“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B. Franklin

After the president’s speech about how people need to be denied guns if they’re on the ‘no fly list’, and how all these ‘loopholes’ need to be closed, and ‘assault weapons’ and ‘high capacity magazines’ need to be forbidden, there’s a great focus in the survivalist community on those issues. But..there is another issue that is being brought up a little more quietly and that issue is communications.

For years now the .gov has been leaning on tech companies to make their products secure enough to please consumers, but not so secure that .gov can’t get into it if they want. Phone manufacturers, for example, are being encouraged to develop their phones so that no one but the phone’s owner can access the data within it….unless that person is .gov.

In short, we’re spiraling back to the Clipper Chip days. The idea of ‘key escrow’, or a third-party holding the keys to your phone, is still among us. From the Wikipedia entry:

Following the Snowden disclosures from 2013, Apple and Google announced that they would lock down data stored on their smartphones with encryption, in a way so that Apple and Google could not break the encryption even if ordered to do so with a warrant.^[10] This prompted a strong reaction from the authorities, with one of the more iconic responses being the chief of detectives for Chicago’s police department stating that “Apple will become the phone of choice for the pedophile”.^[11] Washington Post posted an editorial insisting that “smartphone users must accept that they cannot be above the law if there is a valid search warrant”, and after agreeing that backdoors would be undesirable, suggested implementing a “golden key” backdoor which would unlock the data with a warrant.

You can rest assured that the old chestnut of “If you’re not doing anything illegal, then you have nothing to hide” will be trotted out.

Quite simply, I enjoy my privacy. And if I want to communicate with my fellow Like-Minded Individuals over the internet, through text messaging, or even through Mr Franklins postal system, I should be able to do so with confidence that whatever message I am sending is being viewed only by it’s intended recipients.

Things to keep an eye open for?

• More pressure on manufacturers to include backdoors for LE/.gov in their hardware/software
• Loosening up of the requirements to intercept communications
• More record-keeping of who sent what where. (You know the PO scans all snail mail addresses and stores them, right?)
• Crypto software either getting watered down, or reclassified to make sales to folks like you and I more difficult
• The FCC shuffling around which bands can/can’t be used by various classes of license.

And it really wouldn’t surprise me to see some action in the world of amateur radio. One of the first signs of a Bad Thing is when .gov tightens the screws on those wanting equipment that can allow someone to communicate to someone outside the country. I couuld very easily see an ATF 4473-style ‘background check’ put into place for those wanting ham radio licenses and certain ‘powerful’ equipment.

This might, actually, be a good time to get the ball rolling if you’ve been thinking about getting into amateur radio.

A couple days ago, a nice, middle-class, married couple had an episode of what Tam calls “Sudden Jihadi Syndrome” and shot up an office building before getting their tickets punched when the cops finally caught up to them and started a bullet party. Once the dust settled, and Mr & Mrs al-Smith had their home tossed, it came to light that this couple was building bombs in the garage and doing other things that would give the local HOA the vapors. So..to recap…married couple with suspiciously Irish names shoot up the joint, re-enact the end of Butch And Sundance, have a home full of bombs, are connected to overseas extremists and, naturally, the issue is…..guns.

The media, of course, went full tardcore and turned the whole story into one about the evils of guns. The administration, never one to rush to the reasonable conclusion, initially decided that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and has a garage full of pipe bombs like a duck, it’s definitely…..not a terrorist duck. Eventually the public mockery became too much and the story devolved into ‘Well, they were plotting terrorist stuff but they got pissed off at the guys at the Christmas party and decided to shoot it up.’

So, instead, we get treated to more of the same from the usual idiots. The promise of ‘executive orders’ to address this obvious gun-violence issue is trotted out. And, in a tiny little corner of Texas, someone at CTD gets the USB drive containing the 100dollarpmag.exe algorithim out of the safe.

Which brings us to…magic. Wanna see a magic trick? Ready? Here we go….(Does Carnac the Magnificent routine)….

Answer: “Not enough.”
:::Tears open envelope and withdraws question:::
“How many magazines do you have?”

Ta-daaa! Thank you, thank you…I’ll be here all week. Tip your waitress.

Amazing, right? But not that amazing… people are naturally short-sighted. We don’t like to think of the bad possibilities in our future, and instead we tend to see only the good, or neutral, possibilities. Unfortunately, when you’re looking on a timeline that could go on another thirty years or so until you hit room temperature, there is a lot of room for things to go wrong. If you think that the ten magazines you have for your AR are ‘plenty’, then you really need to change your way of thinking. And you’re an idiot.

This is *exactly* the sort of event that nudges The Powers That Be into doing stupid things like 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: The Next Generation. Even if it doesn’t, its going to push gun/mags/ammo price and availability into the red zone. So…if you still haven’t gotten around to buying everything that might not be available at a later date….this is your reminder that crap like this, as tragic as it is, will always be used to tie your hands further when it comes to buying those useful guns and accessories.

Between domestic terrorism, Hillary, President Sanders, lame-duck Obama, and all those other things, there’s plenty of strong arguments to say that next week may as well be never when it comes to getting those things you need. Get ’em now and get a lot of them. You can buy a jet ski next year, can’t say the same about a CZ Evo or a Glock happystick.

I’m not much of the holiday type, and Crom knows I’ve got virtually nothing to be thankful for these days, but, nonetheless, for those of you who are the holiday type I hope you have an enjoyable Day Before Friday Of Color.

I’m rather looking forward to Black Friday  Friday Of Color sales. For the last several years the gun community has had more and more awesome sales on the day after Thanksgiving. And, just like in the mainstream world, those sales are starting to come earlier and earlier. In fact, I had a vendor email me the other day that they have stripped AR lowers, in quantity, for less than $30 ea. How cool is that? S&W ARs are showing up for around $550. I expect some truly cool magazine sales as well.

If you’re in a position to have a few hundred bucks to blow on gun gear, you might wanna keep ahold of it until the day after Thanksgiving

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Someone asked about the Ruger BX-25 magazines. While I almost always choose OEM factory mags over aftermarket mags, I’m a tad reserved on the BX-25. When they first came out they has some issues and I read that reliability had some issues. Of course, new products always have some teething pains. Perhaps the new BX-25 mags are flawless, but I haven’t any experience with them. I have decades of experience with the Butler Creek mags and are very comfortable with them, and comfortable recommending them. That said, if I can score a few BX-25 mags at a decent price I’ll try ’em out and see how they go.

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I’d like to thank the handful of people that kicked in the other day. In addition to the folks who dropped a few bucks in the hat for expenses, one generous soul actually sert up a monthly subscription which was really quite generous and thoughtful. So..thanks to everyone who generously pushed some Federal Reserve Notes in my direction.

Which reminds me, prior to that someone had the Metals Pimp drop off a couple ounces of silver. And thats always a cool thing! So, again, much thanky.