I had a long post about the re-appearance of bird flu in the media all ready to go but, as events would have it, I felt more compelled to comment on a few gun-centric things.

Firearms are usually the dominant image people have when they think of preparedness. The image of the pot-bellied camouflaged middle-aged man with an assault rifle shooting at his neighbors from behind his porch. The fact is that, for better or worse, guns have an undeniable place in being prepared and that means that sometimes people who are heavily into being prepared are going to seem to harp on guns an awful lot. One reason I mention them so often is that there are very few preparations you can make that are as conditional as your ability to acquire firearms. There usually isn’t any legislation floating around restricting how many freezedrieds you can buy, how much first aid gear you can own, prevent you from buying kerosene lamps through the mail, etc, etc. But if youre going to buy firearms and firearms related items, its entirely possible to wake up one morning and find that youre prohibited from buying mags, ammo and guns.

So, I harp on it….because if you don’t buy the things you need when you can youre gonna hate yourself when you need them and cant get them…especially when they jump in price by orders of magnitude. Don’t think so? I just paid $172 for 100 HK91 mags that, ten years ago, would probably have cost me several thousand dollars.

Which brings us to today. Last week a noted gunwriter shot himself in the foot and said that the evil black rifles have no place in a hunters life and should be banned from the hunting fields by responsible state game agencies. (He is, as we speak, now unemployed on several levels.) His statement was picked up by the antigun people and used to say ‘See? Even gun owners think these things have no place in a civilized world!’ (Im not going to recount the whole story…you can find it everywhere in the blogosphere by searching for ‘zumbo’ and ‘outdoor life’ on most gun boards and Yahoo).

Then HR1022 is making the rounds. It’s a bill that brings back the Clinton assault weapons ban and adds even more nasty provisions. The fact that this is even being considered should be warning to all foresighted individuals.

If you don’t have all the “high capacity” magazines you can forsee needing for the next thirty years, you need to get them now. Ditto for evil black rifles. I just spent a half hour hunting down used 9mm LEO Glock mags and they are not to be found. New mags are available but I guarantee you that their availability will be changing as people start stocking up ‘just in case’. Feeling youre set because you’ve got four mags for your Beretta 92 is going to seem very shortsighted in the near future.

I really cannot stress strongly enough that if you were planning on buying an AR, AK, FAL or similar gun and magazines you should advance your timetable and get what you can now. If HR 1022 dies on the vine, as can very easily happen, all you’ve done is purchase things that you were going to buy anyway…and if it does come to pass, you’ll be forever pleased that you beat the deadline.

I learned my lesson after the sunset of the original AW ban in 2004. While I made damn sure to pick up as much as I could, I never really had as much as I want. Honestly, I could use another couple dozen mags for the AR and AK and at least a couple dozen Glock mags..(esp. since we have multiple Glocks and AR’s floating around here.)

If you cant afford a nice shiny new AR at the moment, you might wanna think about jumping in on the stripped AR lower group buy that Im managing.