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A little early since I'll be out and about spreading the good word and won't be able to post for a bit. Enjoy the 4th and remember those before us.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? In God We Trust This picture was taken standing on sacred ground, the Arizona Memorial looking up through the ceiling at the Flag (June 2012): http://

This is why today is celebrated and why America is here: When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.  He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.  He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:  For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.  He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Pffft! A warrant? Why you gotta be giving these hard working cops a hard time about such a trivial matter as that? They wouldn't do stuff like kick down people's doors and shoot dogs if it wasn't in the best interest of your safety, so why you gotta be busting their balls about this?

Right or wrong, you want attention you're going to get it.   Politically...does this sort of thing help or hurt the 2A cause? Tactically...sorry, retarded.   However, before you OCers attack me, I had this experience just yesterday... On duty, in uniform, I zip into Walmart to grab something.  Dude walking around, shopping, and OCing an XD (open-topped floppy IWB, turned backwards, and clipped to a pocket...more retardedness). Anyway, someone asks, "Are you going to check him out?" Me, "Uhh, no."       "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

  I got to thinking. This IS TGO, so out of 520 posts, there had to be some mention of Jesus already. Add to that, Erik is kind of a homo. I think we were already there! :) 

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. There's a way to accomplish a goal - this isn't it.

I wouldn't waste a good cigarette on somebody that's stupid enough to open carry an AR.

  There's the succinct pith of the matter. I haven't called BHO the Antichrist purely in jest.   Just because I'm agnostic doesn't mean I don't believe that evil exists, and it has always manifested itself most effectively through political power -- history is replete with the documentation. There's no reason our short experiment will be immune.   - OS

  And what little they do is usually not correct. 

Don't get me started...lol  As a Civil War historian and reenactor it burns my rear that we cannot fly the confederate flag in some places we go. It's not politically correct to a certain group of people. It's my heritage! If a couple certain groups of people can show their African flags, or Mexican flags...why not me? My Great Great Grandfather fought for the Confederacy and I'm damn proud of it!   Dave S

  I'm convinced you are nothing but a troll. 

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/03/superhero-husband-hogties-burglar-leaves-him-in-the-yard-for-police-and-goes-to-work-as-planned/   Guy hog ties the criminal out in the yard, tells his wife to call the cops and then he goes on in to work  :rock:

Two Hundred Thirty Six years ago a few brave Men stood and said "No More". Today we thank them for it.

Wow, 3rd amendment? Pretty neat precedent to challenge them on. This should be interesting.

  I wonder if he is still involved there?   (last appearance here was Jan '12, btw).   - OS

I'd like to hear Mike Crowe's side of the story.  I have dealt with him and have known him for 5 or 6 years, I consider him a friend.   You, a newcomer to TGO comes in and bashes a store and a man I know and respect.  Did you join here just to throw dirt at Austins?

that is one hell of a sentence.

  Where you been, Spots? They don't recognize those rights. If you open carry an AR, you're gonna tangle with the cops, and they're gonna win (at least on the front end). Your (or my) interpretation doesn't matter. Getting your rifle confiscated to make a statement is stupid in my book. It ain't the way to make things change.

Yeah. Screw that guy for exercising his second amendment right to Keep and BEAR arms. He should be a good little subject and keep all his firearms hidden like they are illegal or wrong or bad. Tapatalk ate my spelling.

  First thing I thought when I saw this on Facebook... Is that guy a Walgreen's manager? :)

  It's an Illinois thing. Don't forget, politicians have their own cell block at the state pen in Illinois, and it stays occupied. :)

^^^^^ never filling one of them out.  Definitely a deal breaker for me in a FTF purchase.

http://reason.com/archives/2013/07/04/a-not-so-happy-fourth-of-july Do you have more personal liberty today than on the Fourth of July 2012? When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he used language that has become iconic. He wrote that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not only did he write those words, but the first Congress adopted them unanimously, and they are still the law of the land today. By acknowledging that our rights are inalienable, Jefferson's words and the first federal statute recognize that our rights come from our humanity -- from within us -- and not from the government. The government the Framers gave us was not one that had the power and ability to decide how much freedom each of us should have, but rather one in which we individually and then collectively decided how much power the government should have. That, of course, is also recognized in the Declaration, wherein Jefferson wrote that the government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. To what governmental powers may the governed morally consent in a free society? We can consent to the powers necessary to protect us from force and fraud, and to the means of revenue to pay for a government to exercise those powers. But no one can consent to the diminution of anyone else's natural rights, because, as Jefferson wrote and the Congress enacted, they are inalienable. Just as I cannot morally consent to give the government the power to take your freedom of speech or travel or privacy, you cannot consent to give the government the power to take mine. This is the principle of the natural law: We all have areas of human behavior in which each of us is sovereign and for the exercise of which we do not need the government's permission. Those areas are immune from government interference. That is at least the theory of the Declaration of Independence, and that is the basis for our 237-year-old American experiment in limited government, and it is the system to which everyone who works for the government today pledges fidelity. Regrettably, today we have the opposite of what the Framers gave us. Today we have a government that alone decides how much wealth we can retain, how much free expression we can exercise, how much privacy we can enjoy. And since the Fourth of July 2012, freedom has been diminished. In the past year, all branches of the federal government have combined to diminish personal freedoms, in obvious and in subtle ways. In the case of privacy, we now know that the federal government has the ability to read all of our texts and emails and listen to all of our telephone calls -- mobile and landline -- and can do so without complying with the Constitution's requirements for a search warrant. We now know that President Obama authorized this, federal judges signed off on this, and select members of Congress knew of this, but all were sworn to secrecy, and so none could discuss it. And we only learned of this because a young former spy risked his life, liberty and property to reveal it. In the past year, Obama admitted that he ordered the CIA in Virginia to use a drone to kill two Americans in Yemen, one of whom was a 16-year-old boy. He did so because the boy's father, who was with him at the time of the murders, was encouraging militants to wage war against the U.S. He wasn't waging war, according to the president; he was encouraging it. Simultaneously with this, the president claimed he can use a drone to kill whomever he wants, so long as the person is posing an active threat to the U.S., is difficult to arrest and fits within guidelines that the president himself has secretly written to govern himself. In the past year, the Supreme Court has ruled that if you are in police custody and fail to assert your right to remain silent, the police at the time of trial can ask the jury to infer that you are guilty. This may seem like a technical ruling about who can say what to whom in a courtroom, but it is in truth a radical break from the past. Everyone knows that we all have the natural and constitutionally guaranteed right to silence. And anyone in the legal community knows that judges for generations have told jurors that they may construe nothing with respect to guilt or innocence from the exercise of that right. No longer. Today, you remain silent at your peril. In the past year, the same Supreme Court has ruled that not only can you be punished for silence, but you can literally be forced to open your mouth. The court held that upon arrest -- not conviction, but arrest -- the police can force you to open your mouth so they can swab the inside of it and gather DNA material from you. Put aside the legal truism that an arrest is evidence of nothing and can and does come about for flimsy reasons; DNA is the gateway to personal data about us all. Its involuntary extraction has been insulated by the Fourth Amendment's requirements of relevance and probable cause of crime. No longer. Today, if you cross the street outside of a crosswalk, get ready to open your mouth for the police. The litany of the loss of freedom is sad and unconstitutional and irreversible. The government does whatever it can to retain its power, and it continues so long as it can get away with it. It can listen to your phone calls, read your emails, seize your DNA and challenge your silence, all in violation of the Constitution. Bitterly and ironically, the government Jefferson wrought is proving the accuracy of Jefferson's prediction that in the long march of history, government grows and liberty shrinks. Somewhere Jefferson is weeping. Happy Fourth of July 2013.

Ok...here is what I was doing: Go to the TGO store, add to shopping cart the 35.00 subscription. Go to check out and get " Oops! Something went wrong! [#20X111-C] This invoice contains items you have already purchased which cannot be purchased again. Please contact an administrator for assistance."     Ok...here is what I did. Deleted the current invoices out from trying to add a new subscription. Click on "PURCHASES" On the right is a "Renew Now" button. Click that "Renew Now" button Go to Paypal and pay.   In short, you can't add another subscription because it already exists in the system even though it is expired. You have to renew your old one, not start a new one.    Mine worked fine doing it this way and went through.

So sad that we dont teach history in school any more.

I think back to many of the interviews with Egyptians I listened to in the weeks before Morsi was elected.  There was a common thread with many of the folks in the rural areas that did not support him.  They similarly did not support the leftovers from Mubarak's cronies, but their concern was that if they elected another Mubarak they would be dealing with the same corruption and a stale economy.  However, with Morsi they were concerned that if he came to power they would never be able to remove him democratically because Morsi would illegally cling to power.   These people get it.  They know the deal when it comes to the ideological fruitcakes.  Morsi was one of them, and if he had stayed in power we would have watched a much better armed and more strategically dangerous enemy emerge from that area of the world.  Maybe things won't be much better with the back and forth that will define the next few years of Egypts political history, but it won't be any worse than what was on the horizon.   It isn't as if I view this as a romantic victory for the future of Egypt.  I know Arab culture well enough to know that there is no hope for that region of the world (and yes, they aren't technically Arabs, but their culture is the same as every other Arab country I've been to).  But the difference is that while the secular movement headed by the armed forces is not our admitted enemy, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were.  I'd rather take my chances with a maybe ally/enemy than a definite enemy.  And I wouldn't even classify the upper echelons of Egyptian officers as "maybe".  They all worked for Mubarak and most of them had rapport with our own military through the aid and joint training exercises we do with them.  I would reason to bet there isn't one officer involved in this coup who hasn't had a professional relationship with our military at some point in time.  The exact opposite is true for Morsi and his cronies.  I'm sure that half the people Morsi hangs out with are on the CIA's kinetic targeting list.

Open carry at a rally is okay as long as it is done in a very responsible manner.  You have to make damn sure you do not break any laws and avoid any type of confrontation.  When I helped organize the rally in Nashville last January I made darn sure all law enforcement agencies were notified of the rally and that people would be exercising their right to carry a firearm on capital grounds.  I also notified the proper state officials and made sure they were aware of the rally.  In the weeks running up to the rally I consistently let the attendees know that law enforcement would be present and that protestors would also likely be there.  I also told them to keep their AR's at home.     The whole thing went extremely well and state law enforcement was extremely impressed with rally.  There were people open carrying handguns and probably over 50% of the crowd was armed.  Like I said, I see no problem with open carrying at a rally as long as the rally is well organized, peaceful, and follows the law in lock step.     You just need to be very careful in choosing the time and place for such events.  I will never go to a rally that is just thrown together and/or plans to be in direct defiance of the law.  That does not help our cause one bit.

I would call it a Tennessee Chicken Snake   Chickenus Snakus:  Any snake residing in the state of Tennessee that is not poisonous, and you are not sure what it is.

I'm not condoning it or saying I do it or would do it. But I can understand people who do it because they are sick and tired of paying to exercise a Constitutional right. This state has no clue what true firearms freedom is. I'm sick and tired of paying $115 to the state and $60 to someone who may or may not know as much or more than me about firearms, firearms safety and carry laws. Sent from the backwoods of Nowhere

A recent study by Congressional Quarterly shows that Senator Alexander voted with President Obama 62% of the time, more often than any other Republican Senator in the South. http://tnreport.com/2013/06/26/tn-liberty-group-plans-protest-of-alexander-voting-record/ = RINO aka Progressive Republican. :down:

Considering the militarization of police departments, how can one tell the difference betwixt the two anymore?

Go to Predator Custom in Knoxville and talk to Bob..I guarantee you ,you wont have a problem...   Karma is a bitch tho... I wouldnt worry to much about the other people. .Garbage in,Garbage out...simple:)

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jul/02/12-year-old-girl-dominates-in-competitive/   Hell I feel good to shoot 20 out of 25 in trap. Hope she does well at the Nationals and makes it to the Jr. Olympics.

I am guessing it is only a matter of time before a useable version is made. When I saw the video I was under the impression this was a type of flashlight that has been around and she just made one for the science fair. I now know that she developed a new type  of flashlight and it has only been around for a couple of months. She is a very impressive young lady, at 15 I was not trying to build a new version of anything.

Maybe he's related to Kwik. 

You could show up and OC one of those Hardee's bacon barbecue Thickburgers.  

  Long as he's a TN resident, good. Should he live in AR or MS (or any other state), illegal by federal law. Just thought I'd mention that since no one else did.   - OS

  Sure. You say that now.   You are almost as bad as myself and Steelharp for acquiring and moving your goodies. :cool:

  Ditto on that. I stopped using the RCBS case lube pad for that very reason. A light coating of Pam works great.

  The defense wouldn't let those kind of people on the jury. I promise you they identified those types, thru questioning, and disqualified them. Of course all the anti's think Z is guilty. Anti's are retarded.

  All the sign does is lie and deciet, hoping to instil some panic in the subjects that might end in an arrest.  It is really unacceptable from a government agency.

Do you have even a remote clue how insulting it is to insinuate that someone who has worn the uniform for eight years (active) and still does in a minor way is a “communist”.  If you’ve served you should understand that, if you haven’t then you’ll never understand which is a pity.   I’m not talking about “committees” and you damn well know it…frankly it’s pretty disingenuous of you to purposely mislead people by claiming that I am. Of course it's alwasy easier to throw insults around than to actually discuss an issue isn't it.   The VOTERS voting in what laws they want to have is not a “committee”; it’s called democracy…voting in representatives who then pass laws the community wants is called a representative democracy. If you don’t like that process then too bad because that IS the process set up by our Constitution.   A lot of people who throw around words like "tyranny" will concurrently proclaim how much they honor and respect and want to follow the Constitution but it seems that they only honor and respect the Constitution when things go the way THEY think things sould be done. :rolleyes:

I have no idea who costa is. Off to google. sent from the backwoods

If voicing my opinion that being gay is morally wrong makes me a homopobe then I guess I'm a homophobe. If you guys will excuse me I have some skinheads over for a beer and a cross to burn later tonight. >_> I love how disagreeing with something makes you a bad guy instantly. I also don't agree with abortion. That doesnt mean I hate people who have had one, or who do agree with it. I don't agree with the gay lifestyle because of my relegious beliefs. That doesn't mean I hate gays or that Im gonna bomb a gay marriage ceremony. I guess some people believe in freedom of choice as long as you agree with the majority sent from the backwoods

Can you grow fried chickens in that?

Not that I know of. And I know you won't get people to admit to it on the internet if they did.

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