It never fails. Every time I leave the house to run an errand and forget to take a pistol I always wind up getting some whiskey-for-breakfast-brushed-his-teeth-with-a-hammer homeless wretch approaching me and asking/demanding something. Every time.
This message brought to you by the sinking feeling when you casually move your hand to your hip and realize your holster is empty because you were ‘only going to be gone five minutes’.
Stupid, stupid.
Whatever December holiday you celebrate, have a happy.
Here’s my favorite holiday music. Hit it, Placido….
So, how’d Santa treat you this year?
Oh, and before I forget, I’m trying something new. There’s a thank-you over at Patreon for those of you who have been generous this year. Nothing special, just me saying thanks and wishing you a quiet 2022.
I remember reading news articles in the 1980’s about people fleeing Communist countries, getting to America, walking into supermarkets, and bursting into tears at the overwhelming abundance that was offered.
Were those stories true? Maybe. Coulda been Cold War propaganda. But, I’ve met quite a few refugees from Communist countries and, to a man, they’ve all a) said ‘yeah, this place is freaking awesome’ and b) they vote Republican. I had a neighbor from Poland back when Poland was still firmly stuck in the Soviet sphere. He could take potatoes and cook them up to taste like whatever you wanted…because where he grew up, potatoes were all you could rely on being available. As a result, you learned how to make potatoes taste like the million things you’d rather have been eating.
Had another neighbor, her and her parents fled Hungary back when Hungary was really kept on a tight leash. She spent a couple years living in a refugee camp in Canada before moving to the US and becoming a citizen. She told me stories about her mom struggling to get food and other necessities under the Communists.
And, naturally, I’d feel a little swelling of nationalistic pride…because, after all, this was the US…we have twenty flavors of Tang, two hundred channels, and fat poor people. Where else on the planet are poor people fat???
And yet…I walk into grocery stores, Home Depot, and Sportsmans Warehouse and the mantra is “supply chain issues”. Da, comrade….we have nyet inventory. Is supply chain.
There is nothing romantic, noble, egalitarian, or equitable about living in Third World conditions. At the moment there is running water, electricity, food to be had, fuel to be purchased, so all is good. Except….it’s slowly getting pinched off. Either the ‘supply chain issues’ empty the shelves, or creeping inflation and rising prices force you to leave those goods on the shelf. Either way, it winds up with you coming back from the store with less than youre used to.
When it takes $25 dollars to buy what cost $20 three months ago, but you’re still making the same wage, that is your lifeline being slowly choked off. And when you do decide to go ahead and pay the inflated price you’re told that, sorry, we’re out of stock. And that cinch tightens a bit more.
And, personally, I see it getting worse before it gets better. Even if there’s a political remedy, its going to be a while before the offices change hands. Thats plenty of time for your savings and retirement to be slowly dissolved by inflation. Assuming you keep your job as employers close because they cant hire people, or vaccine mandates cause them to fire people.
Me..I’m playing it close to the vest. I do my job(s), bank my money, buy some metals, keep the freezer topped off, and keep on top of the news. It’s only a matter of time before the morning comes where you stagger out of bed, put on your bathrobe, plop in front of the computer, and…Russia invades Ukraine, inflation peaks, someone shoots up a school, lockdowns are initiated, new taxes are levied, travel bans are brought to bear, etc, etc.
If there’s any advice I would offer to someone in these rather interesting times it would be this: be deliberate in everything you do. Think through the consequences several layers down of any action you take, or don’t take. Making mistakes in the current environment is a luxury that most people can’t afford too often.
Don’t let the fact that there are a bunch of labor-intensive holidays this month distract you from the important things. What, pray, could that possibly be? The answer, of course, is: you.
Don’t let anyone guilt or browbeat you into doing something really stupid this holiday season. In a world of pandemic, inflation, high fuel prices, and that sort of thing do you really want to go hundreds (or thousands) of dollars into debt just to give expensive gifts to people who may or may not actually be that important to you? Or you to them?
If you care about someone enough to want to get them an expensive gift, and they care about you the same way, then they care about you enough to not want you to financially martyr yourself by buying some ridiculously expensive gift. If they’re a real friend, they’d rather you take the $100 you were gonna spend on them and spend it on making your life better, your life safer, and your life more resilient.
If you can swing it, sure, get dad the Rolex, buy mom the Peloton, gift the wife that diamond she’s always wanted. But all those people who love you, if hey really love and understand you, would rather you just give them a hug and a $20 gift rather than hurt yourself financially by getting them something because you or someone else has you convinced that you ‘have to’ go into debt ‘because its Christmas’ (or whatever holiday).
Look around you, do you really think this environment we are living in right now is the kind where you want to exhaust limited resources just because you’re getting pressure to give outrageous gifts? Aren’t there more important things to do with your limited resources?
I have a few close friends and I would much rather they take the money they were going to spend on me and spend it on themselves instead to increase their resilience, increase their safety, and increase their security.
Part of being a survivalist is having to be able to ignore peer pressure. Now, if you’re squared away, of if you’ve got a goodly bit of disposable income, go ahead and buy great gifts for the people in your life. But if you’re really concerned about the future, and you think having a little extra this or a case or two of that in storage might be a good idea, then dial it back a bit this year in terms of gift giving. If someone asks why you ‘cheaped out’ this year when you were handing out $250 Amazon gift cards last year you tell them truth – you’re putting your resources into making your life safer, more secure, and resistant to the chaos we’re in now. And if those people have a problem with it, well, then they’re people you probably don’t need to have in your life anyway, let alone be giving gifts to.
Nobody ever lost their job, was staring down an eviction notice, and said “You know, I’m sure glad we spent all that money on those expensive gifts for people we barely see during the year.”
People who really care about you don’t want expensive gifts from you. People who really care about you just want you to be okay. If they really care about you, then theyre going to think thats the best gift they can receive – knowing the person they care about is well. Give ’em a hug, a box of 9mm, and tell them how much they mean to you. In the long run it’ll be a great exchange for both parties.
I got, I kid you not, a Festivus card in the mail the other day. A thoughtful reader sent me a Festivus card and a thoughtful (and greatly appreciated) gift. Darn nice of him, if you ask me.
What does Zero want for Christmas?
Well, ammo anyway.
Actually, precious metals (of which ammo would count) make awesome gifts. I genuinely don’t have much I could ask for for Christmas. I did splurge and get myself another lovely Filson garment as an early Festivus gift to myself. I like their products, their style, and quality….hate the price. But..buy once, cry once.
However, were Santa to ask me if there were any preparedness related items he could have his non-union labor force whip up for me…..well…I wouldnt mind a nice ICOM transceiver with power supply and antennae, some more NATO gas cans, another EU2000, and that sort of thing. While I’m something of a sentimental fool, I have trouble with the notion of Santa encouraging children to believe that they can get toys simply because ‘they deserve them’. It seems like it would foster an attitude of entitlement. Still, not as bad as Halloween…where children are encouraged to put on disguises, head to wealthier neighborhoods, and demand treats under penalty of tricks. All thats missing from that picture is a ‘no justice no peace’ sign.
But…not everyone sees it that way.
Yeah, I bet that’s what they said eighty years ago.
The attack on Pearl Harbor had no parallel in US history until 9/11. Both events, on the surface, came out of nowhere and both reshaped the world afterwards. To me the biggest lesson learned is to not get into the mindset that ‘it cant happen’. It’s all happened before and it’ll all happen again. In just one morning, the entire trajectory of the world changes for decades to come. It can actually happen that fast. Mind-boggling when you think about it.
Someone asked me how I store all those magazines.
Answer: The same way I store anything that I feel is important, worth protecting, and might be in storage for a long time: in a hard, airtight, watertight, crushproof container.
For 99% of the things I put in the Deep Sleep, the container of choice is either a genuine GI ammo can of some kind, or a Pelican (or similar brand/quality) case.
Good, quality, name-brand, effective, just-what-the-doctor-ordered cases are not cheap. Only you know how much risk you’re willing to take to save a few dollars. Will the plastic ammo can from Harbor Freight store gear just as well as a GI ammo can? Maybe. If it’s just going to sit on the shelf in your basement for the next twenty years then all it has to do is sit there, quietly waiting in the dark for that one day when life changes in an exciting new way. And that is when the extra bucks you paid makes a difference. When you grab the can off the shelf, swing it around as you run up the stairs with it, it bounces off the doorway as you grab your backpack with your other hand. You run out the door and it’s five inches of snow and freezing rain as you literally toss the ammo can in the back of the truck into a pile of slushy snow and ice. Then its a two hour drive over bumpy roads until you get to your safe place. Then you drag your gear out of the truck, some of it falls and hits the ground, some bounces off other gear, and some just gets none-too-gently shoved into a corner of the room. Now, your headset radios, battery chargers, cables, batteries, and other gear were in those cans… which would you rather have used to store those items – the $7.50 harbor Freight made-in-China plastic “GI” ammo cans or the $65 Pelican case?
Everything I put away for the future is put away because I have concerns about those things being unavailable in the future. Maybe they are unavailable due to price..or legislative action…or simple supply/demand variations…the reason doesn’t really matter; all that matters is that this particular item is now unavailable and whatever ones I have are the only ones I’m gonna have. So…I don’t mind spending the extra money for what I feel is a heightened level of protection.
Of course, not everything requires a super-high level of protection. A Glock magazine can get dropped, bounced off the concrete, get wet/snowy/dusty/dirty and survive just fine thank you very much. Not the same story for a radio. Or your medical gear. Or your other critical-and-somewhat-fragile gear.
Only you know what is and is not important enough to you to warrant the expense of high-end protection. It’s very subjective. Personally, my opinion is that anything worth putting away for the uncertain future is worth protecting as much as possible so it’s there when I need.
You’re going to have to do some math in your head. If the Made-in-China case affords you 75% the protection of the Pelican or Hardigg case is that 25% difference in protection worth the difference in price? Does the 80/20 rule apply here? As a friend of mine said when I complained about the cost of a motorcycle helmet, “Whats your head worth?”
It seems ridiculous to spend as much on a protective case as you did on the item that you are protecting, but, again, whats it worth to you to have exactly what you need, when you need it, in perfect working condition?
As I said, I’m a bit of an evil ‘yuppie survivalist’ so I spend the dollars for the Hardigg, the Pelican, the SKB cases. Or, if they’ll do the job, the virtually new genuine GI ammo cans. It’s just not worth it to me to go through the pain and labor of buying a piece of expensive top quality gear, house it in a POS knockoff plastic ammo can, and then have the lovely surprise of having that item absolutely not work when I need it most. At that moment the last thing I’m thinking is “Man, sure glad I saved thirty bucks by buying that cheap just-as-good-as-Pelican case.”
You know, just because you can (somewhat) get away with selling .223 at eighty cents per round does not mean that all the other crap on your table has commensurately gone up in value. For example, the Smith and Wesson Model 10 has not been invented that is worth $1050. And you can cover that 4″ Highway Patrolman with hookers and cocaine and it is still not worth $1150.
I bought nothing. Nada. Zip. At least….not until I swung by a local gunshop on the way back to town. And…this followed me back to the truck:
Its a polymer KE Arms lower. The foundation for Gun Jesus’ project gun – the WWSD rifle. Now, I’d love to have one of those WWSD rifles but I’m not dropping that kinda coin. But I am interested in the monolithic stock/receiver idea. As you know Cavalry Arms started this trend and these stock/frame combos are the natural extension of that. The notion is that by switching to a polymer lower you get a substantial weight and balance advantage. While telescoping stocks are fine, I never do anything with them that i can’t do with a full stock. And, I rather like full stocks but didnt like the weight. This gives me thebest of both worlds.
While I’d like to have a WWSD gun, I’ll probably hunt around for an upper that does what I’m looking for and mate it to this lower. I’ve always thought carbine uppers on full-stock lowers were a good idea and I’d be interested to see if this combo gives me that advantage without the weight penalty.
In case you missed it, the courts upheld California’s ban on normal-capacity magazines.
I can’t say I’m surprised but I can say I’m disappointed. I was hoping that from a legislative and judicial standpoint we had turned a corner in regards to such things. Apparently not….although the Ninth Circus is the one most likely to go and do something completely wonky out of all the courts.
What’s it mean to me and you? Well, unless you live in California, not very much except as an indicator of how the political winds may be blowing.
However, it’s a good example of why you need to buy your Uncertain Goods when you can and in the quantities that you want. Unless I buy some previously not stockpiled thunderoty, I have plenty of mags for everything I shoot that needs a magazine.
If Biden can get his marbles together long enough to comprehend what his advisors and handlers are telling him, he’d start pushing for Assault Weapons Ban 1994: The Next Generation. Fortunately he’s just busy mispronouncing ‘omicron’ and sniffing women’s hair.
The nice thing about putting my magazine needs to rest years ago is that I no longer have to funnel resources in that direction. I can take my rapidly devaluing dollars and put them into other tangible goods….like food, fuel, fuel cans, radios, armour, gold, silver, medicines, clothes, shoes, and all the other little things that go to make up a prepared life.
Those ammo cans are 18″x11″x6″ and are marked as being for belts of 40mm for the lovely Mk19 GL. As it turns out, each can will hold 34 Magpul 30-rd AR mags. Or 69 Magpul 27-rd Glock mags.
Yknow…in case you ever need to know something like that.
