btq96r

  I just recently got my first RX for glasses.  At first I thought it wasn't going to make much of a difference because it was a minor RX in the doctors words, but computer reading driving at night is like HD to SD as you mention.  I can only imagine how much worse it gets from here.

  You can find a decent deal on the gun itself.  Then you want an optic, rail system, ect.. Next comes rounds to take it to the range and before long you are staring at the hole in your bank account.

  There is no shot of this going through Congress. If it was pushed through Executive Order (unlikely, but theoretically possible), the firearms industry, NRA and Second Amendment Foundation would be elbowing each other to be the first to file against it in federal court. 

Not sure how many students we have here.  I'm sure some of you old seasoned folks may have some firearms friendly kids in school.   Students for Concealed Carry is staging their Empty Holster Protest week.  Basically its students who want the right to carry on campus carrying an empty holster in plain view to raise awareness.  I'm keeping some literature on me to pass out for anyone who asks and am going to post some on bulletin boards around campus.  It's not a big protest by any means, but it's something.   Help spread the word if you have a student in the family.    http://concealedcampus.org/empty-holster-protest/ https://www.facebook.com/events/1395652437370628/

The sad part about the guys in uniform is the three Brigade Combat teams back home (the other one is in Afghanistan now) have been back for at least a few months, some much longer.  This isn't just Joe going wild after getting off the plane.

  I don't "allow" anything.  States don't have immigration authority.  Making it a state crime to violate a federal law like Arizona did is a no-go.  All they can do is detain someone they determine isn't a citizen (without the profiling BS) until a federal agent takes custody.  I get that the feds aren't doing a bang up job on this, but you can make the argument that the system is so overloaded that prioritizing is needed.  Focusing on the violent gangs or drug traffickers before going after the guy who just wants to pick lettuce or wash dishes to make money to feed his family is okay with me if the resources are accounted for to show that that's the best you can do at the moment.  The topic of more enforcement being needed is separate since it would require an appropriation for the extra money and/or reallocating funds to pay for it.   I disagree with the voter ID laws- I think they stand up to legal challenge- but any law can be brought before the court for adjudication.   The gay marriage issue boils down to equal protection for me.  One involved in marriage, governments can't decide to deny it to anybody like is happening to gays now in some jurisdictions.    The difference between the Federal Constitution and the TN State Constitution involving guns to me is won by the 2nd Amendment.  Tennessee added something that changes the meaning of the intent of the second amendment.

  That's a damned fine and interesting theroy, Daniel.  If George R.R. Martin ever get's around to finishing the last two books we will find out if it's correct or not.

  Two factors in those, power and political necessity.    Immigration is a federal responsibility.  A state can't assume it since they have no power along a national border.  Just because the federal government isn't up to or simply can't handle the problem doesn't give the states the right to usurp it.  The last thing we need is every state along the border deciding what laws they want to enforce or not on top of a federal government that is over their heads with it.   Voter ID challenges are Democrats protecting their voter base.  The Republicans absolutely are passing voter ID laws to suppress the minority vote.  Having not done it up until the minority vote became a major electoral issue sums it up for me.  Problem for Democrats is the courts are finding a voter ID requirement legal.  They need a better strategy to deal with it like proving how the cost is passed along to the voter as a form of a poll tax or combating it by helping voter registration efforts.   Likewise for gay marriage- on both sides.  DOMA was Republicans getting a bill to President Clinton's desk he couldn't possibly veto and attacking gay marriage laws or refusing to defend them is how Democrats tell their base they are fighting them.  In this issue, I agree with the Democrats and will take them doing the right thing out of political necessity. 

Not wanting someone to rub pistols together (even display models) is perfectly reasonable.  However, given the .22 ammo price thread and Authenticman's actions here, I've got an 0-2 count on EW.  If it was already 0-2 against EW, and this thread came along, I'd call a foul tip and wait for more evidence to equal strike three, but someone coming in and going right to the defense of a business is too much of a coincidence not to consider it on an 0-1 count.    Funny part is that consensus was building to the OP being in the wrong for wanting to rub the pistols together.  Authenticman, you could have hung back before coming to EW's rescue and avoided a good bit of this.

  Honestly, in Colorado I think the federal government is sitting back and watching how things go.  They are taking the wait and see approach.  Who knows how this would have played out under a different administration (D or R). Another reason for not taking federal action is that CO isn't the only state that will see legal pot.  Washington is legal as well and I think other states will get on board soon enough.   I think they could legally be covered if they closed all those shops and applied federal drug laws (not that I agree with those laws) to the store owners.  But since they are wary of overstepping on something that was passed by the state through a ballot measure.  Also, sending in the FBI or DEA for such a minor thing wouldn't win them any PR battles.  Now, if a state legalized what are now NFA weapons, you would see them squash that, riki tik.  But weed isn't something the federal government is willing to battle the states on anymore.   I also wouldn't be surprised if they were holding back just to see how much of a tax revenue this could become. Even if there is no direct federal taxation, Colorado adding money from the 25% tax they apply to weed would lessen their need for federal funding.

The bottom line is that every amendment of the Constitution applies to the states the same way it applies to the federal government.  It wasn't always this way as OS points out, but rulings are leaning toward blanket coverage across all levels of government for the Constitution. Since legislative bodies couldn't care about that finer point, people need the courts to help settle this under the system of checks and balances.  Every law is up for challenge and McDonald was a perfect example of holding a local government to account under the Incorporation Theory.    For things not expressly addressed in the Constitution, state law is supposed to be the order of the day, but the catch all's such as Necessary and Proper and Commerce Clause have been upheld many times.  The Supremacy Clause is also going to come into play to support N&P and Commerce when state and federal laws collide.  This is why Obamacare is legal as a tax for example.

It's an addicting series and the acting is top notch- Spacey especially.  Having this show on Netflix with their method of releasing entire seasons at once save me the fury of having to watch week to week like we have to with other shows (Game of Thrones being a prime example).   Enjoy the show.

  That site was good when I was looking around before moving to Murfreesboro, but I found Zillow to be amazing for looking up properties.

The books are huge ( five books at about 900-1200 pages each), but they are awesome reads. It gives you a great appreciation for how the characters are portrayed in the series. This may actually be the only series where the books it's adapted from are respected, what's changed sort of had to be to make it work for TV. If George R.R. Martin ever gets The Winds of Winter and the final book after that done, I'll be amazed. I'd love to know how far into the manuscript he is. He's loosing time; season 4 of the series is the 2nd half of book #3, but books 4&5 will be heavily chopped down for TV adaptation, I think. There is a lot in them that won't come across as anything but boring on screen. HBO Go (if you subscribe to HBO) has all three seasons available for those that need to catch up. Also, I find this hilarious and true.

  There are workarounds for hardware as well.  I only get a new computer when the old one is on its last leg.  I've made all my laptops run for about 4 years with some mid-life services, and I use my laptop all the time for personal and professional reasons.  Usually that involves a new HDD and a RAM upgrade if I had a 64-bit OS.  In 2012, I jumped from XP to Win7 along with a new HDD and doubled the RAM and was good for another two years.  I also keep a fresh ghost image around for emergencies and make sure to backup my Libary folders to an external drive (I'm not in love with the cloud yet) at least once a week as a general practice.  For me, buying a new computer is a rare event and a last resort.   Concur with the others who think business will wait for Microsoft to give them something better than Win8 while Win7 is still more than adequate for their needs.

Guess I missed the boat for those Gen 4 Glocks.  Would have been too good to pass up.

  Microsoft couldn't force Vista on me. I stayed with XP until I upgraded to Windows 7 in early 2012  I was fully prepared to keep XP until Windows 7 proved itself a stable platform for my needs.  I'll do the same as I roll with Windows 7 while they keep trying to nudge people into Windows 8.

I'll run Windows 7 until it dies or the next Windows OS comes out and hopefully keeps the MS trend going of a bad OS followed by a good OS.  I have a 64-bit version of Windows 7 with 16GB of RAM; I'm good to hook for anything I need.  You couldn't pay me to install Windows 8 on my laptop.   For those of you on the fence with older, soon to be unserviceable hardware, I'd recommend looking into a Windows 7 Computer while they're still available.  Sooner or later you won't be able to find a vendor selling one and may have Windows 8 forced upon you.

  No kidding.  I swear, if everybody had to pay taxes like self employed folks do instead of through payroll withholding, there would be a revolt within a fortnight.  Writing that check every year makes me want to drink.    All my income from 2013 came as a 1099 and my amount due is enough to put buying a new long gun on the back burner for a while.

  I'd imagine it covers more than the administrative costs.  And it's not a trivial amount of revenue; it's over $23 million spread over a four year span.   Take the number of current HCP holders- 460,530 and even excluding the initial application fee of $115, calculate how much the renewal cost is ($50) for all of them and it comes out to $23,026,500, or $5.75 million a year since the permit is good for 4 years.  If anybody has an argument that the HCP program costs the state that much to run, I'm all ears.

I'd love it if this bill passed and TN became a "Constitutional  Carry " carry state, but there are downsides.  The state coffers would need to find some way to make up for the lost revenue (that $115 fee adds up when you apply it to everybody that has a permit) and this would cause issues for those of us who travel and would need an issued state HCP to receive reciprocal carry rights across state lines if they stoped issuing permits.

  Didn't notice the dueling threads...maybe a moderator can merge them.   Either way, read the bottom part for the debunking of this being President Clinton's fault. http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/topic/77607-fort-hood-again/?p=1133553

I just looked over the documents that prompted this "outrage".  In the entire thing, this is the only part written about the 2nd Amendment is below.  They also had a CNN article about the NRA, Congress and the President that were in the list of "documents" from the pretend threat.   Information Findings and Recommendations: 52nd CST identified some information of law enforcement value in the building. All of the Down ragne documents that had a URL address listed on the bottom were downloaded and are included in the termination packet. On the chalk board as well as the tables there were several statements about protecting Gun Rights and Second Amendment rights. Additionally a phone number was written on the chalk board with the label William “the boss” Pierce (USPER), 304-539-6221 Area code for Charleston, WV. Below is a list of the documents the CST was able to identify.   OFP is right- a civil support team from the National Guard isn't a commando team in the least.  When I start seeing an exercise that has troops from a combat arms unit doing cordon & searches with confiscate firearms as a task from higher, I'll be upset.   That's even if you can get enough troops to show up for drill.   Also, those backwoods militias should be considered a threat and planned for.  Some of them are stupid and harmless; others are a dangerous amount of crazy and unpredictable.

  They've been trying to find a middle ground audience between MSNBC and Fox News.  They are ahead of MSNBC in the ratings for most time blocks, but well behind Fox News in all of them.    All told though, the amount of cable news ratings on an average day/night isn't as big as all the hoopla about the networks would indicate.  Especially when compared to the size of the adult population or even the voting numbers.

  I made my rental agent stand-by with me while I read the entire lease line by line.  Since there was no mention of it anywhere, I specifically asked about an HOA- there was none.  The fact that there was no HOA was only more important by my place being walking distance to my school (so I could get some free exercise and save gas money) and the crime rate in the area.  I've seen them get completely out of control for what are petty things.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  Signing onto one that bans firearms would be an absolute no-go with me...and everybody here, I'm sure.  Everybody in that HOA should be cringing that their neighborhood has been declared a gun free zone in the open press.  Maybe a right lawyer showing how the HOA could be found liable for damages and loss resulting from a break-in, or the cost benefit analysis to defend against one in court would get them to change their mind.   I make it a rule never to be in a rush to sign anything.  If that means I make a follow on appointment, take a contract out of an office for a little homework instead of signing it there, that's time well spent to me.  Know what you are signing is the best advise anyone can get.  Don't ever be afraid to ask for clarification about something that confuses you from a friend, family or to look it up yourself.