You guys familiar with ‘box meal’ services like Blue Apron and similar outfits? You ‘subscribe’ and every week they send you a box in the mail with a recipe and all the ingredients you need to create that recipe. I think it’s a tad silly and expensive, but some people enjoy it.

I’m amused that the folks at Thrive storage food have used the ‘Blue Apron’ model to create a make-it-yourself meal service using, unsurprisingly, their freeze dried foods.

I have to admit, it’s a pretty clever way to tap into an entirely new market. However, even top of the line freeze-drieds are still a bit lacking compared to fresh vegetables and fruits that you get at the grocery store. But, one interesting aspect is that by checking out their menus you can come up with ideas on how best to utilize their selection of freeze dried foods.

Anyway, I thought it was rather amusing. Personally, while I have a really good stock of freeze drieds in storage, I think I’d rather eat the wet-pack canned stuff. Given my druthers between canned pineapple or freezedried pineapple, I’ll use the canned stuff every time…my pina coladas deserve no less.

I first mentioned this guy when his standoff was ten years old.

GUN BARREL CITY, Texas — The past decade has taken a toll on John Joe Gray, holed up on his rural East Texas land while waiting for a siege that’s never happened.

He’s been living on 47 acres behind a fence without running water and electricity but with plenty of guns, daring authorities to arrest him for a 10-year-old, third-degree felony warrant. He says he hasn’t left his property since 2000, all the while allowing his distrust of a government he views as evil to fester.

Apparently, last year the prosecutors figured his self-imposed house arrest was 150% of the maximum penalty he would have received, and dropped the charges.

The longest and possibly most bizarre stand-off in American history has come to an end.

John Joe Gray, from Trinidad, near Dallas, Texas, was arrested in 1999 for biting a police officer after the cop found he was carrying high-powered rifles without a license during a traffic stop.

Gray paid his bond and has since refused to go to court, hiding inside his 47-acre property for 16 years and vowing to shoot any officer of the law who tries to make him leave.

The bearded grandfather, his children, grandchildren and friends have armed themselves with pistols and rifles and patrolled their grounds ever since – with the county sheriff choosing not to send cops in for fear of them being killed.

But the unusual stalemate has finally come to an end after the authorities decided they just could not be bothered to wait for Gray to emerge any longer.

I am fascinated by this. It is very seldom that someone outlasts a police interest in them. I’m not sure what’s more impressive….this guy’s determination to spend 15 years in self-imposed house arrest or the local law enforcement picking up their ball and going home.

And both sides can call it a win. They hermit gets to say he outlasted the cops and the cops get to say he spent 150% of the maximum penalty locked awa47-acre cell.

But…it’s Texas, so there is that.

Despite the fact that he never had much of a record either way on gun control, people seemed confident that Trump was/is pro-gun. Certainly, with Clinton, there was plenty of evidence to show that she was most definitely not our friend but with Trump there wasn’t really much either way. I guess now we’ll find out.

Be interesting to see the buying spikes today.

Tam, over at View From The Porch, has a nice and succinct post about lighting up your target before you light up your target.

“Know your target and what is beyond it” (in one form of this expression or another) is one of the cardinal rules of gun safety. It isn’t even ‘Gun Safety 101’, no, it’s one of the things they drill into your head before they even let you touch a gun at any gun school. If someone ever says they shot someone they didn’t mean to, it’s because they broke this rule. Accidentally shot your kid who was sneaking back into the house late at night? Not an accident. You either knew it was the kid and shot him on purpose or you shot a person before you knew who they were. Thats it…no other explanations. And if you didn’t know if the person was a friendly or not, why did you shoot them?

I have three guns I keep around the house for bumps-in-the-night. The pistol has an old Streamlight mounted on its accessory rail, the other two have SureFire lights mounted on their forends. The notion of shooting at a target whose identity you are unsure of is borderline sociopathic, in my opinion. Having mounted weaponlights gives an excellent tool for dealing with nighttime issues and keeping your hands free. Sure, you can do the old Harries flashlight technique but wouldn’t you rather have both hands on the gun?

In addition, being sorta old school, I also have a big ‘ol MagLight I keep handy.

I am always offended..yes, offended…when people mention they worry about coming by my house unanounced because they worry theyre going to get shot as an intruder. It offends me because they are, basically, implying that I’ll shoot someone without knowing who they are. They are implying that I have crappy target acquisition abilities and lack a grasp of the fundamentals of gun safety.

Anyway, go read Tam’s post. As always, it’s tight, clear writing with good content. Always worth a read.

Kinda amusing, and, of course, quite useless. It’s certainly no legal waiver, and no group of doorkickers is going to stand there long enough to read it, but I like the attitude.

Interestingly, Googling ‘self defense police wrong house’ turns up a few cases where the homeowner wound up shooting a cop or two and was eventually cleared of wrongdoing. However, fully expect to spend time in jail awaiting trial and spending everything you have.

Anyway….

Entertaining image and I thought I would share.

In a world where the bombproof bunker has replaced the Tesla as the hot status symbol for young Silicon Valley plutocrats, everyone, it seems, is a “prepper,” even if the “prep” in question just means he is stashing a well-stocked “bug-out bag” alongside his Louis Vuitton luggage in a Range Rover pointed toward Litchfield County, Conn. Here is a checklist for the neo-survivalist preparing for the apocalypse.

There’s a good bit of disdain for folks like you and I in the article, but it is interesting to note that even the idiots are taking notice.

I love folks who push the fringes by coming up with things like ‘arm braces’ and ‘non-AOW/SBS’ shotguns. And now the folks at Silencerco have a suppressed .50 cal rifle that is legal to buy in all 50 states and that you can even order online. The catch? It’s a muzzleloader. (Can you imagine what the inside of that suppressor is going to look like after a few rounds???)

I heartily applaud this ‘outside the box thinking’. I also fully expect some legislation to be forthcoming to stamp this thing down.

For the first time since the National Firearms Act (NFA) was created in 1934, civilians can enjoy suppressed shooting in all 50 states with SilencerCo’s latest innovation: the integrally suppressed Maxim 50 muzzleloader. In addition, this product can be purchased right now on the web with no regulation (no 4473, no $200 tax stamp, no photographs, and no fingerprints) and be shipped immediately to the customer with few exceptions.