If they’re “Non-essential” .gov employees, then doesn’t that mean we don’t need them? Or, at least, their services can be done cheaper and more efficiently by private enterprise?
Honestly, Im a huge fan of gridlock and .gov shutdowns. Put that thing in a box and keep it from doing more damage.
Ian, aka ‘Gun Jesus‘, has a neat little video about the Medusa revolver.
Basically, the idea was to have a revolver that would shoot, essentially, any straightwall case cartridge, rimmed or rimless, that fired a bullet around 9mm…9×19, .38 Special, .357 Mag., .380 ACP, 9×21, .38 Colt, etc. It would be a ‘survivors’ gun since you could scrounge ammo from just about anywhere.
It wasnt an original idea. It was supposed to be the Colt Survivor but Colt let it languish and it never went anywhere. (But prototypes do turn up.) The story, as I rad it, was that ATF tol Colt that if they made this thing they wouuld have to give it very distinctive rifling so that bullets could be identified as having been shot outta the thing since it could, in theory, fire dozens of different cartridges.
Anyway, about ten years ago Taurus decided they’d got on the bandwagon and announced the Taurus Triad…a more modest caliber selection: 9mm/38/357. It was pure vaporware and although it was cataloged I never found one.
Ruger made their single-action Blackhawk convertibles in 9/357 but required a cylinder change. It’s only as of late that they have made something of a comeback with their new .45 Redhawk that fires .45 ACP/.45 Colt. However, I still want a revolver that shoots 9mm/38/357 interchangeably.
Taurus just announced that they are bringing out a DA revolver that, with a spare cylinder, will allow you to shoot the 9mm/38 cartridges but only time will tell if they actually make the bloody things.
I rather like the idea of a DA revolver that can digest three of the most common cartridges found in this country. But, is it practical? Ehhhh…..not sure. But on paper it seems like a good idea.
So, you’re on an island and you get word that a nuclear missle is..what?..20 minutes away….from hitting. What do you do?
The media reported about people running around screaming, stuffing kids into storm drains, and people calling their loved ones for that dramatic ‘final phone call’. I wonder if anyone thought to get in a boat and motor away from the island as fast as they could.
Malmstrom AFB is a couple hours east of here and is the closest real nuclear target to me. What would I do if I got that text alert that there was a missile heading in that direction? Well, I wouldn’t be standing around crying and praying like the Hawaii folks. I’d grab the people important to me and cart them off to my basement. (Which , in retrospect, sounds very serial killer-y.)
Dreams like this happen every once in a while. I’ll have a dream that I see The Big Flash on the horizon and the world turns into the first fifteen minutes of World War Z. Maybe I stay put in my house, maybe I head to a secondary location, maybe I grab a shopping cart and race through WalMart like my life depends on it. But what I don’t do is stand around wailing and crying.
What about you? Have you actually told the loved ones what the drill is for when Something Big happens?
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Secret message to Pedro begins: Received. Much thanks! Will report on it.
Conspiracy Theory For The Day:
The missile warning wasnt a hoax. The NorKs launched one and it was shot down by US interceptor systems. But, they let the missile warning be broadcast so that if the system didn‘t catch it, they wouldn’t come out looking like fools. And if the missile did get intercepted, they could just shrug and say ‘false alarm’. Meanwhile, unplanned movements by naval and air forces in the Pacific were dismissed as part of an annual joint operational exercise. increased radio chatter from NorK and Japan prior to, and during, the launch has, of course, been unverified.
I hate that every time I find a product I like, it gets discontinued. Such is the case with one Mountain House’s recently introduced goodies. A while back , the sales department sent me some of their newer offerings. One of them was Italian Style Pepper Steak with Rice and Tomatoes. Darn good, I tell ya. So, I figured I’d get around to ordering a case or two of the #10 cans of the stuff. Sold out. Truth be told, the pouches are rated for seven years but, in the real world, they last a lot longer if you store ’em in a safe place. I may have to order a couple cases to round things out.
It occurs to me that I have quite a few samples of MH’s stuff laying around so I may as well do some reviews of it. Have to get on that this weekend. BUT…the pepper steak? Good eats, man.
Food is that one consumable that, other than water and oxygen, you pretty much have to have on hand if youre going to survive whatever apocalypse you’re expecting. I mean, lotsa people make it though hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and economic crises without firing a shot … but no one goes through them without eating.
MH has added a buncha new foods since I last stocked up. (A quick perusal shows that the last group buy was around….2008?) I wonder if it’s time to try and coordinate another one? They are tremendous pains in the ass to put together, but the discounts are usually worth it. I’ll have to give it some thought. Usually it takes a commitment of about $3500 to get the free freight…which is a big deal because getting a couple pallets trucked over from Oregon is about $350 all by itself. But..getting enough people to commit to buying enough food to reach that minimum, collecting money, repackaging and reshipping…man, thats some work.
In a perfect world I’d simply order $3500 worth of food for myself, tuck it away, and cross ‘food’ off my list. But…it’s going to be a while before I have that kinda disposable income.
I really don’t see what the big deal is…those countries like Haiti really are..well…you know.
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Someone sent me this link and I figured I’d share:
Article is behind a free registration wall. I’d repost it in its entirety but I’ve no doubt someone would then go tell the Bloomberg people and I already disdain Bloomberg enough.
I swear, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is, what time of month, or what season of the year – shopping at WalMart is always a trip to a human zoo. Fat people on scooters, moms with toddlers in several different shades, Gabby Hayes lookalikes, pierced and tattooed freak shows, etc, etc. I swear, if I ever have the misfortune of being accosted by lawless ne’er-do-wells it’s going to happen in a WalMart parking lot.
WalMart is the central point of a Venn diagram with all the different subspecies of humans (and pseudo-humans). It is like some sort of Supermarket of Dr Moreau…a paean to the untermensch.
And yet, I’ll travel among those people like British explorers through New Guinea in order to save $0.75 per pound on chicken, and get Coke a nickel cheaper per can than at Albertsons.
After my appendix exploded a few months back, the incisions were right along my beltline, which made carrying a pistol kinda painful. As I healed up (no mutant healing factor, sadly) I wound up, more often than not, going sans boomtoy in my daily life. And…I wound up not going back to it.
Driving is second nature when you’ve done it for a while, but a near-accident, or witnessing one, will suddenly make you more self-conscious about how you drive. I don’t need a near-death experience at the hands of some useless waste of skin with a HiPoint to remind me that carrying a gun is a good habit to maintain. WalMart is an exceptionally good reminder that “nothing good happens away from home after 11pm”. (Unless, of course, youre Harvey Weinstein at a post-Oscar party watching Jennifer Lawrence get hammered on boilermakers.)
So..back into the habit that I never should have fallen out of. What’s the gun of choice for the Zero, you might ask? Same as 90% of everyone reading this – comabt tupperware..drastic plastic…a Glock 19. It’s cheap, it works, and it’s what I have.
Nothing like the Parade of Failed DNA at WalMart to get you back into the habit of carrying a gun when you leave the house.
Every couple weeks I get an email from one of my vendors with a special on Barretts. Now, they aren’t the most accurate of the .50’s…. the long recoil operation doesn’t lend itself to precision, but then again the 82A1 is designed for busting up objects, not people. And it’s a lot easier to hit a parked helicopter at 1300 yards than it is to hit the pilot. The 82A1 is an an anti-things rifle.
But…the notion of ten rounds of .50 BMG on tap has a lot of gee-whiz appeal, and the damn thing just looks cool. So when this dropped in my mailbox…
It is tough to not order one up. I mean, I could sell the four bonus ARs for $500 each at a gun show and my cost on the Barrett then drops to $7000. But..gotta be practical. $9,000 would get me a superb .338 Lapua with an amazing scope and a high end rangefinder, ammo, accessories, dies, etc. And still leave me a couple grand left over.
It would also cover a not insignificant portion of my mortgage.
Being an adult sucks.
Ah, what would the world be without humour?
Well, actually, it’d be a lot like it is now. Nonetheless, here’s some amusement for those of us in our rarefied interest.
Man does not live by “Ala Baylon” alone. Comics Graphic novels are actually quite good reads. Some of these titles I was aware of, some I was not. Regardless, a quick trip to Amazon should take care of most of this list.
And, as many of you may know, The Walking Dead started out as a comic.
Anyway, when you get tired of reading the classics over and over, these might open up some new avenues.