Article – U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

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Here’s a civil liberties can-of-worms waiting to happen:

But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups.

While foreign groups can be classified as ‘terrorist groups’ and any support given to them be considered criminal, it hasn’t applied to US groups.

So..who is to say what a domestic terrorist group is? The Klan? The Black Panthers? Greenpeace? Earth First? The JDL? The NRA?

This sort of thing will run smack into the wall of Amendment One, but by the time that makes it way to the Supreme Court there’ll be plenty of folks cooling their heels in a federal cell somewhere.

It’s a slippery slope to try and say whats a terrorist group and what isn’t. The easy definition would be any group that goes beyond theory and gets into practice. Or, put another way, when the talkers become doers. But…that ol’ bugaboo of ‘conspiracy’ comes into play. Get three guys sitting around a table who drink a few beers and talk about how they’d ‘straighten out those guys’ and -whammo- conspiracy. Nevermind that they couldn’t get past the warm-up levels in Call Of Duty.

Certainly, this sort of demonization fits into the current practice of marginalizing particular groups to make their persecution, usually through the legal system, more palatable to the rest of us.

This is definitely something to keep an eye on.

 

Link – NJT: Time Travel

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If you ever peruse the brochures and advertisements that urge you to invest your money in stocks or gold or pork bellies, there is always the caveat that “past performance does not guarantee future performance”. In short, yes, the stock we’re trying to sell you did awesome for the last five years…but thats no promise the next five years will be as good.

Keep that little grain of salt at the tip of your tongue as you read this insightful piece:

If you could time travel, say, back to the time between the wars.  And live a life starting then.  You wouldn’t need to get a rifle.  You KNOW what happenned from 1916 – 2016.  And no emergency happens that require minute man type action except in very small, local, and specific situations for a very short time. 

Pistols, on the other hand… Get a pistol and spare.  For everything else, shotgun and a spare.  A thutty thutty might do you just fine for that.

If I pause and fire a few synapses, I do believe that in the almost fifty years I have been trodding the Earth I have never had an episode where I needed an AR more than I needed a handgun. And, as the poster points out, in the last hundred years, Joe Sixpack hasn’t really needed one either except for some small localized issues. (Of course, just because there was no big national call-to-arms episode doesn’t devalue the localized issues that made having an AR handy.)

I suppose the argument is that, historically, a pistol has proven to be more useful and necessary than a rifle for defense. (Outside of actually going to war, of course.)

However….in the last fifty years I haven’t needed life insurance either because, well, I haven’t died. But that doesn’t mean that not having it is a good idea. So I’ll continue to acquire those evil rifles as I can, but perhaps I should appreciate the pistols a tad more.

And just to make sure there is no doubt about my thinking…”need” is not a criteria for owning a gun of any kind. Need it or  not, I should be able to own as many darn thundertoys as my skinny wallet can afford.

Mag speculating

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Remember when the stewardess gives you the speech about when the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling you’re supposed to put yours on first and then assist small children and others? Why is that? The answer is simple: if you put your mask on first, then you’re in a position to help more people.

Same thing applies with this post. Before you go buying magazines to resell to the unprepared masses, make sure you have your own needs more than taken care of.

For those of you who may not remember the great Assault Weapons ban of ’94-’04, you were limited to 10 round magazines unless your magazine was made before 1994. As a result, much like the ’86 machine gun ban, the prices of those items went up, up, and up as time went on and their availability went down, down, down. $600 (in 1999 money), was not unheard of for a Betamag. Glock mags were in the $75-100 range, AR  mags could be around $30-40, and exotic stuff like Valmets, SIG, and HK were easily over a hundred bucks a mag. In short, it was like everyone was selling at Cheaper Than Dirt panic-prices.

Don’t believe me? Let me dial up the Wayback Machine and, lo:

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That’s $119.00, in 1999 money, for a Glock happystick. And $80 for just a ‘regular capacity’ G17 mag. You thought you were the luckiest man on the planet if you found one for fifty bucks!

Who made money? Guys who were sitting on a bunch of magazines. I remember being able to buy M1 carbine mags from J&G Sales for $0.86 each in 1990-1991. Four years later those were $20+ magazines. Colt manufactured 20-rd AR mags were about $4-5 in 1989. Wasn’t long before they were almost $50 ea.

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$45 for a Colt 20-rd mag. Even a Thermelt was going for twenty bucks.

.Is it going to happen again? I think so. Maybe not this election cycle, maybe not on a national level, but I do think it’s going to happen. I’d be thrilled to spend $100 for 30 G3 mags right now and sell them ‘afterwards’ for enough to pick myself up an ICOM-7200 or other expensive toy.

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Here’s perspective: CTD was selling these HK mags for $0.97 a few years ago. At these prices, my stash of mags goes from being worth $600 to $30,000.

What would I buy to take advantage of the panicked masses yearning to be armed? Well, the smart thing to do is appeal to the most common denominator. Yeah, the Valmet mag you pay $45 for today is going to be worth $100 but by the time you sell it you could have sold a hundred AR or Glock mags. ‘Boutique’ and ‘niche’ stuff like the exotics will sell, and it will sell at a great price, but it won’t sell nearly as often.

What the most common rifle in this country for guys like you and me? AK-pattern and AR-style rifles. Sure there are guys with FALs, AUGs, HK93s, and the like out there…and those mags are worth a lot and will be worth even more…but you’ll sell a lot more of the common stuff. AR and AK mags are where I’d put my money for rifle mags. Magpul Pmags and known-brand GI aluminum mags (Okay, CProducts, etc) would be my choice. While you might get a good deal on Lancers and other stuff, they’re small enough people won’t recognize them and no one wants to buy the ‘off brand’ if they don’t have to.

For pistol mags its Glock, XD, and M&P. Beretta mags might be a good choice but there will be a lot of military ones floating around. Again, stick with the OEM stuff if you can. (Although I’ll probably go with the Magpul Glock mags). The 9 and 40 mags will be the most common and those would be where I’d focus.

In .22 magazines all you need to know is that Ruger 10/22 mags will outsell every other .22 rifle magazine combined. I’ve posted about them before…get the Butler Creek mags (or even the Eagle mags) and buy as many as you can. You’ll never regret a drum full of those things.

Interestingly, while pump action shotguns usually (though not always) skate around ‘assault weapons’ bans, there may be some forward-thinking statists who will want to see your 870 limited to five rounds or some such. While I wouldn’t go very deep on them, a handful of factory extended mag tubes and springs might turn a tidy profit later.

Of course, if a future ban doesn’t occur (and I wouuld be thrilled to be proven wrong) you still wind up with a nice amount of mags to last you the rest of your life…and you’ve traded opportunity cost against inflation in terms of what you might have to pay for the mags in the future. Win – win. But, as I said, you really want to make sure you have your own needs taken care of before you start ‘speculating’ in magazine futures.

Interestingly, as I was typing this up, this little jewel from MGE Wholesale landed in my mailbox:

MPMAG546-BLK(5)Go figure.

Snow day

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There’s some pretty nice snow coming down at the moment. When I first moved to Montana I assumed that we’d get three or four feet of snow every time it snowed. Nope. Turned out I had moved to the warmest part of the state. The snowfall in this region is absolutely pathetic. But…once in a while Ma Nature decides to remind us who wears the meteorological pants in this region.

I have fuel, generator, food, blankets, four-wheel drive, and communications. I’m…unconcerned. Which, naturally, frees my mind to wander in other directions.

I am ready for this political season to come to an end. Sorta. Part of me says we should elect Bernie Sanders, skip the foreplay, and just head right into the revolution. On the other hand, I can use the next nine months to get more mags and stripped lowers put back. Given the ‘screw freedom, gimme safety’ mentality of some of the candidates, it might not be a bad idea to start laying back unregistered drones, pay-as-you-go cellphones, laptops and phones bought at a distance second-hand for anonymous communications, etc, etc.

Personally, I’m throwing what meager resources I have into gun stuff. It’s a field I’m very intimate with and have enough connections to get good deals. AR and Glock mags are where I’d put my resources. While some of the exotic stuff will command more in the next ban, it makes more sense to play to the commonly available stuff. For every $300 Valmet magazine I’ll sell, I could move a hundred AR mags or a hundred 9/40 Glock mags. Or 10/22 mags.

Ammo score

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There’s a shop near mine that takes in used guns and, on occasion, ammo. That is to say, when someone comes in and wants to sell a gun they often throw in a few boxes of ammo as well. After all, they get a few bucks more on the deal and since htey’re selling the gun they no longer have a use for it. But, more often than not, the boxes are ‘broken’…they are partials. A box of 50 with only 48 still in it. That sort of thing. Can’t really put it on the shelf so, so I make stupid lowball offers on it. Picked up these today:

wp-1454020038050.jpgThere’s two rounds missing from each of the  .357, and none from the .45. But, for $7.50 a box, who wouldn’t?

Also picked up some .44 Special ammo, which is ironic. I used to have a very nice .44 Special, and someday I will again, but the ammo will remind me of it.

 

 

Magpul magazine followup

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Hmmm…MGE Wholesale is showing the Magpul Glock mags at $11.53, and the OEM Glocks are showing at CDNN for $19.99. Now, I really hate to get into math but thats..uh..around 40% cheaper. Or, put another way, for five Glock mags you could get eight Magpuls and darn close to nine if you had an extra couple ‘a ones in your pocket.

But..if they’re not reliable then they’re no bargain even if free…so I still need to go shoot them a bit. But the economics is pretty promising. I’m very much looking forward to the Magpul happysticks for the Glock. Those will sell amazingly well, I think.

Glock 9mm mags

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There was a local gun show this weekend, and it seemed like a decent opportunity to go ahead and pick up a Magpul Glock mag or two to try out.

I have reservations about all-pastic mags for a couple reasons…I’m concerned about the mag body swelling when loaded to capacity and therefore not dropping free, and I’m worried about plastic feedlips losing their rigidity/tension. (Interestingly, this is the same qualms I have with plastic AR mags. However, virtually every aluminum AR mag I’ve ever met has been cheaper than a Pmag, so I have no problem sticking with aluminum AR mags.)

The Magpul mags are going for about $15 which puts them at least five bucks below OEM Glock mags. They do advertise themselves as being easier to disassemble than the Glock-made mags and, yup, the baseplates come off much easier. High visibility follower is a nice touch. Only one witness hole though…

Stuffing a buncha 9mm into one and sliding it in and outt my G19 showed that, for now, the loaded mag seems to drop free just fine. The empty mag locks the slide back like it’s supposed to as well. I need to grab a couple hundred rounds of ammo and head to the range and see how the mag performs. It’d be nice if there were a just-as-good Golck mag out there that was 25% cheaper. We’ll see.

I’ll let you know how it goes after I fire a buncha rounds from it.

Snowmageddon in the east

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The media is full of panic over this east coast snow threat thats been announced. There’s all sorts of footage of people stripping supermarkets of bread, eggs and milk (because, apparently, blizzards are prime French Toast occasions). Then, naturally, the video cuts to footage of people in the south playing bumper cars when the heavens drop a staggering 3/4 inch of snow. Im pretty sure they don’t even plow the streets here until there’s about 4″ on the ground.

These snowstorms arent exactly uncommon, either. Isn’t there one every three or four years over there? And why doesn’t anyone remember from the last time to have supplies in place?

There are times I genuinely wish that we would have that big event that reads like something out of a bad novel…just so these short-sighted, stupid, dimwits would experience some natural selection and clean up the gene pool a tad.

It’s snow. It’s not radioactive anthrax falling from the skies. Stay home for two or three days and then go back to living a normal life.

MagPul announces Glock happysticks

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The PMAG 27 GL9 is a 27-round Glock 9mm handgun magazine featuring a new proprietary all-polymer construction for flawless reliability and durability over thousands of rounds. Meeting the overall length requirements for a 170MM competition magazine, the PMAG 21 GL9 offers additional capacity without the need for expensive extensions.

I haven’t tried Magpul’s new Glock magazines yet. I’m always reluctant to go anywhere for a pistol magazine except the OEM source. I’m especially concerned about Magpul’s magazines not being metal-lined like Glock’s. Way back in the dinosaur days, Glocks mags were all plastic with no metal liner. When loaded, the mags would swell a bit and as a result, many more-than-empty magazines would not drop-free. It’s my understanding that the European methods of mag swapping involve stripping the mag rather than letting it drop free, so perhaps that wasn’t an issue. However, for the American market…us crazy Yank cowboys like our drop-free magazine changes.

An original 33-round Glock happystick is always going to be my first choice for this sort of thing. However, from an investment standpoint, if the Magpul offering is less than $20@ it might make sense to throw a few dozen back. If I ever get around to getting the 9mm Glock-compatible AR that I want, a couple dozen might be just what the doctor ordered.

Methods to the madness

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Is Preparedness Category based, Linear or All Over The Place?
Such is the question asked by Ryan over at his blog. Succinctly, it is this:

Of the three approaches to establishing a level of preparedness – category based, linear based, or scattershot – which seems to be the way to go?

For me, it’s a balanced approach. My thinking has always been to imagine that I’m dropped naked, in the middle of a winter night, into an empty field. What do I need? And then I work it out from there. I’d want, immediately, a small amount of everything….rather than a huge amount of one thing and no supply of anything else.

Lots of people ‘go long’ in some way…they drop a couple grand on guns and get the sexy part of survivalism out of the way and then go to the mundane things like toilet paper and socks. There is some merit to that, but you leave yourself open to being caught short if you’re still working on that gun/ammo thing when some big event happens and you still haven’t gotten around to buying that water purifier.

Some folks go with a more ‘balanced’ approach and buy everything they need for, say, three days. Then they simply repeat this process over and over until they have their year (or whatever timeframe) supply. I rather like this approach.

And some just keep their eyes open an when they come across something that could be useful, they snag it. In the long run that might work, but it’s a great way to wind up sitting on a pallet of 500 MagLites and absolutely no batteries.

I’ve been doing some form of preparedness (or survivalism) for over 25 years. My experience has been that the most sensible way to do things is to get everything you need for ‘x’ amount of time, and then when you have that do it again…and again…and again. Once you’ve put your ‘weeks supply’ together, do it three more times…and now its a months supply. Do that twelve more times and it’s a years supply. That sort of thing. The alternative is that you shoot your wad and buy a years supply of food up front and get caught with only two weeks worth of toilet paper or gasoline.

The one argument I’ve come across for going ‘all in’ and buying as much of one thing as possible to the exclusion of other things you need (other than a spectacular sale) is when the thing you want may not be available in normal channels later. No one is trying to ban Ivory soap….but it’s entirely possible that in three weeks we’ll never have another ‘high capacity’ magazine available to us. And while gun stuff is the easy answer to ‘what might those soon-to-be-unavailable items be’, there’s other things too. Burner phones, cryptography software, electronic devices without ‘for your safety’ GPS tracking, etc, etc….all things you can have now but very possibly might be on the verboten list next year. If something you feel you need is possibly going to be unavailable later, then it makes sense to get it, in the quantity you want, while you can.

If you haven’t already got your supplies and gear socked away, and are still in the stages of acquisition, the best method…in my humble opinion….is the balanced approach. An increase across the board, on a regular basis, with occasional ‘spurts’ of increase in some categories as finances allow. I’d rather have six months of  food, fuel, power, clothes, medicines, and the like, rather than three years of food and one month of everything else. .

What you do, is of course, is your prerogative. For me, I try to raise the level of preparedness evenly across all categories if I can.