Chrismahanukwanzakah….and Festivus!

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It’s that time of year when all the gift-giving holidays occur. Hanukah, Christmas, Festivus, Kwanza (although I really have my doubts this thing has legs), Festivus (which I bet has more observants than Kwanza), Boxing Day for the limeys and their fellow travelers, and a couple others that I’m forgetting.

Regardless, whatever holiday occurs this month that matters to you…have a happy one of it. Thank you to all who sent cards or gifts these last couple weeks…its always fun to find something in the mailbox.

Me, I’m going out to dinner with some cow orkers this evening, and then I plan on sleeping late tomorrow and getting in some range time.

Next week will have the obligatory end of year post, which I am working on now. 2025 is absolutely guaranteed to be more interesting than 2024. Should be highly entertaining. Say what you will about the apocalypse, its guaranteed not to be boring.

Movie – Homestead

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Ok, first, to set the mood in regards to expectations, let me throw the trailer up here:

A couple things to note that are going to give you an idea of how this movie is going to shake out a) the studio that brought this to the screen is an outfit that specializes in religious-themed offerings, and b) Neal McDonough, the only ‘big name’ in this movie, is a very devout Catholic…devout enough to the point that he doesn’t do sex scenes or kiss people in movies. So, with those two bits of data, lets get into it.

The premise is absolutely nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred movies in this genre. The very short version is that Bad Event happens but theres a rich guy who has been preparing for it and needs a buncha ex-operators to keep the place safe from the unprepared and desperate survivors. Drama ensues.

Although the classic genre bad guys – the cannibal bikers – are absent, we do have a few tropes that are standard for the genre:

  • The security guy who wants to take it all over for himself
  • The government bureaucrat who wants to seize everything for redistribution
  • The we-have-to-help-everyone character oblivious to the risks
  • The person who thinks everything will be fine..the government will help us
  • The family that gets split up and has no idea where the others are

Into this mix, there’s a couple of subplots that are, presumably, addressed in subsequent episodes (yup, this thing apparently is available as a series)…there’s the two teenagers from different backgrounds who have a chaste budding romance, a kid who may or may not be prescient, other ‘survivalists’ with a camp nearby, and a couple other little subplots that aren’t explored at this point in the movie/series.

I starts out fairly strong. Typical ‘evacuate the city’ scene with traffic, cars out of gas, fist fights at supermarkets, casual violence, etc. Once people arrive at the fortified hillside compound we start in with the scenes that, again, we’ve seen in every movie in this genre: people demanding to be let in, rationing, people in charge butting heads, et, etc.

And, of course, there’s the religious messaging. Now, in some ways it makes sense – its the end of the world, some people are going to be more devout than others and it’s not unreasonable to think that theyre going to say that everyone needs to turn to faith to see them through things. Thats not unrealistic. However the last ten minutes of the movie is where it really drives it home. I’m gonna be a nice guy and give you a spoiler cut. Eject now if you don’t want spoilage.

Continue reading →

Christmahanukwanzakah

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I received a couple cards and gifts in the mail from readers last week. I’d like to thank everyone who sent ( or is sending) holiday greetings/gifts. Gift-giving is always cool, but I’d rather you use your resources to enhance your own resilience rather than sending some cool geegaw to some faceless dude you read about on the internet.

However…if you’ve already got the whole resilience angle all taken care of, well, by all means, send the Zero some love.

But…cards or not, gifts or not, I still think youre all awesome.

ETA: Some trivia – For the shot where Hans Gruber falls from the top of the building, Alan Rickman was really dropped 40-feet onto an airbag with a blue-screen cover; the background was later edited in. A stuntman held Rickman up with a rope. Mirroring Rickman’s line repeated twice in the movie, the stunt crew was to count to 3 before releasing, but to get a genuine reaction from Rickman, the stunt man released the rope on the count of two, not three. Rickman later said during a Q&A that the stunt was purposely done on his last day on set.

Bag O’ Tricks – Batteries edition

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There’s nothing that says you have to have battery-powered devices to help you get through the unexpected crisis, but they sure do make things easier.

When it comes to electronics, there’s a handful of things I keep in the Bag O’ Tricks ™ at all times…flashlights (plural), radio, USB charger, scanner. All of these devices run on batteries and if a crisis occurs, you are definitely going to want to have a spare reload (or three) for your devices.

You do what works for you, but here’s where I’ve landed after much thought and twenty years of practice.

First step is battery compatibility – its the BoT(tm), not a CostCo. I don’t have the room or the back muscles to carry several different battery types. I have zero interest in carrying around a handful AA batteries, 9v batteries, CR123 batteries, AAA batteries, and a couple coin batteries. Try to get all your gear singing from the same battery songbook. This is where your first value judgement, and possibly compromise, is going to have to take place. Let’s say your radios take AA but your flashlight takes CR123. You’ve got three choices at this point:

  • Swap out the flashlight for one that takes AA
  • Swap out the radio for one that takes CR123
  • Carry two different types of batteries

It is entirely possible that, given three ‘Tier One’ pieces of gear, one of them might have to be swapped out for second tier in order to provide battery compatibility. How much are you willing to ‘step down’ in terms of utility in exchange for those streamlined logistics? Fortunately, almost everything has a functional, reliable, usable, quality alternative. Maybe you’re ‘perfect’ flashlight runs on CR123 but you need one that runs on AA…but you hate giving up all the awesome features of that particular CR123 flashlight. Well, look around, there is almost certainly an equivalent one out there that runs on AA.

And, just to be clear, I’m not advocating one type of battery over another. I’m just saying whatever battery you choose, try to stick with all your devices running off that one.

For my BoT(tm), I try to keep stuff as small as possible. Most small devices run on AA (or AAA) batteries and thats what I’ve decided to standardize on for my Bag O’ Tricks(tm). That doesnt mean my other gear doesn’t use other batteries…it just means that everything in my bag, which may be all I have in terms of resupply for the immediate time being, runs off the same battery – AA.

The battery devices I keep in my bag are pretty straightforward: AM/FM pocket radio with earphones, Icom R6 scanner (uses same headphones as AM/FM radio), a couple flashlights, and a USB charger.

The only exception to the ‘one battery’ rule is that sometimes I’ll have a rechargeable device (cell phone, flashlight) that can be recharged through USB. For those, I have a USB charger in my bag that runs off of…you guessed it…AA batteries.

I carry 16 AA batteries in a pair of Maxpedition battery pouches. There are other battery cases on Amazon and you’ll find no shortage of variations on this theme. I came into the Maxpedition ones years ago and never bothered looking for others. The plastic case is available from plenty of other makers, but the cordura pouch from Maxpedition does a nice job of keeping things handy and muffling any rattle. The most important thing is to get a case or carrier that completely isolates the battery from everything else around it and protects the contacts.

Don’t just think you can wrap your batteries with some tape over the contacts, throw them in your bag, and be fine. Bad juju, man. Same for sticking them in a cigar tube, or a cut length of PVC with duct tape over the ends. Your electronics (radio, light, gps, phone, etc.) are all critical pieces of gear. Don’t half-ass it by throwing your batteries in a bag where theyre going to short circuit against each other and be useless to you when you finally need them…assuming they don’t set your bag on fire first.

As for batteries themselves, we all know that at some point the batteries crap the bed and turn your gear into junk. I go with lithium AA batts. They are way more expensive than regular AA’s but a) they leak far far less than regular AA’s, and b) they don’t weaken over time or in temperature extremes the way regular AA’s do. Yup, theyre more expensive…but when I’m navigating my way out of the basement of a building during a blackout I will absolutely not care that they cost several times what the regular batteries cost…I’ll just be relieved they work and didnt puke in my flashlight.

And, by the way, when it comes to flashlights is there any reason not to have them use LED’s? They sip battery power and are far less delicate than the old krypton bulb lights. All my flashlights, except for legacy stuff, are LED these days. And for situations where you want to use batteries sparingly they are absolutely the better choice.

And although it isnt technically a battery, I always carry a USB plug in and one of those octopus-like multi-adaptor USB charging cables. This way, if there’s electricity, I can charge whatever USB device I or someone with me has. This really shines when traveling and need to charge up my phone at the airport so I can screw around on the internet while awaiting my flight.

I like to think that any crisis I get into where I have to rely on what’s in my BoT(tm) will be a short term one and that I’ll be back at my base of operations shortly. But life has a way of throwing curveballs and if I’m stuck living out of my bag, so to speak, for a couple days I have no doubt there will be at least one or two battery changes for some of my gear…so, I carry two 8-packs of AA lithium batteries.

There you go. A glance into the reasoning about whats in the BoT(tm) and why.

 

Ruger RXM

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Ruger has developed a bit of a reputation for ‘borrowing’ other gun makers designs and running with them. Usually they tweak it enough that its not a straight up clone. That level of discretion has apparently left the building. I’m guessing they call it the RXMbecause calling it the G19 was too obvious.

A collaboration between Magpul and Ruger, they’ve basically taken the ‘modular’ idea of the swappable fire-control unit from SIG and stuffed it into a not-a-Glock-19. Cleverly, Ruger seems to be letting the polymer masters at Magpul handle the frames while Ruger handles the metal bits. Makes sense.

I have a SIG 320 with the swappable FCU and it’s an interesting concept…buy the serial-numbered FCU and then you can change out your frame,slide,barrel, etc, with unregulated parts…much like how a stripped AR lower opens up a huge avenue of ‘customization’. If you live in a place where there’s a limit on how many guns you can own, this is a nice workaround to having a full-size, a compact, a ‘race gun’, etc. all with only one ‘firearm’.

So you have huge customization with the FCU concept, takes Glock mags, have early third-party support from Magpul (who are making the frames, it seems), optic cuts, steel sights, etc. And I’m seeing them at $400~ or less, dealer cost.  Assuming Ruger doesn’t do it’s usual new-product-recall, they might have finally created the polymer striker gun they’ve been trying and failing at for years.

Is there a reason to get this rather than the SIG 320? Glock magazine ubiquity might suggest so. Is there a reason to get this rather than the Glock? SIG-style FCU modularity seems like a big sell. And Magpul will be offering this in all sortsa colors, I’m sure.

This might actually turn Rugers amazing always-the-bridesmaid-never-the-bride history of LE contracts on its head. I need to get one of these to play with.

ETA: Also, mad props for not incorporating an interchangeable backstrap system. At least, not yet… I suppose aftermarket frames might incorporate them, but I find them to be almost useless. Also, my vendor shows dealer price at $340 which seems reasonable.

News – Daniel Penny acquitted in NYC subway chokehold case after jury finds him not guilty of criminally negligent homicide

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I’ve been following this case since it started.

Daniel Penny has been acquitted in the chokehold death of a homeless man aboard a New York City subway car last year.

The 26-year-old former Marine had been charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in connection with the May 2023 death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely.

A jury found Penny not guilty of criminally negligent homicide Monday — three days after a Manhattan judge dismissed manslaughter charge when the 12-member panel said it could not come to a unanimous decision on the first and more serious of the two charges. The second-degree manslaughter charge carried a maximum 15-year prison sentence; criminally negligent homicide carried a maximum sentence of four years. There was no minimum sentence for either charge.

Judge Maxwell Wiley had ordered the jury to return Monday to consider the second, lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. It deliberated for less than two hours before delivering its verdict.

It’s a terrible thing to have to defend yourself and have it result in a death. No matter how justified it may seem, you never really know if you’re “in the clear” or not until the people who weren’t there and weren’t involved decide whether or not to take you to the docket.

No matter how “in the right” you think you are, it’s not up to you to decide, unfortunately. And the crappy part of that is that when you do need to defend yourself, you may waste valuable, precious fractions of a second in responding because you’re thinking about the legal after-effects.

I’m glad the jury did the reasonable thing and acquitted this guy, but his life is never, ever gonna be the same. Civil suits, reputational damage, etc, are all in store for him.

 

Glock 17 Gen3 cop trade-ins $300

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AimSurplus has a bunch of LE-tradein Glock 17’s on the block. $299 ea. for Gen3 17’s with night sights and in original case. One mag.

Since I have plenty of Magpul G9 mags here, I wasn’t concerned about the guns coming with only one mag apiece. A $300 G17 will always grab my attention. But cop guns are notorious for being beaten up aesthetically while being mechanically good. Ordered three and they showed up yesterday:

Absolutely excellent condition. Night sights still have plenty of glow. Barrels need a cleaning at the chamber end as there’s a lot of fouling on the feed ramps, but thats five minutes with Hoppes and a q-tip. I ordered three, which came out to $17.51 to ship for each gun. That puts my basis as $317.51 for each very clean G17. Strong recommend.

They still have them in stock as of today, so if you’ve got a buddy with an FFL, or you’ve a LGS who does reasonable transfer fees, I’d say  jump on this deal.

Someone will ask why Gen3 when there are trade-in Gen4 and Gen5 out there. The Gen 4 made some changes to the ejector/extractor, I believe, that caused some problems. Gen5 is alright I suppose but interchangeable backstraps aren’t a thing in my world. The Gen3, IMO, is the best version of the Glock. In fact, Glock still makes the Gen3 for various agency commitments.

I see this as an opportunity to grab yourself an ideal pistol at a bargain price. Passing the info along to you guys, do with it what you will.

CUT bunker for sale

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The old CUT bunker in Emigrant is apparently on the market. I remember when these guys were in the news after ATF raided the place. It’s a time capsule to 70’s/80/s survivalism.

Two Earth Sheltered (Bunker) Homes on +/-7 acres in the beautiful Paradise Valley of SW MT. Within 30 miles of Yellowstone Park, public hotsprings, hospitals and airfields. In an area of limitless outdoor beauty and recreation, with world-class flyfishing, hunting, and limitless public forest access. These privately spaced underground reinforced concrete structures were designed and built as earth-berm shelters for multiple people. Each on the grid but with its own backup power, HVAC system, fresh well water and permitted septic system. Both homes are designed for comfort and long-term living. Either or both could have a custom home built with discreet entrances into these hidden shelter systems. A local, experienced builder in the area has provided a sample picture showing a building option. First earth home shelter is +/-2,500 sf, with 3+BR & 2 BA. Tile counters & stainless sinks. All appliances are included. Additional underground storage areas. The second shelter is +/-6000 sf. Designed to accommodate many people. Over 300 feet long underground, suite. 11 toilets, 7 showers, 15 sinks. 2 cook stoves/ovens, washers/dryers

Whats interesting is that you might be inclined to think that this is quite a setup and there can’t be too many like it. Mmmm, you might be surprised. There are some very motivated and very resourceful organizations and families out in this region. There are some very serious bunkers out there, out of the public eye.

If you buy this old CUT facility, please invite me.