Article – In Trump era, fearful left-leaning Americans turn to guns

Posted on by
12

The semi-automatic weapon in the 38-year-old’s hand is the first he has ever owned.

He is one of many left-leaning Americans who are embracing guns because of their fears about President Donald Trump’s administration — upending conventional wisdom about who owns firearms in the United States.

“I feel a lot more threatened by my government than the citizens around me,” said Collin, who asked to be only identified by his first name for privacy concerns.

Change a couple words in here…..’left’ to ‘right’, ‘Donald Trump’ to ‘Barack Obama’, and you have pretty much the situation from almost twenty years ago. And you were called a right-wing, racist, militia-wannabe.

When you do it, it’s ‘reactionary’ and ‘paranoid’….but when the other side does it, it’s a different story.

Here’s the money shot: both sides said the exact same thing – I’m doing this because I don’t trust my government and I want to be able to protect myself from them.

Funny, you’d think that sort of thing would be something that could unite, or at least bridge some differences between, the two sides. The irony is pretty pronounced.

Long strange road

Posted on by
25

ETA: And I just noticed that ,Rawles posted on his SurvivalBlog that  “Today, April 15, 2026, is the 23rd Blogiversary of my buddy Commander Zero’s Notes From The Bunker blog. Congratulations!”) Glad he, and a few other folks, remembered because…I didn’t. Too much Beta Site on my brain.

I was reminded by someone in the comments that today is the 23’rd anniversary of the blog. Thats a long time to be rehashing the same subjects over and over…yet here we are.

It would not be a blog anniversary post without me gently needling Friend Of The Blog ™ ,Rawles over at SurvivalBlog that I predate him by about three years. But, giving credit where its due, he posts far more frequently than I do so while I’ve got him in terms of years, he’s got me in terms of quantity (and views).

A lot has changed in those years. Notably me. Those grey hairs come fast, man. But I’m still in reasonably good health and temper. Among other things, the hand-to-mouth nature of those early days has changed. I’ve a lot more money to do what  I want with than when I started this adventure.

If you roll back far enough in the blog, you can see the first mentions of the Beta Site. Took a bit of time to finally acquire it, but acquire it I did. Hopefully it won’t take another twenty years to get the place appointed the way I’d like.

It’s tough to rechew the same topics over and over for twenty years. One of the things I’m going to enjoy about the Beta Site is that it’ll give me some new adventures to document and ideas to expand upon.

So there you go, kids. Twentythree years of brain droppings. If you’ve enjoyed any of it, feel free to swing by Patreon and put a few bucks into the Beta Site Development Fund…the barbed wire and sentry guns ain’t gonna pay for themselves.

Weekend trip

Posted on by
29

Well, I did, in fact, make it out there yesterday. And, being the kind of person who is trying to learn from his mistakes, I did not get stuck out there. Yay me.

The roads were good about 80% of the way, including that treacherous switchback that has foiled me before. However, up at the top, we were still at the point of there being snowy rutted conditions that my little truck would have found challenging.

The SxS made it up there just fine and its looking like buying the thing may not have been the worst idea I ever had.

As I had mentioned previously, my priorities for this trip were additional game cams, feeders, and drop off a MonoVault full of supplies.

So, rolled up to the entryway/driveway into the property and I figured walking in from that point was the way to go. Naturally, it is all uphill. So, I patted myself for bringing a sled to carry it all. On the other hand, I severely misjudged the amount of weight and the amount of effort involved. I made it work, of course, but I was an exhausted person when it was done.

One thing I noted was that the creek that runs through the property was in full force. It was rather nice to look at it moving all that water, hearing it, and thinking “Hmm. Thats mine.” I need to contrast that against the water flow in the summer season.

I almost never host video on here due to bandwidth concerns, so this video will probably come down shortly.

Anyway….

Made it to the top of the road and setup one additional camera and one game feeder. I stashed the MonoVault somewhere for final positioning on my next trip.

And since this is kinda middle of nowhere territory, I brought Best Millimeter and my favorite AK for the adventure. Riding around in the SxS kicks up a lot of dust. My AK looks like a souvenir outta Khost. I mean, yeah, this sort of thing means nothing to an AK but I still feel a compulsion to clean it up.

By the way, the dead baby moose that was there two weeks ago apparently has been gnawed on by the local fauna. I expect that next trip there won’t be much there except some bones and maybe some tufts of fur.

All in all, a good trip…no major difficulties. Didnt get to use the chainsaw, but I did get to use the Silky saw a bit and that thing is absolutely worth every penny. Biggest thing to note was that the cargo capacity of the SxS is limited so , short of a small trailer for it, hauling large quantities of stuff into the Beta Site will be restricted to the warmer months….so, probably around June or July, the big caching excursions will start,, as well as the construction of a small shelter to give me four walls and a roof over my head when Im up there working on bigger things.

I will say, this is getting to be an expensive habit….renting a trailer to drag the SxS out there is almost $80. And driving back and forth is almost 3/4 of a tank of gas. Thats about $120~ per trip. Yes, purchase of a trailer is in the cards, but for now there’s other priorities.

So, not a bad trip by any stretch. Still shoulda brought the snowshoes but didnt because I was running out of room and also figured the snow would be down enough to not need them. Mistake. Got some stuff done, took pictures and video, and got out of town…which is nice.

 

 

Maybe tomorrow

Posted on by
23

Well, the plan is to head up to the Beta Site tomorrow. Weather has been good all week, gamecam doesn’t show new snow, and if the weather tomorrow is decent…..it’s a go. Its entirely possible that things have melted enough that I can simply get in there with my truck, but I’ll start with the SxS this trip and if it looks good I’ll make subsequent trips in the truck.

Goals:

  • Install new gamecams
  • Drop off a cache of gear for future use
  • Install and load game feeders
  • Do a bit of walking around and exploring
  • Take lotsa pics

Another goal is to not make the same mistakes as last time. Knowing me, I’ll simply create new mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, I really need to work on the tunnel vision I have regarding the Beta Site. I am overlooking and ignoring various current events that, really, I should be on top of and wargaming against. I could intellectualize it and say that devoting my self to the Beta Site is getting ready against current events but thats terribly shortsighted. Its going to be at least a year or two befote the Beta Site is ready for anything close to ‘full time use’…so in the meantime I need to make the most of where Im at now and that means shifting focus a bit. One of the biggest things I need to do is get the small loan I have paid off so I can divert funds into replenishing my precious metals stash and getting financially ready for some big-ticket upgrades at the Beta Site.

ETA: And one of the guys from receiving just dropped this on my desk. So, electric chainsaw for the casual small stuff has been achieved. Gas saw next.

 

I saw that

Posted on by
33

A friend of mine turned me on to the Silky saw a while back and I was very impressed. It’s basically a gigantic folding knife that has a saw blade instead of a knife blade. But it cuts wood like a beaver on meth and takes up a minimum of space in a back.

When it comes to saws, or any other hand tool, really, there’s all sortsa options. I mean, just in saws you’ve got chain saws, pole saws, bow saws, etc, etc. Fold in other wood cutting things like axes and hatchets and you can easily wind up getting overloaded with inpuit from ‘experts’, boffins, and nerds. (And theres nothing wrong with being a subject-matter nerd. Just understand that you are still, in fact, a nerd nonetheless.)

My intended use is for trimming branches around the Beta Site…especially around the overgrown ‘road’ that goes into the place. My friend brought one of these along on one of my first trips up there and I was immediately hit with a case of the “I Gotta Have That”. Sp, I trundled off to Amazon and picked one up.

Expensive? Holy Drokk, yes.  But in the limited use I’ve had with it, I’ve been quite pleased with its performance. It’s compactness and aggressive cutting are also pretty sweet.

The road that goes into the Beta Site has been neglected for, oh, decades I’d imagine. There are more than a few small saplings growing up in the middle of it, and in some places the branches from the trees along the side of the road reach right into the middle of it. This guy, along with a pair of loppers, do a nice job of getting things tidied up a little.

And before you say it, yes, a chainsaw is on The List Of Things To Buy. But until I get to that part of the list, this handsaw is going to get plenty of use on all the downed limbs that are littering the place. There’s a goodly amount of fallen lodgepole pines, including some that have fallen across the wire fence that separates my dirt from the BLM dirt. And since good fences build good free fire zones neighbors, getting the treese off the fence is a bit of a priority.

Nope

Posted on by
17

The weather Saturday was actually quite nice and wolud have been ideal, at least weather-wise, for a trip to the Beta Site. But, dang it, I just didnt have all my ducks in a row in terms of having my gear together and ready for the trip. The biggest thing is that I have no idea what the conditions up there are like because, man, they can change fast. For example, this was Thursday:
And this was yesterday:

Which seems to support that the conditions up there can change and change fast. So, I’ll get my gear lined up and ready for next weekend, and if the weather is as nice during the week I am hoping that the conditions will be better.

I welcome the bit of extra time because on the next trip, in addition to the long-delayed deployment of additional cameras, I’ll be laying out the first of what will probably at least two or three stashes of gear and supplies.

Getting stuck up there last week and having to spend the night up there wouldn’t have been the end of the world since I made sure to bring a certain amount of gear with me ‘just in case’. However, one of the whole points of the Beta Site was to have enough gear up there to allow me to show up with basically just the clothes on my back, in virtually any weather condition, and be able to be safe and secure. Turns out, thats not an inconsequential amount of gear. And, most importantly, packaging it for long-term hiding in a container that is impervious to the environment….well, thats some work.

Naturally, there’s an argument that “Well, you don’t need to store away all that stuff…you won’t be coming up there empty handed.” Really? You know that for a fact? If I ever have to run for my life and my salvation is my hideyhole, I will, of course, try to bring as much gear as I can but ‘best case scenarios’ are not part of my planning. I mean, yeah, it would be awesome if I was able to have the luxury of loading up all my gear at my leisure and hit the road. But I can’t be certain of that…no one can. So…prepare for the worst case.

In this particular scenario, I work off the ‘worst case’ situation which is me showing up with just the clothes on my back in the middle of the night in the worst weather conditions possible. And in that circumstance I want to be able to open up my bomb-proof storage container,  pull out a change of clothes, a tent to shelter in, a coldweather sleepingbag to crawl into, and a stash of food to get myself back to an even keel. After that, its addressing all the other little issues…medical, communications, weapons, fuel, water, tools, navigation, and all the other little details.

Is there a high likelihood that will ever happen…that such a desperate and hopeless circumstance will befall me? Nope. But is there a more-than-zero-percent chance it might? Well..yes. And, if there’s that possibility, then clearly its to my advantage to prepare against it.

So, I’ll use this coming week to get everything together for next weekend. So, next trip’s agenda:

  • Install additional cameras
  • Add solar panel for one camera as a test platform
  • Stash some gear
  • Walk the property a bit and take pictures of winter(ish) conditions

To sum up – not this weekend, unfortunately. But if the weather is as good next weekend as it was this weekend, then yes.

Maybe this weekend

Posted on by
11

Waiting on the weather to see if I’m gonna head up to the Beta Site this weekend. There’s plenty of things for me to do if I wind up staying in town, but I really really wanna get out there and set up the other gamecams.

As I was strolling the internet, I came across this:

There’s more than a little truth in there. I’d say my circle of friends, not acquaintances, is probably halfway between ’40s’ and ‘now’. On the bright side, though, those friends are closer than any of the friends from my younger days.

I suppose, for me, one of my litmus tests is whom I take up to the Beta Site. At the moment, the number of people I’ve taken up there can be counted on one hand of a high school woodshop teacher…and I don’t really plan on that changing. Might have a family member or two come out, but thats about it. I didn’t buy it for other people, I didnt buy it for entertaining, and I didn’t buy it for investment purposes…I bought it for me.

I’m hoping the weather is cooperative this weekend, but we’ll see. Gamecam pic from yesterday showed a buncha snow had fallen but maybe not enough to dissuade me. If it is, I will, of course, let you guys know and post pictures.

Packages arriving

Posted on by
6

So that happened:


A set of recovery boards for Next Time. Not shown is the bracket set that arrived yesterday as well to allow me to mount the HiLift jack to roll bars on the cage of the SxS. On the way are the shovel bracket and a saw. Still to be purchased is a 12v portable hitch-mounted winch for the ass-end of the SxS.

One other things I’m working on for next trip is a preliminary stash of gear so that if something happens like last time, and I wind up having to stay put, I can do so in safety and security. There’ll be a post about that later.

Nothing modifies behavior (and empties the wallet) like having a Close Call and not wanting to repeat the experience.

And, yesterday I paid off the second third of the money I borrowed to help finance the Beta Site. Or, in other words, I’ve got $9649.63 to go, which I should have paid off either next month or the month after….which would be some thirty months ahead of schedule. Once thats done, the $1000/week that I’ve been throwing at the debt gets diverted into Beta Site Development, Equipage and Stockpiling Fund.

Improving future performance

Posted on by
24

So, after the Cavalcade of Fail, it was time to strategize for next weekend. Right off the bat, if the weather is uncooperative, I’ll stay in town. I understand that the apocalypse will not happen on a sunny day, but for right now I’m not taking any more chances than I have to.

So, first order of business is to remediate some of the fails from last weekend. A couple of them were rather standout failures.

The HiLift jack. If I had brought the HiLift jack I would have had a way to ‘winch’ myself out if I hadn’t figured out the winch. The reason I didn’t bring it is because it really didn’t fit into the SxS in any meaningful way. The jack is 5′ long and the SxS is exactly 5′ wide. So, I have ordered a set of brackets to mount the jack across one of the bars on the cage of the SxS. In addition to the HiLift jack, I also have the base plate for it and a few other attachments. I keep chains, tow straps, ropes, and snatch blocks in my Unstuck Kit and used in conjunction with the HiLift jack I think I would have gotten better results than I did just trying to shovel things out with an e-tool.

Speaking of e-tool, I left behind my full size shovel for the same reason I left the HiLift jack behind. And, as with the solution for the HiLift, the solution for the shovel is a rollbar-mounted bracket to hold a D-handle shovel. The Glock e-tool did a really great job and it s a product I recommend, but it is not a substitute for a ‘real’ shovel. To that end, I also ordered up a set of brackets to mount a shovel along one of the roll bars on the cage as well.

Recovery boards. If you don’t know what these are, I suggest familiarizing yourself with them. Its basically a surfboard with a rough cats-tongue pattern to it to provide traction. Beats the crap out of throwing branches, floormats, and passengers under the wheels for traction.

Another failure point was that I broke one of the great commandments of preparedness: I relied on a piece of gear that was unproven and I had not practiced or familiarized myself with. I knew the SxS came with a winch. Thats all I knew. I spent hours digging out the SxS that could have been avoided if I knew where to plug the wired remote into. But…I had never actually hooked it up and tested its function. Unbelievable rookie mistake. I’ll be swapping out the steel cable-of-questionable-age-and-condition for a brand new synthetic rope and carry a spare of the rope as well.

Footwear. I was so excited about getting to take the SxS to the Beta Site that I overlooked all sorts of things…including changing into suitable footwear. The solution is to add ‘Change shoes’ into my pre-trip checklist…and believe me, buddy, there’s gonna be a pre-trip checklist.

I was smart enough to bring my Unstuck Kit, but I need to put in some longer towstraps. And some more clevises (Clevis’? Clevi?) I made a buncha mistakes this last time, but bringing the Unstuck Kit was not one of them. I was able to use the long tow strap that was in the kit to loop to a tree and feed back to the winch hook.

Now, keep in mind, this is a list of what I did wrong. A list of what I did right is a separate list. So if you feel like chiming in with “you should have had x, you should have has y” keep in mind I may have already had those….this is a list of things I didn’t have or do properly.

I’ve spent the last two days researching various gear and ordering it up. Recovery boards will be here today and more goodies throughout the week.

 

Article – Why Every High School Student in Latvia Is Learning to Shoot a Gun

Posted on by
15

In addition, both Latvia and Estonia have introduced a compulsory “National Defense Education” for students in secondary school. The syllabus includes military history, marching and drilling, land navigation, first aid, crisis response and weapons handling. Students who want more can spend part of the summer in camp, in uniform.

Of the three counties, Latvia goes the farthest in mandating military training to high school students. In Estonia, the mandatory classroom course is 35 hours. In Latvia, it runs 112 hours over two years.

I wonder if there’s a History and Moral Philosophy component to the sylabus as well.Personally, I see nothing wrong with this sort of instruction. I think there should be an ‘opt out’ option if someone doesn’t want to partake of this training, but otherwise I see no problem with it. Coupled with some strong educational and historical emphasis on liberty and duty, I think it would only create better, more responsible citizens.

I find it interesting that states that were formerly under the heel of the Communists take very pro-active steps to prevent it from happening again (looking at you, Poland) while in this country we have people earnestly telling us that socialism just ‘hasn’t been done right’. Yeah, one or two more genocides and I’m sure we’ll have it all worked out, comrade.

Smallbore rifle practice in a converted school hallway. Those were the days.

And why stop at smallbore? Local varsity indoor RPG championship winner …two years running.

It’s easy to make fun of Starship Troopers if you’ve only seen the horrible movies, but if you read the book theres some very interesting discussions about civilian vs. citizen, duty, liberty, and a few other topics that are worth examining.