, or why it doesn’t. If the answer to every question is “yeah, that one’s great,” walk. I’d rather talk a customer out of the wrong gun than sell it to them; that customer comes back.

Fourth, service after the sale. Guns are machines. Machines occasionally need work. A dealer with a real gunsmith in-house, warranty handling, and a straightforward return policy is worth a few dollars more per purchase, every time.

How we’ve set things up

Western Sport is a family business, and it’s built to be exactly the kind of dealer I’ve described. I’m a Type 07 FFL, a licensed manufacturer, which means the gunsmithing and custom build work happens in-house rather than getting shipped off. My wife Donna keeps our compliance airtight, which is not glamorous but is precisely what you want from the people handling your paperwork. We’re primarily an online store with local pickup by appointment here in Roanoke, just north of Fort Worth, and we handle FFL transfers for $40 plus $10 for the NICS check if you buy elsewhere and need a local dealer.

If you’re shopping for your first firearm, my beginner AR-15 guide is a good starting point, or just browse the shop. Questions before you buy anything, from us or anyone else? Email [email protected] or call 817-393-4000. Good dealers don’t mind questions. That’s kind of the whole point.

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Why quality matters in a self-defense gun

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A defensive firearm has exactly one job: work the first time, every time, when you’re scared and it’s dark and nobody’s had coffee. I’m Lance Rankin, owner and gunsmith at Western Sport in Roanoke, Texas, and a good share of my repair bench over the years has been budget guns that failed their owners at the range. Better the range than the hallway at 2 a.m. Here’s my case for buying quality, and how to think through what kind of gun fits your situation.

What “quality” actually means

Not fancy. Not expensive for its own sake. Quality in a defensive gun means consistent ignition, feeding, and extraction over thousands of rounds; parts machined to spec so nothing beats itself loose; and a manufacturer with a track record long enough to prove both. A $450 pistol from a proven maker beats a $900 boutique gun with no history behind it. When seconds count and help is minutes away, the gun you bet on should have a resume.

The failures I see in the shop are rarely dramatic. It’s soft primer strikes from a weak striker spring. Magazines with followers that tilt. Extractors that skip a case every 200 rounds. At the range that’s an annoyance. In a defensive gun it’s disqualifying.

The three basic choices

Handguns are the concealable, keep-it-close option. A pistol lives in a nightstand safe or on your belt, and it’s the only real answer if you carry outside the home. The trade-off is that handguns are genuinely the hardest firearms to shoot well under stress. If you go this route, budget for training and practice ammo, not just the gun.

Shotguns are the traditional home-defense pick, and inside a house a 12-gauge with a good defensive load is devastatingly effective. But forget the myth that you don’t have to aim; at hallway distances the pattern is only a few inches wide. Recoil is stout, capacity is limited, and running a pump gun correctly under stress takes more practice than people admit. Smaller-framed shooters especially should try before buying.

Rifles, and for home defense that mostly means an AR-15, are what I recommend to more customers than anything else. A carbine is easier to shoot accurately than a pistol, softer-shooting than a shotgun, holds plenty of rounds, and modern defensive 5.56 loads perform well without the over-penetration horror stories that get repeated about them. If you’ve got acreage or livestock and coyotes, the same rifle covers that too. I laid out a complete home-defense AR-15 setup in another post, including the optic question, and if you’re new to the platform, start with my best AR-15s for beginners.

Fit the gun to you, not the forum

Three honest questions settle most of it. Can you physically run the gun, including racking the slide or action and managing the recoil? What’s the actual scenario, a rural property, an apartment, daily carry? And how much will you truly train? A simple, forgiving gun you practice with beats an optimized setup you don’t. There’s no shame in the boring answer.

And whichever way you go, dry-fire practice and a few range sessions a year matter more than any upgrade. The gun is maybe a third of the equation.

Buy it right

Quality also means buying from someone accountable. We’re a family shop, we test what we sell, and if something’s wrong with your gun, you can get me on the phone. Browse the shop, or if the online process is new to you, my guide to buying a gun online walks through exactly how it works, including shipping to your local FFL. Questions about what fits your situation? Email [email protected] or call 817-393-4000. This is a conversation I have every week, and I’m glad to have it with you.

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