JayC

I agree the size of the knife doesn't matter, but with the intent to go armed language being so vague under current state law it just seems a long shot you'd get charged... and it seems case law would indicate that is the case... Think about it, if you could be charged for no other reason than having a pocket knife, then a college professor could be charged with having a letter opener I agree, OS something else is going on to get noticed and charged... Well you know my opinion of the poorly crafted 'intent to go armed' language we have here in TN... Not only do we have college campuses we can't carry on, but we have roving felony zones all over the state because of that poor wording. Anywhere there is a school or university sponsored activity automatically becomes a felony zone (and if the AG is to be believed they don't have to bother posting). We need to change the school weapons laws to only apply to minor students. Not to law abiding adults.

I think you under estimate some small part of the American population... There are a number of folks who have drawn a line in the sand, and gun confiscation (or a semi-auto gun ban) is well past it. It would never make it to the court before the federal government would be fighting an armed insurgency in this country. And it would make the 'civil war' look like a girl scout picnic. At some point living under tyranny is no longer the best choice, and some folks will take up their banned firearms and start taking shots at people who work for the government that no longer represents them... look at Libya or Egypt as examples.

That intent to go armed language is so up in the air... I couldn't find a single case in the last 10 years of somebody being convicted for having a pocket knife under 4 inches on a college campus in TN. Is there any case law to back up that simply carrying a sub-4 inch knife has been ruled as intent to go armed?

Sorry, didn't mean to make it out like you're a socialist. I disagree that taking any deduction (paying less in taxes) is ever freeloading... It's nothing like welfare where somebody who doesn't make their own money is given money by the government after taking it from productive members of society. Where as in the situation you describe, both are paying more than their fair share, and neither are receiving any money they didn't earn from the government, only one is receiving a break in how much of his hard earned money he has to pay to the government to support freeloaders. It's a huge difference... one is freeloading, the other is not. Tax deductions don't redistribute wealth... Tax credits on the other hand are bad... if you made the example of a renter and a home buyer, and how the home buyer pays no taxes and still gets an $8k check back from the government, that is freeloading. But deductions aren't the same thing.... 100% of the money earned by both people (in your example) belongs to them... where as somebody who receives welfare is getting somebody elses money. Now, the entire tax deductions used to create social engineering business is sad... and the government shouldn't be in that business at all... but it's not freeloading to take advantage of tax deductions.

Umm you realize that certain "white collar" federal convictions are exempted from current federal law restricting the right to own a firearm right?

You're making a critical mistake in your logic... People who receive a mortgage interest deduction aren't receiving a penny from Government. It's their money and the government is just stealing a little bit less from them. Whereas somebody receiving welfare isn't paying income taxes. The government (ie you and me) are giving them free money. There is a huge difference between not paying more in taxes and therefore keeping more of your own earned money, and getting money from the Government that you didn't earn.

How about we just get the government off of businesses back... they might not have to send jobs overseas to compete. In my field, outsourcing barely makes sense today... if labor was less expensive here in the states, it would be down right stupid to outsource. Now, ask yourself how much government overhead is there on hiring you? Not just the plaining visible taxes, but all the crazy government paper and rules that makes it just that much more expensive to hire employees here... If we would just get rid of the government overhead, everybody would enjoy much better employment opportunities.

How about we get rid of welfare altogether... and not worry about the drug tests?

I'm shocked... or at least I wish I was shocked.

My point isn't that a public area can or can't be leased to a 'private entity' (I don't like it at all frankly, but it's done on a regular basis). My issue is a public street and sidewalk can't be posted per TN law under any circumstances. If it can be think about what a city up to no good could do. Want to make your city a no-carry zone? Post all entrances to the city... either by turning them into public parks, or by 'leasing' the streets to a private group and allowing them to post. See the problem? If you can post streets under 39-17-1359, you don't even need a vote by the city council, the public works director can post them without anybodies approval (or the city manager). This is effectively what has happened in downtown Memphis, they've turned a public street and sidewalk which receives state road funding into a posted area. As for the knives collected by the police department, even if they are collected as an alternative to being escorted out, I'm willing to bet department policy requires that property to be logged and turned in, not pocketed or tossed in the trash. I'm just curious if that was done in this case or not.

If I was a betting man, I'd place my bets on the RINO of a House Speaker Beth 'anti-gun' Harwell.

As they replace the signs, they'll change the wording... but that might take 30 years

Public Schools have the ability to dismiss disruptive students just like charter schools... Even if you can't completely get rid of the disruptive students you can warehouse them together with the cheapest baby sitters you can find. Make 90% of your teaching different levels of charter schools, and leave the bottom to 10% for the disruptive students... Much better than the current game plan. It doesn't change the fact that local control would solve a lot of these problems... If the parents who go to school A fund school A and control who gets hired and fired from school A, school A and it's staff will be much more responsive to the parents. Our current model is to force teaching methods/processes down from the federal and state government, and leave the parents with little or no say in the education of their children. I for one will not be sending my children to day prison when it comes time to get an education.

I've already describe the only legal way I can think of for a city council to do it... which is to annex the street into a park, and include that street in the park ordinance as per current state law. But, that would require that the street be a city owned and managed street, not a county or state managed street since they couldn't annex a street owned/managed by another entity. That would be a very drawn out process in most cities, requiring 3 readings to implement, and 3 readings to de-annex the street, my *guess* is that they're not going through the trouble to do so. It's not directly impacting me, it just goes to show we need to remove the ability for all levels of governments to post public land, and maybe even public buildings. (With exceptions that only places which are off limits to all persons no matter their job title can be made off limits to permit holders). If it was happening here in Nashville, I'd make a trip down to the city and pull a copy of the contract, but it's not worth the drive to Chattanooga to find out.

You can carry in all state parks. The law didn't require them to remove the signs. City or County parks are an entirely different story.

I don't see how a city rents a public street and sidewalk to a private entity. The park, sure... but public streets can't be posted, the same for public sidewalks. The simple solution is for the legislature to take away the ability for any government buildings to be posted.

People need the ability to bring and prosecute criminal charges against public officials... Public servants going to jail, loosing their job is the only way to bring things back in balance.

I'm sorry I just don't buy it... Converting a public street and sidewalk to a city park... I don't see how they do that via a contract... They would have to pass something (normally after 3 readings) to annex the property into the park, and by state law to post it, pass an ordinance to post it, then reverse the process (again with 3 readings) afterwards. My guess, they just make stuff up as the go along, hoping that nobody that understand the law calls them on it... What do they have to loose? More tax payer money from loosing a lawsuit for doing something illegal? It's not like they get arrested, loose their job, or pay out of pocket.

Some of it is sarcastic, some of it isn't... How come teachers in some of the worse areas of the country are able to get 95+% college acceptance rates (and virtually 100% high school graduation rates), while the public school 2 blocks down the road is barely able to graduate 50% of it's students, and almost none go to college? And corporal punishment isn't the difference... because neither allow it. I'm not saying that parents aren't involved as much as they should be... nor am I saying that the stupid PC culture we've created isn't creating 2 generations of monsters who think they deserve 100k jobs right out of college. But, the education system (controlled at the state and federal levels) is fundamentally broken, it's not repairable... The only way to fix it, is to go back to a locally administered and funded model where parents have a much greater influence over the standards of the schools their children attend.

We're a generation or two past that point already. We're not free today, nothing like the pre-WWI generations were, not even like the pre-depression generations were. The government already views us as serf's who need to be cared for and told what they can or can't do. We're a generation away from being the next China or Soviet Union.... but we lost freedom, and god given rights 2 generations back, if not 3.

Yeah that is the ticket, it's because we don't allow teachers to discipline their students that we're doing such a poor job at educating them. Has nothing to do with teachers unions... or requiring both public and private schools to only higher 'certified' teachers.... or we can't treat teachers like evry other employee where their pay is based on job performance... or the fact we over pay teachers by a country mile in this state Nahh, it's all the kids and their parents fault. How exactly do these charter schools succeed in some of the worse areas of the country, and they don't allow corporal punishment either? Hmm Here is part of the problem... 10 years into their career, a tenured teacher works about 1400-1600 hours a year... You take any other highly skilled white collar profession that requires 4 to 6 years of education making about 65k a year... computer administrator, engineer, cpa, mba, etc and they are working 3100-3400 hours a year for the same salary and probably not nearly as good benefits... (and trust me, in many cases when you factor in having to be reachable 24/7 those folks are working a lot more than 3400 hours) All the while being evaluated on job performance... Sure there are teachers out there that should earn 65k, or even 100k... But, they should be the top of their field, not somebody who just does enough to get by...

No, clear and credible threat... a warrant, or an arrest no exceptions. But otherwise I agree with you.

Historically some people break the law and rob banks... so we should just place TSA agents to pat you down and questions you anytime you want to visit a bank... What 4th Amendment? Schools and proms are pretty safe places to be... If you can justify violating the 4th amendment because some "crime" happens at a prom, then they can violate the 4th amendment anywhere.

How about we get the state out of the education business altogether? Frankly most teachers are way overpaid for what little they do. Public School has turned into a children's day prison, and the results show we're not even doing that very well. We did pretty well before the civil war educating children in this country with no state or federal involvement in schools, and it would be a lot better for this country and state to go back to that model... Have schools funded and controlled at the local level with little or no input from the state, and none what so ever from the federal government.

I'd be curious to to see what happened to that private property... I bet it didn't get checked into the property or evidence room. Also since when are knifes under 4 inches in length considered weapons? Also, I thought state law doesn't allow the posting of streets and sidewalks? Only parks, and buildings owned by a city/county? But rumor has it, the Memphis police are doing the exact same thing downtown, posting a public street.