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.

“World War Z” was an excellent book, however it was a thoroughly crappy movie. But..there was a little nugget in there that is worth mentioning. In the story, the Israelis wind up being the best prepared country to survive the zombie apocalypse. The question raised is ‘how did the Israelis know to prepare for this event’. In the story, an Israeli intelligence operative briefs the main character on the “Tenth Man Rule”. He goes on to say that after getting caught flat-footed in the 1973 war, the powers that be adopted the Tenth Man Rule. The idea is that if a threat  is brought before this council of ten men, and all are in agreement about threat being minimal or unlikely, it is the duty for one man, the tenth man, to disagree, treat the threat as real and likely, and investigate/plan for it. When the Israelis intercepted the Indian communications, everyone assumed the word ‘zombies’ as code for something else…but the tenth man works on the assumption that zombies actually meant…zombies.

In it’s own words;

This process of critical thinking goes by several names..Deviils Advocate, critical thinking, etc, but I rather like the name ‘Tenth Man’ since it encapsulates the basic premise of the idea.

This ..docrtrine..doesn’t say to prepare for the unlikely eventuality, but rather to investigate it seriously instead of dismissing it out of hand. For example, I live in a landlocked state hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline. Going down a list of potential disaster you get to ‘tsunami’. The natural instinct is to cross it off the list and continue to other threats. The Tenth Man, however, might look deeper. He might realize that while the water will never reach this far inland, the consequences might…there’ll be refugees, airport traffic increases, delivery interruptions from the affected area, etc, etc. And, perhaps, these will be significant enough to plan for..or maybe not. But dismissing the threat out of hand would have been the knee-jerk reaction nine times out of ten.

Anyway, it’s an interesting outlook and a different way of approaching potential problem-solving…and thus worth sharing.

In the space of a week silver was up and down a buck. Wild times.

I was in the coin shop today and it was pointed out to me that today was some sort of Indian holiday. (Thats Indian with the 7-11, not Indian with the casino.) Specifically, Dhanteras …“Dhanteras holds special significance for the business community due to the customary purchases of precious metals on this day”

How cool is that? A holiday that encourages you to go out and by gold. I need to bring this to the attention of The Metals Pimp so he can find a whole new demographic to cater to.

In this country we have several holidays devoted to buying guns. Mostly Election Day.