Cheaper Than Dirt G3 mag price increase

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Cheaper Than Dirt used to sell the surplus g3 mags for $0.97, then the bumped it up to $1.97. I just checked and although they are out of stock they somehow jumped to $4.97. Now, that’s still a deal for a 20-round .308 mag, bit it’s also a 250% price increase. Of course, as we’ve all heard by now, these guys also ran the Magpul PMAGs up to $59.95 each for a while.

Now, to be fair, I hadn’t checked the G3 prices at CTD in a few weeks. For all I know this price increase happened before last weeks drama. But……CTD does have a bit of a history about doing this sort of thing…….

I, of course, had been advocating that if you had a PTR or HK, and you hadn’t picked up at least a hundred of these magazines you were being extraordinarily foolish and short-sighted. As usual in these matters, I was right.

Article – Washington County identifies woman who died in the snow

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office has identified a woman who died in the snow Wednesday after her car got stuck in the snow near Enterprise Reservoir.

Darlene Dietrich, 66, and her passenger, Michael Meunier, were driving north to the reservoir on Shoal Creek Road when they became stranded Tuesday night. They got out and hiked north to find help, but at one point Dietrich could go no farther, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Sad and avoidable. Sleeping bag, candles, food, water, flashlight, batteries, signaling, and a few other geegaws that would fit into a small gym bag and you could wait it out in relative comfort…certainly more comfort than freezing to death in a treewell somewhere.

The Emergency Bra

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Sometimes, I cannot tell what’s real and what’s satire. I’m guessing this is…real?

The Emergency Bra’s primary function is that of a conventional bra. In case of emergency, it can be quickly and easily converted into two face masks without removing any clothes. In case of emergency, where no specialized respiratory devices are available, it can decrease the inhalation of harmful airborne particles. Because the Emergency Bra masks can be securely fixed to the head, it frees a survivor’s hands to keep balance while running and removing objects on the way out of danger. In certain situations, by providing the wearer with a sense of security and protection, the Emergency Bra can reduce the chance of panic attack.

 

I love that last sentence that all-but-implies that this thing is just a placebo for the easily freaked.

I’m guessing us Penile-Americans are left to fend for ourselves unless someone somewhere is working on The Emergency Jock. I’ll take my chances with fallout and WTC-dust rather than get caught in public somewhere huffing into my underwear.

ETA: It just occurred to me what the best part of this is – in a disaster, all the survivor chicks will be running around bra-less because they’ve got these things covering their face. Win!

Link – DIY face armour

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

Unfortunately, body armour is not cheap. Then again, no matter how expensive it is, it is almost certainly a bargain compared to the medical costs of not wearing it when you wind up needing it. I have no idea what a sucking chest wound costs, dollarwise, these days but I bet it’s more than $800.

Some folks, from time to time, try to figure out ways to DIY it and save a few bucks. While I admire this sort of thrift and ingenuity, I’m not sure that wearable armour is something you want to MacGyver any more than youd be willing to trust your life to a homemade parachute. Armouring non-wearable items is a different story..you wanna bulletproof your front door, thats a lot easier.

Here’s a fella that decided to retrofit a hockey mask with some eBay kevlar and scrap metal. And…he tests it out at the range.

 

TL;DR = 9mm FMJ penetrated, but lesser stuff didnt. Also, big-n-slow .45 ACP also failed. Of course, anyone who wore something like this and had it stop a bullet would still be looking at having their jaw wired together, an amazing odyssey of dental surgery, and perhaps the installation of a bionic nose.

Still, I think there’s room for this sort of experimentation. I mean, I’ve seen worse ideas floating around…like the guy that figured if the military uses aluminum armour in vehicles, maybe if he stuffed his door panels with crushed beer cans theyd stop bullets. :::facepalm:::

As I recall, Mythbusters coated a car in phonebooks to make impromptu bulletproofing and it actually worked until they brought out the heavy hitters. Of course, handling and suspension took a bit of a beating. Butm if you can buy rolls of kevlar cheap enough off the internet to laminate yourself some bolt-on panels…hey, maybe it’ll work.

I’m just really, really glad I managed to get my lvl IV plates before the collateral damage from any new gun laws flows into the realm of body armour.

Starship Troopers quote

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

From the scene shortly after a child-killer is executed by hanging:

That night I tried to figure out how such things could be kept from happening. Of course, they hardly ever do nowadays—but even once is ‘way too many. I never did reach an answer that satisfied me. This Dillinger — he looked like anybody else, and his behavior and record couldn’t have been too odd or he would never have reached Camp Currie in the first place. I suppose he was one of those pathological personalities you read about—no way to spot them.

Well, if there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only one sure way to keep it from happening twice. Which we had used.

If Dillinger had understood what he was doing (which seemed incredible) then he got what was coming to him. .. except that it seemed a shame that he hadn’t suffered as much as had little Barbara Anne — he practically hadn’t suffered at all.

But suppose, as seemed more likely, that he was so crazy that he had never been aware that he was doing anything wrong? What then?

Well, we shoot mad dogs, don’t we?

Yes, but being crazy that way is a sickness—

I couldn’t see but two possibilities. Either he couldn’t be made well in which case he was better dead for his own sake and for the safety of others—or he could be treated and made sane. In which case (it seemed to me) if he ever became sane enough for civilized society. .. and thought over what he had done while he was “sick”—what could be left for him but suicide? How could he live with himself?

And suppose he escaped before he was cured and did the same thing again? And maybe again? How do you explain that to bereaved parents? In view of his record?

I couldn’t see but one answer.

…..

I wondered how Colonel Dubois would have classed Dillinger. Was he a juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt?

I didn’t know, I would never know. The one thing I was sure of was that he would never again kill any little girls.

That suited me. I went to sleep.

 

:shrug::: Crazy people do crazy things because…they’re crazy. When someone commits a heinous crime all the hand-wringing in the world about why and how are pointless – they do it because they’re insane. It’s really that simple. You cannot prevent someone from doing it, but you can prevent them from doing it twice.

Heinlein gets a rough rap about Starship Troopers but, much like Ayn Rand’s stuff, if you can get through it you certainly do wind up doing some thoughtful examinations about the philosophies within. Might not agree with them, but at least you think about things in ways you hadn’t before…that, to me, is the sign of good literature.

 

Mayan Friday, Festivus gifting

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

If you didn’t get the memo, Friday is the end of the world. At least, this is according to the fractured records of a dead civilization that was so technically advanced that they could predict the distant future but couldn’t keep their civilization going. (Although Im sure some will say that they were so advanced, the reason we see no record of them is because they dimensionally-shifted or otherwise beamed away to a better plane of existence.)

Folks, I’ve said it before – unless you have your hand on The Big Red Button ™, no one knows when it’s gonna happen. Unless you’re the guy causing it to happen, no one knows.

But..here’s where the problem comes in. Less balanced individuals will jump to the fore because of their superstitious/religious beliefs and figure that since the world is ending Friday why not go out with some style? Next thing you know there’s cars whipping through shopping malls a’la Blues Brothers, folks settling old scores, and just the garden variety whackjobs who figure now is great time to see how much gasoline you can fit into a day care center. So, while it may not be the end of the world in the classic sense, there might be a certain level of self-fulfilling prophecy going on. Moral of the story: stay away from large crowds and places where nutjobs are known to hang out. So..no WalMart this week.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Some Festivus gifting has occurred. I received a book on aquaponics off of my Amazon Wish List with a note urging me to review it so the sender can know if the book is worth adding to their library, and a thoughtful reader in a very cold climate sent me a nice picture of their Christmas and a few bucks to boot.  Thanks, guys..I hope you have an enjoyable holiday as well.

If you’re of the mind to spread a little holiday cheer, or just want to feed my unquenchable thirst for gear, my contact info is on the ‘About‘ page along with a link to the WIsh List. Additionally, there’s a little clickable button at the top right of the screen for those little things Amazon doesn’t sell…like 00 Buck and Pmags.

Sign of the times – Email from one of my vendors

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

One of my vendors for guns emailed this little gem to their customer list today:

Subject: shipping

There were over 2,300 internet orders that came through over the weekend. I would not guarantee any order getting to a customer by Christmas except for true air packages.

Yeah….there just might have been just a bit of an uptick in sales.

Article – Did paranoid, gun-crazed mother trigger son’s school killing spree? Friends sa

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Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

 

The mother of the loner who massacred 26 pupils and staff at a US primary school may have played a major part in his catastrophic mental breakdown, it emerged last night.

Friends and family portrayed Adam Lanza’s mother Nancy as a paranoid ‘survivalist’ who believed the world was on the verge of violent, economic collapse.

She is reported to have been struggling to hold herself together and had been stockpiling food, water and guns in the large home she shared with her 20-year-old son in Connecticut.

Mrs Lanza, 52, was a ‘prepper’ – so called because they are preparing for a breakdown in civilised society – who apparently became obsessed with guns and taught Adam and his older brother, Ryan, how to shoot, even taking them to local ranges.

That backfired horrifically on Friday when Adam Lanza began his killing spree by shooting his mother dead in bed.

 

Oy. This is not gonna go well.

Some of those behaviors that were ‘strange’ or ‘suspicious’? They’re SOP around here. We never let people who aren’t close friends into the house. We don’t let people know where we live. We stockpile all sortsa goodies. And yet…we haven’t shot up a school.

You watch….the survivalist/preparedness community, such as it is, is going to go from being regarded as that odd-but-harmless-cousin you shake your head about, to being regarded as a ticking timebomb.

For giggles, I went to a local gun shop Friday just to see if the panic buying had hit. Yup…mags were moving briskly and there were several people filling out the forms to pick up their new AKs. Ammo was walking out the door too.

I’m not going to say it’s a conspiracy, but lets look at this broadly: Obama gets re-elected, Fast N Furious spotlight those evil black guns, throw in a couple mass shootings, toss in some end-of-the-world drama, get out the usual pot-stirrers like Schumer, and you’ve got a recipe for something ungood coming down the pike shortly regarding your firearms. Magazine ban? Certainly thats the easiest thing to do since it doesn’t fly in the face of any Second Amendment issues. Bring back the AW ban? Maybe.

Regardless, I’m hoping this hits the end of the news cycle in about a week and we get back to our regular doom-n-gloom, but this story may have legs and wind up being the casus belli that this administration has been needing in order to ‘do something’ about the ‘easy access’ to ‘military style weapons that have no place on our streets’.