Democrats are upset because a Republican President is banning non-citizens from entering the country and carrying on like it’s some tremendous human rights violation, meanwhile they seem to conveniently forget the Democrat President who actually rounded up American citizens of a particular ethnicity and stuffed them into concentration* camps.

• = Yes, concentration camp. A concentration camp, as originally developed by the British, was meant to concentrate a particular ethnic/racial group in one area.

The Metals Pimp dropped off a shiny Silver Eagle the other day saying it was from a customer who told him to send one my way.

This happens from time to time. And I am always tickled when it does.

So, unknown benefactor, when the apocalypse comes and all the paper money is worthless, I shall drink a toast to your generosity as I purchase home-brewed brain eraser to ease my mind after a long day of hanging looters and shooting cannibal mutants. And lap dances. There’ll definitely be a lap dance or two. Thank you and salut!

Someday, man…. someday, i’m going to buy a chunk of nowhere, bushwhack in there with a four-wheeler pulling a small cement mixer, shuttle in a some lumber and a whole lotta bags of concrete, and build my happy little hideyhole. I just hope its sooner rather than later, before Im too old.

Vendors expecting a Hillary buying panic cranked up production and….now have a lot of inventory they need to convert to cash. Thats why we see those sub-$400 AR’s and $30 stripped lowers recently advertised.

One of my vendors just dumped a bunch of Butler Creek 10/22 Hot Lips  25-rd mags in my lap. If anyone wants some, theyre $104/12 ($8.66 Ea.), inc. shipping. Any interest or questions, hit me up in email, not comments… zero (a t) commanderzero.com

One of…’several’ (ahem!)..cases of mags that are looking for new homes.

I pretty much predicted this would happen.

“Plainly interpreted, the Montana Legislature has prohibited all forms of local government from exercising any regulatory power over the purchase, sale or transfer of firearms,” wrote Fox, who more than a year before the ordinance was passed warned it “likely violates our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

The mandated expansion of background checks — to include virtually all gun transfers including private sales — was proposed in Montana’s second-largest city in 2015. It drew almost immediate fire from critics including gun rights groups and two out of three of Montana’s congressional delegates, but, with the support of gun control advocates, passed last September in an 8-4 vote.

Our morbidly obese, and terminally leftist, alcoholic mayor somehow decided that this was a ting that needed to be done. The biggest and oldest gun show in the state happens here every summer and it would have been a tremendous problem if this stupid thing to stand.

Experience is a harsh instructor, but some will learn at the hands of no other.

Ah, the Meat Tray. How I love thee….it’s like a little menagerie of different animals. Well, different dead, cleaned, and butchered animals. Todays flavors: chicken, bacon, beef, and pork. Something for everyone, a carne tonight!

But, as much as we’d like it to be otherwise, meat has to be packaged properly if it’s gonna go take the cryo-nap. Freezer burn (which, really, is more a form of desiccation and dehydration [mummification, actually]) is reduced when you vacuum seal these morsels, so…let’s do that:

And then half goes into the deep freezer as a hedge against the uncertain future, and the other half goes in the upstairs freezer for eventual ‘normal’ use. Does this sort of thing pay off? Well, years back I wound up with around 70# of ground beef at $1.49/#… that went into the deep freeze and by the time it was finally all consumed, that same ground beef was selling for 2.99/#. I go into my locl grocery store and I am aghast to see it selling for around four bucks these days. So, yes, if you can buy it cheap and stack it deep you’re going to come out ahead in the long run.

School starts up again this week, so I need to start doing breakfast. Since I’m incredibly lazy, I want something easy and fast. Cold pizza is my #1 choice, but who can afford that? I figured I’d just have instant oatmeal. Turns out, my pantry was devoid of the stuff. Musta used it all up last semester. Hmm. Well, let’s rotate some out of storage.

Sometime around 2006 I ran into a really nice sale on instant oatmeal.* As I recall it was a package of ten for a buck. Hey, for brand-name instant oatmeal, why not? So I picked up a bunch. As I’m sure you are familiar with, instant oatmeal is usually packaged in paper pouches – not the best sort of thing for long-term storage. As always, I turned to my trusty vacuum sealer. Sealed up ten pouches to a bag, sealed ’em up in a bucket, and tucked ’em away. Until today. Let’s see what we got.

Inspection tag says this was last inspected in 2011. I need to be a tad more diligent about this sort of thing. Every other year should be good. Surface of the bucket is a bit dusty, but that’s to be expected.

Spin off the Gamma Seal lid and the contents are clean and dry…as expected.

A dozen sealed ‘bricks’ of packages of instant oatmeal. Awaiting the day a hot breakfast is needed before a full day of hanging looters, manning barricades, killing zombies, and rescuing desperate-but-grateful coeds from cannibals.

The individual pouches kept their vacuum and everything appears good. No food smells, no insects, no nothin’.

Everything seems good to go. Contents of pouches aren’t caked together from moisture or anything else. Chalk up another win to the vacuum sealer.

Add some boiling water and…tastes just fine. Without a laboratory I can’t tell what nutritional value (if any) might be, but I can tell you that calorically it’s all there. Some canned/dehydrated fruit, powdered orange drink, instant hash browns, powdered scrambled eggs, maybe a freeze-dried pork chop and you’ve got a pretty decent breakfast after the apocalypse.

This vaccum-seal and bucket combo is also how I store 4# bags of sugar and salt. Sugar, especially, works well in this. The vacuum sealing keeps all the moisture out so your bag of salt or sugar doesn’t become a somewhat useless hard brick…and it keeps the bugs out as well.

I’m always gratified when I get to put food-storage theory to the test…empirical data for the win.

* = Not to toot my own horn, but it occurs to me this is the first time I’ve ever seen a blog post anywhere where a person had a post about something they did ten years ago, and then they have the original post from that thing they did ten years ago. Not a lot of blogs out there have the longevity to pull that stunt.

Part of a sweeping package of reforms pushed by Democrats in 2016, the regulations clamped down on a gun industry innovation, known as the bullet button, that flouted an earlier statute meant to regulate rifles with detachable, quickly reloadable ammunition magazines. Under the revised rules, Californians in possession of assault weapons that incorporate a bullet button and certain other features have until the end of this year to register them with the state, a step that some gun owners are loathe to take. Stores like SoCal can’t sell new bullet button-equipped guns, and don’t yet have an alternative that they can be sure will comply with the enhanced restrictions.

But all that could soon change. Just as they did the last time California updated its longstanding assault weapons law, enterprising gunsmiths are ready with new products that could render the tighter restrictions largely moot.

I have a buddy who, finally, left California for the freedom of the mountains of Montana. He said that the first thing he did after he crossed the border out of the state was to pull over, get his FAL outta the case, and replace the ‘bullet button’ with the normal magazine release.

We always ask California gun owners why they don’t just get out of that place and join the rest of us here in the land of 30-rd magazines and flash suppressors. Usually, the answer is either “My wife won’t move, she has family here” (or a similar family-related theme) or they just can’t change careers right now. I have to respect that, after all, a man has obligations and duties that sometimes keep him from doing what he wants.

I feel bad for those California gunnies, though, and I admire the folks who brainstorm rule-beater advancements in technology to try to make the most of a bad situation.

But…nothing makes me appreciate where I live more than reading those outrageous California regs and snuggling my HK91.

Finally got around to swapping the old incandescent light bulbs out for new LED ones. What’s interesting is that the LED bulbs had a ‘soft indoor’ version and a ‘outdoor light’ version. These had nothing to do with venue, but rather color or ‘warmth’. For example, if you look at most of the regular light bulbs in your house, they throw a yellowish light. As a result everything you see in your house has a bit of that color tinge in it..nothing in your house is the ‘real’ color. I swapped out some of the bulbs for the ‘outdoor light’ bulbs and discovered that what they mean by ‘outdoor light’ is that, like natural light outside, it isn’t as tinged with other color. In other words, you put these bulbs in your household fixtures and you get to see what color your furniture, paint and carpet really is. Eye opening.

I replaced the bulbs because I was out of regular bulbs and had to go to Costco. LED bulbs provide the same light at about 1/10th the power usage so that’s kind of nice. The major appeal is the stupid things are supposed to last orders of magnitude longer than incandescent bulbs…and don’t bulbs always crap out at the worst times? So…LED upgrades.

As I was swapping bulbs, I passed a few of the battery operated ‘puck lights’ that are in the basement for use in power failures. They’re little LED lights that run on AAA-batts. I keep them mounted to the ceiling studs next to the regular lights. As I was swapping bulbs I figured I’d test out the lights. And…this:

As is typical when this sort of thing happens, you’ve got a 50/50 chance of the device being destroyed. In this case, a little cleaning with a wire brush and some fresh batts set things in the right direction. This is why, broadly, I try not to store things with batteries in them. I haven’t heard of this sort of thing happening with lithium batts, like CR123 or lithium AA’s, but I suppose it may happen..I just haven’t experienced it yet.

Moral of the story: those battery devices (like flashlights and radios) should probably get a six-month check to avoid this sorta thing. Put it on the same schedule as smoke detector battery changing – Daylight Savings Time changeover day.

You had me at “America First”.