Thanks for confirming what I already know.  I thought I was missing out on something I could have been exploiting.

.....nope, that's not it.....here's a repost of my reply above, so you really get it....
The myth is, that is constantly repeated, that 40% of gun sales at gun shows go without a background check.  this 40 percent figure comes from a 1997 report by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency within the Department of Justice, and was based on a telephone survey sample of just 251 people who acquired firearms in 1993 and 1994. This was years before the NICS system went into effect. Of the 251 participants, 35.7 percent said that they didn’t or “probably” didn’t obtain their gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Because the margin of error was +/– 6 percentage points, it was rounded up to 40 percent, although it could just as easily and legitimately have been rounded down below 30 percent.
In addition, if you subtract people who said they got their gun as a gift, inheritance, or prize, the number dropped from 35.7 percent to 26.4 percent. And, in terms of how many people actually buy firearms at gun shows, the data from this same survey indicated that in 1994, only 3.9 percent of firearms purchases were made at gun shows.

So, the 40% thing is  17 year old myth, about a lack of background checks at gun shows, based on 20 yr old data, from incredibly only 251 people via phone, which had nothing to do with gunshows, and most incredibly, was based on a survey that took place BEFORE THERE WAS A NICS SYSTEM IN PLACE!!!   Hence the "myth of the gun show loophole".  But the media, gun control lobby, and now these snakes the Giffords, all repeat the lies.

I'll take a swing at your curve ball ...

I've been working since I was 8, mowing lawns, selling papers, cleaning tools and sweeping up oil-dri in a garage for $1 an hour.  I've worked in a couple of burger snack bars and restaurants, Pizza Hut, the college's math department on work-study at minimum wage 10 hours a week, textile mills for Summer to save for school (scholarships don't pay for everything you need), bowling alley as a janitor, school bus driver, etc. etc. etc. 

I graduated college on an Air Force ROTC 4-year scholarship, not because I had straight A's in High School, but because I was able to maintain an A- GPA while staying on the honor roll every quarter, working at least 2 jobs each semester, doing very well in band, participating in Jr ROTC (rising to Sqdn Dep. Cmdr), and learning a ton about cameras, darkrooms, and photography in the HS Photography Club,  Growing up poor, any extracurricular expenses had to come out of my own pocket.  My mother and grandmother supported us three kids with the basics. We were on Food Stamps for a while, and all of us kids received free lunches our entire time grades 1-12.

After graduation and commissioning, I did my job the best I could.  After 8 1/2 years, during the Clinton military draw-down, I switched from active duty to DoD contractor.  I, too, was not happy that promotions had been slowed -- kind of like you are now.  I've been with that same company for 21 years, and we currently support a Hawaii state-sponsored energy-related contract.

In the 21 years with my current employer, I moved from Virginia to Hawaii, and I've worked to support PACAF, COMPACFLT, and PACOM.  I took these opportunities to improve myself and my employment situation long term.  Each and every time there was a federal budget problem, we were told of the chance of furloughs, lost contracts, and so on.  Only once was I ever in a position where my compensation was reduced.  The rest of the times, we might have to take some leave or work without promise of payment, but things always worked out eventually.

The lesson here is, you might think the state, the federal government, your employer, or whoever else pays your wages owes you something.  The reality is, they do not exist to give you a job nor provide cost of living raises. They have a need, and they will try to fill that need as inexpensively as they can while getting the best candidate they can afford.

You are free to put your resume on the street or network with people you know to find a better job.  Nobody, I mean nobody except YOU, is holding you back.  If you don't want to risk the security of a government pension, then you need to understand something else.  Retirement, medical, education, and all the other benefits a company or government job offers are there for the purpose of recruitment and employee retention.  They are not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.  Once they have you and want to keep you, they use these carrots to keep you there.

So, if the amount of money the government is NOT TAKING FROM EVERYBODY ELSE so they can PAY YOU MORE makes you upset, then don't cry to me.  You are free to look for another job, as I said.  In this market, it might not be easy, but the jobs are out there.  I switched in 2010 and improved my salary by $15K.  It's all a matter of timing and your own drive to be the best you can be.

What you are exhibiting is the same entitlement attitude that the Obamaphone gal, the EBT/Food Stamp recipients this weekend, and the unions exhibit. 

Before you whine that you aren't paid what you deserve, first tell us what you have done that warrants an increase in pay.  This is especially disturbing when so many are, and have been for years, unable to find a job at all.  Count your blessings, improve your skillset, and do your current job better than you have to.  The rest usually takes care of itself in the form of opportunities.

The founders never offered equal outcome, but merely equal opportunity.  There are people out there every day making their situation better and better.

What's stopping you?  Nobody in this entire world is as concerned with your welfare than you.  If you can't depend on yourself to improve your situation, why would you ever believe someone else is going to?

** I've never been much good at baseball    **

.....HO-LEE-CRAP BROSEPH!!!??
Where do I friggin start?
Lemme try......

First, you go on like you know me intimately, like you've been debating this issue with a welfare entitlement king back and forth ad nauseum, and have finally had enough and decided to put me in my place.  Do you realize how profoundly odd it is that you went so deep and detailed and tore into me like we've been having a back-and-forth for ages, when I never even remotely intimated I had the attitude you assumed I do?  You might have tested the waters before diving into this one because you are no where near where I was coming from. 

So, like a crazy person in the street swatting at flies that aren't even there!  You utterly misread what my angle was, though it should've been obvious.  My point was a criticism of how the media is covering the effects of the shutdown, like the sequester, to show how the little man is affected, solely because it is predicated on the tea party and Ted Cruz being responsible. 

And my point was further that the local media coverage of state workers like me, who get a five percent salary cut - times two - over 7 years, with no furlough, went non existent after Lingle stepped down, because if they don't have a republican to blame the hardship on, they won't cover it.  Better put, once Abercrombie came in and along with the almost all democrat legislature, supported and expanded the salary cuts - THE SAME ONES THEY OPPOSED WHEN LINGLE IMPLEMENTED THEM - the media went dead on the issue. 

So that was my point.  Your treatise on hard work, manifest destiny, self determination, etc., is wonderful, but since you misread my angle, it amounts to deafening preaching-to-the-choir.  As such I'll not react to all the wild assumptions and baseless accusations because they were just that! 

And don't let me lose you just yet, cause there's one thing that fascinates me; that is that for a person like you who has a healthy grasp on the reality of life and right and wrong, your response to me absolutely ignores the reality of why the effects of the sequester, shutdown, and local salary cuts and freezes are absolute bullshit - and that is because while the fed and local gov claim to need to cut expenditures, they engage in countless grotesque wastes of taxpayers monies, and further, they inexplicably raise others' salaries.  When you preach about how the state gov neads to conserve money and so is justified in cutting my salary, you have to completely ignore the money they waste - WHICH IS WHERE THE CUTTING SHOULD BEGIN,

Remember during the sequester, Obama raised his, biden's and the entire congress' salaries?  Pakistan hides bin laden, but they still get their 2bil a year?  We get a sequester, but the Muslim brotherhood gets f16 s and 2 bil a year? When my salary got cut, norm chow, got a raise?  When my salary got cut again, Marcy greenwood got a raise and a 60G housing allowance?  My CEO, also on the taxpayer dole, got a raise to a quarter of a million, when I didn't get a raise?  After my salary cut the legislature got a 39% raise?  Then recently, another 15% I think! while I still didn't get a raise?  Billions are spent on a rail project no one but Inouye and his balllickers wanted, but I don't get a raise?  Grabowski from HART gets nearly 400k with housing and stipends and salary, and I don't get a raise?  I could go on forever, but here's the point again:

I wasn't complaining about not getting a raise in and of itself, I was complaining how the fed and state gov over taxes, and sometimes cuts salaries, while they piss - no - f'ing explosively shit away our money on other things.

Now do you get where I was coming from?

Did anyone hear this?
Michele had the USPS spend an undisclosed amount of taxpayer blood on designing and printing and distributing stamps depicting various kid activities to commemorate her 'Lets Move' initiative; and only AFTER the entire process was done a d stamps were in post offices, did someone - an obviously "essential" employee since it was during the shutdown (last week) - noticed a few of the stamps were depicting "unsafe" behavior. See the image I attached and note the three that were cited: 'Cannonball', 'Skateboarding' and doing a 'Headstand', all without a helmet!
This is worse than mad tv satire!

......Ted night......caddyshack.....

This thread has got me freaked out a bit.

Please tell me why this won't ever happen at Kokohead or our only indoor range on Oahu?

that was why I originally posted this forum. I was wondering why, ifthat video was real, people never get hit with ricochets when firing still play competitions.  I've been at countless and the silhouette heavy steel is not angled to deflect away from the shooter.  Not is any steel during those comps, for that matter.

If you are listening to the right sources like anything unfriendly to Obama, you likely aware already that just like for the sequester, they are trying to inconvenience and hurt the little people the most by selectively limiting or closing services.  K. I know this, but some of their shit is hysterical.  Take this screen shot for example.  I mean come on man!?  A friggin automated website that requires no maintenance unless they're updating content of scanning for viruses?  I mean come onnnnn mann?  I mean sooo shameless....like 1) as if I'm gonna believe the site really HAD to go down due to the shutdown, and 2) even if I were that dumb, like I'd say "damn those f'ing republicans, I can't look up something about Mauna Loa". I swear they are hysterical in their lack of shame. 

You made my day!

      

....hehayyyy....there he goes!  Glad youre alright!

I'm just looking to obtain tangible evidence for when they step up to the gallows to be judged.

Hard to make excuses when you have evidence against them, especially with regards to treason

Yeah man....I'm with you on that!

I bet he goes to Al Jazeera.  If he could do for global warming what he did for gun control, al gore's got a contract with his name on it. 

K. Just watched it finally. I ain't gonna do this every week, but here comes all the cheese factors......

So in case you missed it, we got space age Hannibal lecter accommodations for wofat with two foot thick metal walls cut in a door shape in less than a minute with god knows what Star Trek phaser type torch; the quintessential full auto firearms that never run out of bullets; McGarett taking out six guys with machine guns firing on him at point blank but he never gets hit; his navy girlfriend who never seems to do anything but jogging and coming to his rescue; the black cop grover in command dedicatedly wearing even all black specops socks and underwear; McGarett doing one man light push CPR on a guy for two minutes with no respirations and the guys jumps up after coming back to life; chin doing a rear naked choke on a guy with just the left arm around his neck (BJ gotta take THOSE lessons); a guy shot through his shoulder girdle and brachial plexus and there's no catastrophic gas expansion obliteration of the anatomy and the guy basically says ouch; and who knew ka'ena point had such lush waterfalls and rainforest; chin dodging a thousand bullets by ducking in the cab of his truck; McGarett schooling Grover on how in Hawaii - "this is not the mainland" - the law doesn't apply to LE; mcgaretts non LE girlfriend joining five-0 and spraying full auto on an overturned vehicle; McGarett conveniently NOT being shot at by the 2nd guy in the helicopter as he safely climbs in; and then instead of shooting at McGarett he tries to hit him with the gun; after the helo pilot gets shot dead, and it takes McGarett 30sec to climb in the pilots seat, the helo stays nice and stable the whole time; and we can add helo pilot to the list of McGarett skills; a Korean Canadian playin 'Hawaiian'  kono; a Korean playin 'chinese' chin; an Australian playing a local haole with an odd and cheesy NY accent; a Beverly Hills native playin dano with a terrible jersey accent; and a Samoan playing the stereotyped uneducated shady Hawaiian, cause god forbid the hollywood libs give a substantive intelligent main role to a Hawaiian actor.....I mean they had a black honolulu mayor and now a black LE commander!!!  So we gonna make sure we don't stereotype BLACKS but all the Hawaiians on the show are gonna be criminals, criminal surfer gangs, and maybe one former criminal hawaiian shrimp truck operator whose still semi criminal.