Random musings

Paratus, the holiday of preparedness, is coming up. This year it falls on September 18th. There is a FAQ up about it if you care to read it. In the spirit of the individualist nature that Paratus represents, you don’t ‘make a list and check it twice’. Why? Because:

  • We’re already on someone’s lists somewhere
  • Checking it twice is the same as checking it only once, since one is none and two is one
  • OPSEC

But in the back of my head I think I’ll probably have a few folks to send Paratus gifts to. It’ll be a fun and somewhat humourous diversion.

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Summer in Montana is here. This is the optimum time to do shooting and outdoor-related stuff that you really don’t feel like doing when it is ten degrees outside. My plan for the summer is to pick a small handful of rifles and laboriously work up ideal loads for them. My plans are to work with the Ruger GSR, my flagpole 7×57, and my .44 Contender. I am especially curious to play with GSR since it’s limited optics make tight groups a challenge…but its not a rifle meant for shooting groups, its a rifle meant for shooting objects. That means that while it may not shot a 1″ group at 100 yards, it will hit a mammal-sized target reliably at, say, 300. (Which, really, is kinda Coopers original spec for the thing.) Regardless, its a very pleasant, and satisfying solitary project. I look forward to it.

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There’s some buzz in the news about (yawn) new gun laws to be passed by the administration. The buzz is that ‘high-powered’ handguns like the AR/AK pistols will get dropped into some NFA classification or some such. I dunno, man…I think the barn door has been open too long on that one. Last time the fedgoons arbitrarily reclassified a firearms into that sort of category was back when the Street Sweepers, USAS/Daewoo shotguns got lumped in as Destructive Devices. There probably weren’t nearly as many of them in people’s hands as there are AR pistols these days. Still, stupider edicts have come out of the unstable minds at ATFE, so I suppose anything is possible. My money is still on this ‘wrist brace’ thing coming to a head. We’ll see.

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It’s still over a year until the Presidential election. Does that mean its too late or too early to start stockpiling?

Single-serving burn gel

I’m a big fan of the Water Jel burn relief product. This stuff is the most awesome thing in the world for taking the pain out burns. Years ago I made the mistake of picking up a lawnmower by the exhaust manifold. Ow. I literally could not sleep unless my hand was clutching a bag full of ice cubes, the pain and ache was that strong. Nowadays, I slap some of this stuff on it and -presto- the pain goes away. Nothing magical, its just a topical anesthetic, but when you burn yourself, especially on parts of the body that really make you feel it…like fingertips…the stuff is a wonder.

20150605_181355I keep the large bottle of it around the house but thats really too large for most first-aid kits. Fortunately, they offer single-serving ‘ketchup packets’ of the stuff. Several of these are going into the various FAKs that go in the hunting/fishing bags. Nine times out of ten the burns I get outdoors are the simplest and stupidest ones….those stupid wire handles on the canteen cup. Its a long day of chasing Bambi, you stop to heat some water on the esbit stove to mix up some lunch, your hands are a little cold so you don’t notice how hot the wire handles are at first, and…ouch. And while burns are never fun, the ones on fingers..esp fingertips….really suck. So…a couple packets of this stuff will go into each FAK.

As I was ordering the stuff up offa Amazon I noticed they even make a ‘military’ kit that is suitable for white phosphorus injuries. Kinda cool, although if I’m in a situation where there is a genuiune risk of Willy Pete injuries then things have truly gone off the rails.

I’d posted a while back about Water Jel but didn’t mention the extremely convenient single-serve packets. I ordered them up a few days ago and they just arrived. Figured I’d mention it because it is some really awesome stuff and there’s really no excuse for not having some in your kits when you can get it in something as convenient and small as the single-serving packets.

 

Article – Not my apocalypse: a black woman reads a white-guy prepper magazine

Apparently, those darn prepper magazines are a hotbed of coded racial injustices. I am especially WTF’ed by this jewel:

It’s important to note that, despite the robbery, the reader is starting from a place of privilege – even after being robbed, he has a single-family home with attached garage and the “usual personal belongings,” including two cars with full tanks of gas, tools, three mobile phones, a second secret stash of a food and water (one man removed his from behind the bathroom drywall), and a loaded gun, which was apparently of no help in the confrontation with the gunmen. (And was apparently of no interest to them anyway.)

Because, apparently, in this womyn’s world, having gear that you worked hard to acquire is privilege. As if someone just dropped a gold Cabela’s card in your lap and said ‘go forth and prep’. But, this chick is no doubt of the mindset that whenever you have more than her (or people who look like her, have the same plumbing as her, or the same economic mobility as her) that is an ‘injustice’ or ‘inequality’.

There’s actually a much more sinister implication here. This womyn, who is ‘of color’, seems to imply that the ‘prepper culture’ caters mostly to white males. If thats the case, and there is indeed a lack of ‘preppers of color’, is that an indictment of a publishing and marketing industry that is racist or  does it show that the notion of self-reliance, taking care of ones self, being responsible for your own well-being,  and independence from government support is a mindset not supported by the ‘of color’ community. Or, to put it in a very racially charged, but much simpler context, are white people more inclined to resist being in a state of dependency on others and .gov than non-whites? Now that’s a tack the writer should have taken. Rather than ask ‘why is the demographic for this magazine mostly white males’ perhaps she should be asking ‘why aren’t more non-whites interested in this’.

From a devils advocate point of view, I suppose you could make the argument that in our society the ‘marginalized’ segments (the people of color, the ‘econmically unprivileged’, etc.) simply cannot afford to spare the money, time, and other resources since they are already at a deficit on those resources compared to the white population. Or, put another way, if most other racial and ethnic groups are earning less, then they have less time and effort to put towards this sort of thing…they’re too busy just trying to catch up.

Honestly, I know absolutely zero non-white survivalists. In fact, from a strict racial standpoint, I’m the only one I know (I’m 50% ‘other’ ingredients.) But part of that, no doubt, is because I wound up living in a place where the population tends to be rather homogenous. Still, as I diddybop across the blogosphere I find very few survivalist or prepper blogs that aren’t being done by someone not ‘of color’. Oh, there are some exceptions…the ones I have found tend to be less about survivalism and more about ‘urban homesteading’, ‘organic gardening‘, and that sort of thing, which does kinda come into the preparedness Venn diagram. In fact, the only black person I’ve ever even read about who comes close is this fellow. (And I had to dig back over seven years to even find that.) Wiki.

As a commenter to the article said, the outrage the author shows about the overwhelming white maleness of the prepper magazines must be how he feels when he flips through Jet and notes a decided lack of not-of-color people. Face it, some things target a niche or demographic that tends to be very homogenous. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that homogenous nature is due to a simple lack of interest from others and not a result of exclusionary policy.

I’ve met dozens of people over the years who are into preparedness in some form or another…some religious, some not. Some male, some female, Some gay, most straight. Most rightist, some leftist. Most race-indifferent, some rather race-conscious. But everyone across the board was some shade of white person.

Do I think that the prepper magazines out there are full of images of white people and absolutely vacant of positive images of non-white people? Somewhat, yes. Do I think it’s because of a racist mindset? Uh, no..I think it’s because when you’re trying to sell magazines you sell to the market you think exists for that magazine.

As an interesting project, if anyone can find me some preparedness-themed blogs that are run by ‘people of color’, I’d like the links so I can go check ’em out.

Sig MPX in the wild

Mmmmm…if you can’t get yourself an HK94/MP5 this thing runs a real close second.

IMG_7730Came across the Sig MPX today. First one I’ve seen in the wild. Although it did have the ‘wrist brace’, it did not have the controversial muzzle device. Obviously, I didn’t get to shoot this thing but I sure got my fingerprints all over (and inside) it. My overall impression is that SIG is really living up to their reputation. Ambi safety, ambi bolt lock, ambi mag release, single point attachments, plenty of rail, etc, etc. The overall impression was that if you can’t find yourself an SP89 to ‘arm brace’ (yes, Im using arm brace as a verb) this little jewel might be just the ticket. Of course, its also $1600~. Still havent gotten my hands on a CZ Evo yet but I hope its just as nice as the SIG. And, lemme tell ya man, those AR controls were just nice. Come to think of it, all the MPX really is is a 9mm AR with a dedicated magazine well. But, wow, was it handy. I like my Uzi but its an aged design and the MPX really brought that home. On the other hand I can buy Uzi mags all day for about $10 whereas the SIG mags are around 7x that….for now.

If money wasn’t that big an issue, I might have a couple of these MPX but I really want to give the Evo a look. The price point makes the Evo very attractive and I think thats going to translate into a much larger logistics aftermarket as the Evo uses its MSRP to grab more market share.

Handy little gun…really would like to shoot one.