ZURICH (Reuters) – Friction between Switzerland and the European Union over the bloc’s plans to tighten gun control following a rise in militant attacks could turn into another serious snag in ties already tested by Swiss efforts to curb immigration.

The proposed directive, which applies to non-EU member Switzerland only because it is part of Europe’s Schengen open border system, has raised hackles among the Swiss, who resent intervention from Brussels.

Christoph Blocher, a leading voice of the Swiss right and a eurosceptic, says Switzerland should consider abandoning Europe’s Schengen system of passport-free travel if the Swiss people rejected the proposed measures in a referendum.

Drafted after militants killed scores in attacks in Paris last year, the EU plans on gun control aimed to curb online weapons sales and impose more restrictions on assault weapons.

But the initial proposal provoked an outcry in Switzerland because it meant a ban on the long Swiss tradition of ex-soldiers keeping their assault rifles.

I absolutely love some of the things the Swiss do in the name of national sovereignty and preparedness. Sure, they do some things I don’t like, but any country that encourages folks to keep their military guns, doles out ammo for a national shooting festival, and has survival bunkers dotting the landscape….plus, women in dirndl dresses…gets my seal of approval.

One of my bucket list items is to go to the big Swiss shooting festival they have each year.

The Brits have already walked from the EU and the world didn’t come to an end. The Swiss, as best I can tell, don’t really get anything out of membership so perhaps they’ll be next.

MGE Wholesale just sent me their usual sale spam…

SUb-$500 AR and if you buy two they throw in a party-pak of ammo. The industry is definitely thinking theyre going to move a bunch of ARs before the election.

So I was trolling through backpage.com craigslist and found this: Pelican 1700 Long Case (waterproof, crushproof, and dustproof) – $100

Hmm. A Pelican 1700 for a C note would be pretty sweet. But….

Let’s bring up an image from Pelican’s website.
Now lets snag the picture from Craigslist

Three things jump out at me:

1. The logo’s on the cases are completely different. A Google and Yahoo image search for “Pelican case logo” does not return that logo you see on the CL case.
2. Notice the two protrusions on either end of the black case. Not present in the tan Pelican image
3. Pelican product has metal reinforcements at the padlock holes, the black CL case does not.

Is any of this definitive? I don’t know. It’s possible this is an old Pelican case that predates the metal-reinforced lock points, is an older mould that has those projections on the end, and perhaps the logo did change. Also, if you look at Pelicans product page for the 1700, some do have those round doughnuts on the corners, and some do not.

Or its a fake from our Most Favored Trading Partners over in China.

I was a tad disappointed that I couldn’t find much on the internet about spotting counterfeit Pelican cases. And, as I said, this case on CL maybe the real deal….but I’m thinking it isn’t.

Moral of the story: know your dealer. I came *this* close to buying this case until the odd logo threw me and I started to get suspicious. Amazon sells the real deal and if you shop around on there you can often find a decent deal on shipping.

From MGE Wholesale, in case you’re curious.

Personally, I wouldn’t trust my precious tuchas to a sub-$500 AR. I mean, they had to cut a corner (or five) somewhere, right? But A sub-$500 AR becomes a $900+ AR once the election is settled.

For what is basically dealer price on a Glock, you can drop this and a couple pmags in a box and double your money in three months.

Interesting video about one person’s experience with almost two dozen different flavors of AR mags. Worth a watch, even if you don’t necessarily agree with the opinions.

My own experience is that I prefer regular plain ol’ GI aluminum magazines over everything else. I used to swear by the CProducts mags but haven’t bought any from them since they had that ugly change of ownership a few years back, so I can’t speak to current quality.

Although I prefer GI aluminum magazines, I do stockpile Magpul Pmags as trading stock. I’ll use them if I have to, but I feel more comfortable with the aluminum mags in terms of reliability (which is everything) and durability. I’ve used AR mags from the Vietnam war with original followers and original springs and they’ve worked fine. Not sure I can find a forty year old plastic mag I can say that about.

Again, it’s personal preference…I’m sure you’ve had great experience with your carbon-fiber windowed magazine with round counter. Awesome. Good on ya. I’ll stick with the aluminum GI mags.

But….I’m a hidebound curmudgeon. I encourage you to research and try, try, try before making up your own mind.

H/T to guns.com

Someone very thoughtfully (thank you, DD!) sent me a link to this article:

BLAINE — In real estate, the term “unique” is a common description, even for a stick-frame rambler. But this property is as unique as they come.

For sale at $1.5 million: a five-story massive concrete building, on top of which once sat a 70-ton rotating radar.

This was during the Cold War, and the radar was part of a system on the lookout for incoming Soviet bombers. It was in a prime location to search the horizon, right by the Canadian border, with a magnificent view looking out at the San Juans.

Potential buyers ought to have no earthquake worries. Each floor has four solid concrete columns. Each column is 3 feet square. Outside walls are a foot thick and reinforced with rebar.

“It was explained to me that it was constructed to withstand a nuclear attack,” says Stefanie Fuller, who in 2003 was in charge of selling the surplus radar tower for the state.

But here”s the real money shot – ad with pictures!

Kinda looks like one of those old German flak towers that they can’t cheaply tear down these days.

I remember looking at one of those microwave relay stations that were for sale years ago…it was constructed in a similar ‘-nuke-resistant’ fashion. They’d make awesome retreats if you could modify them for full-time habitation without compromising their integrity.

A fascinating story about WalMart and how it seems to be a hotbed for crime. The article, from Bloomberg, mind you, makes the implication that it’s WalMarts fault for all the crime and this it is somehow taking advantage of overworked police departments.

It’s not unusual for the department to send a van to transport all the criminals Ross arrests at this Walmart. The call log on the store stretches 126 pages, documenting more than 5,000 trips over the past five years. Last year police were called to the store and three other Tulsa Walmarts just under 2,000 times. By comparison, they were called to the city’s single Target store 44 times. Most of the calls to the northeast Supercenter were for shoplifting, but there’s no shortage of more serious crimes, including five armed robberies so far this year, a murder suspect who killed himself with a gunshot to the head in the parking lot last year, and, in 2014, a group of men who got into a parking lot shootout that killed one and seriously injured two others.

I shop at WalMart for groceries. There is no doubt in my mind that WalMart id a good place to save a few bucks on things like groceries and housewares. However, because of those ‘everyday low prices’ it is also a magnet for the very low income. Now, not all very low income people are criminals or troublemakers….but many of those VLI people are VLI people because they’re scum. In other words, because they’re tweakers, drug users, criminals, gnagsters, and morons, thats the reason they’re very low income…not the other way around. A person can still be dirt poor and still be a good person…if they already started as one.

Anyway, this is the reason I never, ever go to WallyWorld without a pistol and a healthy dose of situational awareness. And a huge bottle of hand sanitizer in the vehicle.

The article goes on to say that the Target stores don’t have the same issue. Interestingly, in this town, Target has a rep for being *very* pro-active on the shoplifters. They take that stuff quite seriously and their loss-prevention guys sometimes wind up getting into law enforcement. Back in the day, Rudy Giuliani had the ‘broken window’ approach to crime fighting…previous administrations had let the little crimes (fare jumping, drinking in public, littering, etc) go ignored in the name of concentrating on the big crimes. Giuliani figured if you come down on the little crimes, you stop people from graduating to bigger crimes, improve quality of life, and reduce crime. To a degree, it worked. (There were some..uh..civil liberties…issues raised, but thats another story.)

As I used to tell someone, when there finally is a mass shooting event of some type in this town it’s gonna be at the Super WalMart. Sometimes its a freak show out there. Especially in the South.