Gov shutdown and TSA

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I see the grepos at TSA are in the news this week. Apparently, they aren’t getting paid because of the government shutdown and theyre just one step away from being homeless.

First off, I have no sympathies for anyone at the TSA. When the revolution gets here and they’re handing out blindfolds and lining people up against the wall, I will happily reload the rifles.

Prior to the nationalization of airport security, airport screeners were minimum-wage flunkies similar to what you’d see doing security guard jobs at the mall. When the .gov nationalized them, they all became federal employees with federal payscales and federal benefits…but they kept the uneducated, lower-class mindset that originally had doomed them to minimum wage obscurity.

As a result, while every other ‘non essential’ government worker seems to be muddling through, the savages at TSA are flirting with homelessness.

Here’s my point: this little shutdown is three weeks old. Three weeks. These …people…did not have the foresight to have enough money in the bank to cover them in case of emergencies. They make federal money, with federal holidays, bonuses and overtime, and no one thought to put some away for a rainy day. And these short-sighted mofos are the ones who are touted as our ‘first line of defense’ in airline safety.

Also, this whole ‘non esential’ thing…if they’re ‘non essential’ why do we have them at all?

Worth noting, ATF and their related asshattery are not included in this shutdown. Neither is the NICS system for doing background checks. But I wouldn’t put it past a future administration to dump NICS into ‘non essential’ as a way to punish those evil gun-loving republicans.

Me, I love political gridlock. The government that governs least governs best. If there are hardships being experienced by people because of this shutdown it seems to me that means that those services shouldn’t be gov’s responsibility to begin with, or people shouldnt be depending on gov for them.

Anyway…thats my two cents worth.

ETA: Im less annoyed at the people who shut the gov down than I am at the ones that turn it back on.

Upcoming year

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Just an FYI… at the moment, I have 6 5 4 3 2 bundles of AR mags left, and 3 of AK mags.

Still wondering what 2019 holds. Since I’m a firm believer in ‘better safe than at at ballistic disadvantage’ I’m sending a chunk of those recently acquired magazines into the Deep Sleep. At the rate you people are buying them, it appears there’s some groupthink going on.

But, preparedness isn’t all glamour and guns. Being early January, now is the time to start some seeds indoors so theyre ready for the outdoors around May. Nothing fancy, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, that sorta thing. Don’t know why, but its always a bit satisfying.

As I’ve said, I’m going to try like heck to get the house paid off this year, and keep the gun purchases to a minimum (which, ideally, will be one grossly overscoped Ruger .338 Lapua Precision Rifle).

Other unsexy stuff for the year: better radio equipment, update/upgrade the video security, indoor hose bib for indoor firefighting, a big ol IBC in the yard for catching rainwater and a 12v pump to move it around, some solar panels if I can get a deal on them, more shelving for the basement, a couple extra propane tanks, and a few other geegaws.

But, always an eye on those idiots in Washington…theyre as big a potential problem as any supervolcano or EMP.

 

$100 Mag Deal

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Ok, lets do this……

  • What you get: 10 aluminum AR mags, black in color, dry lube finish, anti-tilt follower, delivered to your door/bunker/rallypoint
  • What you pay: $100.00
  • How you pay: Email me. I’ll send you a link you can pay at with a debit/credit card.
  • When you get: They’ll ship Priority Mail in the second half of next week

Paying online is, Im afraid, the only option. Every time I do one of these I get people who say to set some aside for them and that they’ll mail payment. And then Im left with unsold product when that payment never shows up. In the meantime, I turned away potential purchasers because I was outta stock except for the stuff I was holding back for those folks. Every time. Every. Time.

Exception: If youre local, we can arrange pickup.

Police Trade-In Guns

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Gotta be careful with that hyphen , otherwise ‘police trade-in guns’ becomes something else completely. (Although sometimes that happens too.)

I’m always on the lookout for bargain priced 9mm Glocks. It used to be that every few years police departments would slough off their old pistols for new ones, and those older pistols would work their way onto the market. Ask any cop and he’ll tell you that they guns look pretty worn, what with all the holster wear and whatnot, but they get fired very little. They are, basically, the used car from that little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.

Thing is, just about every police agency in the country migrated to the .40 S&W back in the day and have stayed there up until recently when the 9mm has been making a move back into the cop market. All this to say, while finding police trade-in 9mm Glocks is a bigfoot hunt these days, there is a metric buttload of surplus .40 Glocks out there at stupid prices.

If youre plans revolve around the .40, you can get all sortsa flavors of Glock for $250. Ditto for S&W M&P‘s. A friend of mine just scored a used .45 M&P, with night sights and spare  mags, for around $275 as police trade-in. The deals are out there.

But, as I said, my plans revolve around 9mm so Im kinda left out in the cold. But, if you’re a .40 guy this is going to be a golden era for you to get cheap big-name .40’s.

It reminds me of ‘back in the day’ when the big revolver-to-auto transitions were taking place and the market was awash in Smith Model 10’s and 15’s. I still have a couple of those sitting in the safe.

Anyway, I was trotting through the usual vendor websites and noticed that theres a plethora of .40’s on the market these days andthought Id point it out.
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In other news, a couple cases of AR mags shipped to me yesterday so it looks like we can go ahead and start getting people matched up for those AR mags. You know the drill.

AR mag deal?

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The Ak mags will be going out over the next couple days. Smart move all you foward-thinking folks that picked some up.

My vendor also has ASC brand AR mags at a similar price. These would be at the same price  as the AK deal – 10/$100 delivered. Magpuls wind up costing about the same, but while Magpul makes a fine product I prefer the aluminum mags for long term. You don’t have to agree, thats fine…we can still be friends.

Trouble is, I don’t know if there’s enough demand to make it worth dropshipping a couple cases of these things. I need people to commit to a total of 100 magazines (10 bundles of ten) to make it worthwhile. If you think thats the kind of deal you’d be seriously interested in (and when I say seriously, I mean that if it comes to pass you’ll actually come through and pony up the greenbacks) let me know in comments. If enough people commit I’ll go ahead and do it.

I’d like to have a yes/no on this project by the end of the week, so let me know.

ETA: Ok, I guess thats happening.

 

261 days ’till Paratus! Ready set go

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Alright, first day of the new year and like pretty much 90% of you, I don’t have to be anywhere today. So….Im gonna try and take advantage of the day off and get some prep-related stuff done… gun cleaning, inventory, organizational stuff, and just general bunker housekeeping.

If youre not too hungover, I recommend the same.

And, strangely, I’m watching magazine and gun availability start to twitch as people start getting nervous about the Democrats coming into the House in a few days. My vendors are still showing sub $400 AR’s out there, and I can find $6 aluminum GI mags…but who knows what the future holds, eh?

But you took advantage of the Trump Slump to buy all that stuff at bargain prices right? RIGHT?

 

But we’ve wandered many a weary foot

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Ah, 2018..we hardly knew ye…

At the end of 2017 I suspected that 2018 might be a gun-heavy year. It was. Just in terms of guns that I mentioned purchasing in the blog, I came up with six semi-auto rifles, a buncha  pistols, and three shotguns. And that just the ones you guys know about. So, yeah, a bit gun heavy. But, other than the Ruger .338 Lapua that Im on the fence about, the plan is to not get nearly as many guns.

Also scored around 60,000 of .22 LR which, as we’ve seen, is nice to have since you never know when the availability will plummet and the price will skyrocket.

Didnt need to use my AK this year, it was a good year.

No nuclear winter, depression, invasion, pandemic, alien attacks, earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, blizzards, fuel shortages, or other end of the world events. Which is exactly how I like it. Even without those biggies, life still has a way of nailing you right in the sac… so I’ll take all the disaster-free time that I can.

2019? Well, gonna try like hell to make this the year the house is paid off. Once that’s done it’ll free up money for other things, including preparedness projects I’ve had on the back burner. Thats pretty much the biggest priority…getting that taken care of reduces a liability (and risk) in my  life, and affords me the opportunity to redirect those resources elsewhere. And, if the world (big or small) takes a dump on me, I’d at least have a paid for roof over my head.

Any other goals for 2019? Keep on keepin’ on, I reckon. Advancements my be small, but they are still movement forward. Stay alert, stay prepared, be ready for whatever may come…you know, the usual.

I very much need to get more money in the bank in case some sort of personal emergency (unemployment, illness, needing to fake my own death, etc) occurs. Life throws lotsa curve balls….childhood illness resurfacing and affecting your career, vehicles that decide to start shedding parts, outrageous tax increases by local municipalities, etc, etc. None of those are classic ‘end of the world’ scenarios but they can become ‘end of YOUR world’ scenarios if you aren’t ready.

All in all, though, 2018 could have been a lot worse. It wasn’t anything horrible, but it wasn’t a banner year either…it was just sorta there. But…its pretty much done and I’ve managed to stay upright and on the bounce.
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In case you havent spent enough money this year, this was brought to my attention in comments:

Battery stuff

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The consensus is pretty much universal: unless youre using lithium batts, your batteries are going to crap the bed and cost you your device.

Ii mention this because I just had to take two sets of slip-joint pliers to open the tailcap on a mini MagLite and you can imagine what the inside looked like. Fortunately, mini Maglites are not terribly expensive. But what if it was my GPS? Or my pocket radio? Or some other piece of expensive gear?

A while back I actually managed to catch a battery disintegration in progress.

It seems pretty clear that some sort of inspection is going to need to be performed on a somewhat regular basis for these items that have batteries left in them long-term. But, it also means I need to come up with a way to keep batteries at hand for when I don’t want to store them in the devices. Lets take the Siege lanterns that pretty much every one of you bought a few week back. Those take three D-batts. If I’m not going to keep them in the light, then i need to keep them nearby and I need to keep them protected. (And isolated from each other.) Tall order. Best thing I’ve seen thus far is this. Doesn’t seem to offer much elemental protection though. What I’d really like is something like this, but sized for D-batts. Is there such a thing? Dunno. I suppose the PVC minded might be able to create some sort of ‘cigar tube’ that holds three D-batts but I’d prefer a ready-made solution. In the meantime, while I quest for such a thing, I’m thinking a quarterly inspection schedule is going to have to be instituted..which means I need inspection tags for the devices. More work.But…whats it worth to have your gear work when you need it, right?

A quick addition to Evernote and I’ve got a checklist and a reminder to check batteries quarterly in..uhm..lets see….15 different devices.  We’ll see if this reduces the incidence of destroyed Maglites.

AK mag deal update

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I have a handful of people who have been invoiced for the AK mag deal but haven’t paid up yet. Guys, I know its the holidays but if those invoices stay open another day or two I’ll have to close them to make those magazines available for other people. If you told me you wanted mags and you received an invoice for them….well…ya gotta pony up or theyre gonna go to someone else.

Expecting to have them shipped out to you foresightful guys Wednesday.

Still want in? Room for a couple more bundles of mags if you wanna email me and get in on the action.