Article – German authorities seize tank, other WWII weapons in raid

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Neighbor Kristin Schroeder told the local Kieler Nachrichten newspaper that the man had even fired up the tank during the particularly bad winter of 1978-79 and helped plow others’ snow.

“It was well known, at least to all the older Kitzebergers, that he had a tank,” Schroeder said.

Plowing snow with a Panzer. Thats like Mr. Rogers lighting your kids birthday candles with napalm.

I know that every so often little leftovers from WW2 turn up in peoples posession over there…just recently some grandma passed on and the family found her issued Sten gun tucked away. In Russia, there are groups that go into the forests specifically to find old WW2 relica, dig them up, get them running, and sell them illegally. In Germany, it seems every time they dig a subway tunnel they find something interesting.

Point is, guns last a long time…and they can fall to apretty crappy state and still be restored enough to go bang with some reliability. As something of a collector, my ears always perk up when I hear about someone’s aged grandpa or uncle passing away and the kids going through his mountain of ‘stuff from WW2 or Korea’.

I suspect that this article is mostly a guy who had some awesome toys from WW2 and somehow, inadvertently, got on the wrong side of the law when something wasn’t dewatted 100% he way the rules called for. Look at ATFE’s guides on dewatting a gun and you can see it’s changed quite a bit from the old days when filling the barrel with lead was pretty much all you needed to do. There are quite a few machineguns on the registry that were ‘re-watted’ from guns that had been dewatted in the earlier, easier, manner.

 

Article – How to Survive Societal Collapse in Suburbia

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Came across this article from a few years ago and tohught I’d link to it since I don’t think too many people saw it. It’s interestingbecause while there is a bit in there about preparedness there is a bit more information on the preparedness industry/market.

On a clear morning in May, Ron Douglas left his home in exurban Denver, eased into his Toyota pickup truck and drove to a business meeting at a Starbucks. Douglas, a bearded bear of a man, ordered a venti double-chocolate-chip Frappuccino — “the girliest drink ever,” he called it — and then sat down to discuss the future of the growing survivalist industry.

Many so-called survivalists would take pride in keeping far away from places that sell espresso drinks. But Douglas, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and founder of one of the largest preparedness expos in the country, isn’t your typical prepper.

At that morning’s meeting, a strategy session with two new colleagues, Douglas made it clear that he doesn’t even like the word “survivalist.” He believes the word is ruined, evoking “the nut job who lives out in the mountains by himself on the retreat.” Instead, he prefers “self-reliance.”

When prompted by his colleagues to define the term, Douglas leaned forward in his chair. “I’m glad you asked,” he replied. “Take notes. This is good.”

An interesting sidebar to the article: Let’s Put Hundreds of Things on Your Front Lawn, O.K.? A spectacular example of privacy-fail.

The guy is ‘in the industry’ so it’s worth it, from a business standpoint, to get all the PR hits but he’s gonna be on someone’s list somewhere now. Of course, I suppose its possible the house and supplies were all a decoy and his real house, with his real stash, is elsewhere…but I doubt it.

The folks you meet

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There’s always that question of ‘how do I meet other like-minded individuals to network with?’. I’m of the opinion that putting an ad in the back of American Survival Guide or on a forum is a last resort sort of thing. There’s too much risk of winding up auditioning a revolving door of whackos and nutjobs, all the while compromising PerSec.

I am firmly of the opinion that if you really want to meet folks, the best way is to observe and casually work up to broaching the subject with the new person. Today was a fairly good example….

My regular letter carrier (or as we used to call them, “mailman”) is on vacation. The little truck pulls up in front of the shop and a guy gets out. We make some small talk as he checks for my mail. I comment about how it sucks that he has this open-air cab and all he has to cool off is a fan. As I look in the vehicle two things jump out at me….the radio he has on the dashboard and a backapck on the floorboards. The backpack is a coyote, MOLLE-covered bag. “I like your bag”, says I. “Yeah, I got it from online from Botach. Its been a great bag, I can’t kill it.” Hmmm. We shop at some of the same places. I also notice the Sangean radio sitting on the dashboard isn’t one of the cheap models…this one has a few bells and whistles that would be of interest to folks like you and I.

So….shops at the same tactical gear places and appreciates the quality gear. So far, this sounds like it’s possible he’s on the same wavelength as me on a few things. Maybe next time I see him I’ll ask if he’s done any shooting lately…really? With what guns?….Ah, I have one of those too….etc, etc. Then after a while we do some more small talk about interests and soon you’re pretty confident about whether he’s on the same page as you. And that’s the point you decide if you want to pursue this further and bring them into your little circle of friends or not.

It takes a little time, yes. It’s not as fast as walking up to a strange and saying “Hey, you got an AR, some MRE’s, a stash of gold and a water purifier? How about that last election…who’d ya vote for? Cool..cool. Wanna see my bunker?”, but it’s also far less risky in terms of what information you put out there and, more importantly, what kind of impression you give other people. You tip your cards to the wrong person and they go and tell everyone back at work about the ‘crazy survivalist’ guy that is on their route….nobody needs that kinda headache.

Of course, this is just my opinion…maybe you’ve had a different and better experience doing it a different way. If so, I’d find it interesting to hear about it.

Article – Texas family of 10 rescued in West Pioneers

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BUTTE – Search-and-rescue teams rescued a family of 10 from Lefors, Texas, after they got lost during a hike in the rugged mountains of southwestern Montana.

Beaverhead County Sheriff Franklin Kluesner said two boys, ages 13 and 14, hiked several miles for help June 19, two days after the family got lost in the mountains near Wisdom. The family was out of food and water by the 18th and resorted to drinking stream water.

The boys and a 41-year-old man caught frogs, cooked and ate them on morning of the 19th, and then headed for help. The man collapsed along the way, but the boys continued on.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around a family of ten….let alone the hiking part. Ten people isnt a hike…it’s a patrol. Who wrangles eight kids along a trail?? At least the Irish twins were old enough to go out and bushwhack their way to help.

Anyway…I’ve been down that way and, like much of backcountry Montana, its awfully pretty but, as Blaine famously said, “You lose it here, you’re in a world of hurt.”

Note the detail about everyone being sick from the water. You’ve got no idea whats upstream….dead animals, various fecal adventures, a Bronx zoo of bacteria and pathogens, etc, etc. Twenty bucks gets you a LifeStraw that will let you drink from a Calcutta sewer. I keep one in all my outdoor packs. Bad enough getting lost in the woods, who needs to compound that problem with a bad case of the runs?

Also, note that not only were the trusting GPS, they were trusting phone GPS, which is even more sketchy. Map and compass, man. Even if they’d just found a couple baselines (like a river or road) to establish they probably coulda saved themselves some grief.

As we taught the kids in hunter safety, you gotta have some respect for mom nature ’cause she sure doesn’t respect you.

Link- Signals Handbook

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This is an absolutely fascinating post about small-unit communications. It’s quite informative and worth reading. I’m not qualified to say whether it’s good information or not but it appears quite useful and, if nothing else, is food for thought on the subject. Go check it out.

Article – Texas is creating a gold depository to rival Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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Texas does a lot of things that I think are just for posturing and maintaining their image, but I rather like this:

On Friday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation that will create a state-run gold depository in the Lone Star State – one that will attempt to rival those operated by the U.S. government inside Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s vault in lower Manhattan.

“The Texas Bullion Depository,” Abbott said in a statement, “will become the first state-level facility of its kind in the nation, increasing the security and stability of our gold reserves and keeping taxpayer funds from leaving Texas to pay for fees to store gold in facilities outside our state.”

There’s the story that when a couple nations approached the US about repatriating their gold from the US depository there was some…concern…that the gold was ‘unavailable’. I’d be very interested to know if Texas gets to take their gold back or if some excuse will pop up about how they have to get it back over a lengthy period of time (if at all).

This is why I don’t believe in any of this we-hold-your-metals-for-you scams, or any paper representations of precious metals. If you have a certificate that says you own 100 oz. of gold in a repository in California, you don’t own anything except a piece of paper. If you’re going to go down the road of owning precious metals, then own precious metals…not a piece of paper saying you own gold or silver. Promissory notes with questionable redeemability is the whole reason we buy gold and silver to begin with.

I (usually) get my PM’s from the Metals Pimp. You may have your own ‘guy’, but if you don’t you might wanna give the Pimp a holler.

H/T to Ryan at TSLRF (which apparently is just TS these days).

Unwanted linkage

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Every so often I head over to Google Analytics to see where my website traffic is coming from. Apparently, I received a fair bit of traffic from Reddit under the keyword ‘racewarpreppers’.

WTF?

The link they posted to was this one about panic buying. It appears that they linked to it, not because of racial content, but as an adjunct to discussions about preparing for some future Great Race War or whatever it is they expect.

Frankly, I’m a little annoyed. I’m *alot* of things….I’m sexist, somewhat of a jingoistic nationalist (America first and all that jazz), capitalistic, fiscally-conservative-with-a-little-libertarian-bent (really, kind of a Goldwater Republican), etc, etc….but I’m quite certain that I’m not cross-burningly racist. As someone once said “Racism is silly. If you take the time to really get to know someone and understand them you can find a much better reason to dislike them.”

Being a survivalist means you get painted with a pretty broad brush. You’re automatically anti-government, racist, uneducated, and homophobic. I hate that. I don’t mind getting in trouble for things that I actually am or things I actually do….it’s when I get accused of things that simply aren’t the case that I get annoyed.

Interestingly, though…if you checked my browser history (and for everyone’s peace of mind, it’s probably a good thing if we don’t) you’d find that I visit quite a few…questionable…forums. (And, really, I should visit them through a proxy, but….lazy.) Stormfront, Democratic Underground, New Black Panthers, VPC, etc, etc, etc. Why? Mostly curiosity to see how different groups see events that are occurring. Same reason I check foreign news services…for a different opinion or a different view of things. Reading some of the stuff that gets posted on those places reinforced my belief that while I may be a jerk I am not, to quote Star Lord,”100 percent dick’. Those people….well, they’ve got some serious issues.

Clearly the linkage wasn’t because of racial content or context in t his blog. It was simply because a post about buying guns and ammo happened to be on-topic for this group of people…but it still annoys me because I don’t like being associated with that sorta thing.

 

This is why we can’t have nice things

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Man, every time I think that things might be quieting down in the land of panic buying and going long on magazines, something new happens.

Given the pre-convention jockeying and positioning of potential presidential contenders, I have no doubt that this will all play into future campaigning. Promises to eliminate ‘easy access’ to fire arms, eliminate ‘assault weapons’, ban ‘high capacity’ magazines, etc.

If I had the money, I’d be on the phone right now to CDNN and ordering Glock, 10/22, and AR mags. And even if this most recent event doesn’t wind up being responsible for any changes, the upcoming political season is still a good reason all on its own.

For those keeping track, the last time a racist shot up a large captive audience we wound up with an assault weapons ban nine months later.

 

Interesting Craigslist find

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40 foot Container , Cargo / Shipping Container, has walls, Beds Built in, Toilet and sink are plummed, fiber glass shower , Kitchen sink plummed, Electric Panel, Lights and electrical, 2 Beams down middle, so it can be burried, or above ground, sealer coating on Roof ,sides and ,back. Great Survival shelter , almost finished , Great Price at 6,000 you move

Looks like someone’s project stalled. I like the idea of repurposing a cargo container but I’d never bury it..I’d go the other direction and berm it or seal it up in concrete.

This particular Craigslist listing tells a story if you know what to look for. Only a certain kinda guy does a project like this.

Annnnnnnnd….new tag: Craigslist