Remember: if a law allows something that Democrats don’t like, its a ‘loophole’.
Should be interesting to pick this apart and see exactly what is and isn’t defined as being ‘engaged in the business’. The important takeaway here is that if you believe that a paperless gun transaction is important to your privacy and well-being, yo u may wish to make those purchases sooner rather than later.
Typical government BS….theyl’ll let municipalities and individuals bring huge lawsuits against ammo companies because, well, because…but then when some outside company wants to buy that same ammo company all of a sudden its a national defense issue.
This started, I think, with Macnamara back in the 60’s/70’s who felt that closing down government owned facilities and farming it out to private industry made more sense. I have boxes of Springfield Armory and Rock Island Armory primers and bullets from the 1940’s. Yes youngsters, there was a time Uncle Sam made his boomtoys himself. Sure, some of it got farmed out too (Rockola M1 Carbines, Winchester 1903’s, etc.) but it used to be the US had government facilites for churning out this sort of thing.
I am extremely opposed to the nationalization of any industrial concern, but I’m not opposed to government building its own production facility to meet its needs. And, really, if Uncle Sam is really that concerned about this issue, they can reach into their bottomless pockets and just buy the whole business lock, stock, and barrel making facility.
I also find it interesting that Janet Yellen, she of ‘temporary inflation’ fame, is sounding the call on this issue.
You guys saw that earlier this week AT&T had a little kerfuffle with their service? The claim is that it was a software issue. I’m sure it was, but I’m also sure that if it was something more sinister they would try like hell to cover it up and blame something more benign…like a software issue.
Then, today, you get a headline like this: Pharmacies nationwide face delays as health-care tech company reports cyberattack.
It’s a strange new world when the more likely threats to your way of life and your security come from the internet and not a Tu-95.
This is he stuff Hollywood has made movies about. There’s no shortage of flicks about people gaining control of some critical infrastructure computer and messing things up on a grand scale. The war strategists have told us that our water treatment, fuel delivery, air traffic, and electrical distribution systems are high priority targets for our friends the Chinese/Russians.
In true Machiavellian fashion, I wonder if some bad actor will conduct an operation and make it look like someone else did it in order to foment conflict. Couldn’t you see the Chinese launching a cyberattack that makes it look like the work of the Russians so that the US and Russia lock horns, leaving China to take advantage of the chaos and do what they want?
The lesson here, I suppose, is that while we prepare for the loss or diminution of infrastructure, it appears that it’s becoming even more vulnerable. Sure, we expected electricity and municipal water to be a problem….but drug prescriptions?
Wonder if they’ll take it to the level that the Estonians have.
Finland and Russia/Soviet Union have a bit of a past, shall we say. The Winter War and The Continuation War make for interesting reading and seem to have some contemporary parallels today.
Mandatory conscription providing a base of trained civilians to form the backbone of a reserve, home guard, militia, or other irregular force is something that is fairly common in the world but often administered haphazardly. Some nations take it very seriously (ROK, Israel, Switzerland, etc.) and some…not so much. I’ve always thought the Swiss did it best, what with letting their guys take their military guns home with them and encouraging competition with them. Plus, the whole bunkers and redoubts thing also gives them some cred.
Russia’s recent foray into Lebensraum has seemingly forced some European countries to admit that, perhaps, the grand European tradition of disarming your citizenry in the name of security, safety, and civility withers in the cold harsh light of threats to sovereignty. Who knew? Behind every blade of grass and all that jazz.
Do you know who some of the strongest, most vocal, most virulent, most dedicated anti-Communists are? Former residents of communist countries. I have met plenty of people from former Soviet bloc countries and to a man they all support the notion of an armed citizenry. People who fled Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Cuba…they take to the AR15 like fat kids to donuts. I’m surprised more former Soviet states that were steamrollered by the USSR haven’t put an AK in every household.
I really hope the trend of encouraging national participation in firearms activities in the name of national defense continues. I’m sure at some point the various European governments will do their usual act of calling all loyal sons to bear arms during the crisis and then demand they turn those same arms in when the crisis is past. Looking at you, UK.
And, of course, I hope the Finns don’t make the mistake of thinking that opening shooting ranges is the start and finish (Finnish?) of creating a citizen-soldier. Small unit tactics, communications, medical, logistics (so much logistics) all need to be part of the curriculum. It’s the mistake that we often joke about in the survivalist world…you’ve got a million rounds of ammo and three days worth of food. Knowing how to shoot is only a small part of good training.
And, of course, no post about Finnish anything is complete without the comments constantly bring up Simo.
No one I know.
I know absolutely nothing about this event but I’m going to hazard a guess that this guy may have some amigos in Mexico, if you know what I’m suggesting.
My normal response to an article about someone getting caught with x number of guns and y rounds of ammo is to make a smart-ass comment about how “Those are rookie numbers”. Not this time, thats actually a fairly impressive pile.
Man left behind a tremendous legacy…..that old rich men can still get hot young wives.
Glock Perfection
I also hear he designed some cool guns.
But seriously…no idea who the next ‘disruptive designer’ will be in the field of firearms, but if you’re carrying a plastic handgun you can thank Glock for making it mainstream (even though HK did it first.)
The usual statements, from the usual people, about the usual ‘solution’. The free market abhors a vacuum, and while any departure from the 5.56 ammo market will eventually be filled it would be unreasonable to not expect economic law to occur in the short term: when supply is low and demand is high, prices go…up.
No one has enough ammo. More is, by and large, always better. Unless you’re swimming or on fire you cannot have too much ammo. The savvy survivalist, if they don’t already have a goodly amount of the stuff, should take this as a warning that there may be some changes coming up in the market and prepare accordingly.
Gotta boil that water nice and slow so the frog doesn’t notice.
Its not enough to keep banging the drum about ‘assault weapons’ being bad. You have to keep that idea at the front of the public’s mind or you lose the narrative. So the media (or the people controlling them) keep the beat going….AR-15’s bad, AR-15 magazines bad, and now, AR-15 ammo bad. Do it long enough and hard enough and even the Fudds will start in with their ‘no one needs an AR15’ spiel. (Jim Zumbo has entered the chat.) [Sidenote: we now have .35 and .40 caliber rifle cartridges for using the AR as a hunting platform…so the notion of ‘not suitable for hunting’ has kinda evaporated. Although, honestly, an AR-10 has always been just fine for hunting.]
This is just more coordinated media manipulation to keep the fire burning that we need a 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: The Next Generation. As always, while you may not be able to prevent a ban you can be prepared for it. All it takes is resolute will and some money. Skip the jet skit, put off the new 72″ TV till next year, drive the clunker for another year…..take the money and buy what you need and what you think you’ll need.
Did LC ammo show up at ‘mass shootings’? Maybe. So what? LC probably cranks out millions and millions of rounds per year. The percentage of that ammo used in crimes? A fraction of a fraction of a percentage….just like ‘assault weapons’ themselves.
Go buy another AR. Go buy another dozen mags. Go buy another case of ammo. Even if they never ban them again you’ll still be ahead of the game just in terms of beating inflation and future price hikes.
Unless you’ve been under a rock the last week, you know some guy in Maine (of all places) went sideways and killed about twenty people before taking his own life. As usually happens after these events, the usual crowd wiped the blood onto their faces and began wailing about ‘commonsense’ and ‘reasonable’ restrictions on…well..whatever they think was at fault.
To be fair, the administration really has it’s hands full right now and is probably not interested in getting into a domestic policy quagmire while it’s in the midst of a couple foreign policy quagmires. But…I’ve been wrong before.
But if they do get some traction on their usual ban-dwagon, you don’t want to be caught unprepared. It’s been 19 years since the sunset of the much-despised ‘Assault Weapons Ban’. If you bought on pistol magazine and one rifle magazine each month (a very easy goal) since then, you’d have about 228 pistol mags and 228 rifle mags…an amount that almost everyone would agree is a comfortable amount to have.
And if you bought one ‘evil’ rifle every year, again not an outrageous or difficult goal, you’d have 19 AR’s in the safe.
But some people just will not learn. It seems like every time some whackjob shoots up a 7-11 and the media starts their campaign about ‘high capacity magazines’ there are people who sudenly think they need to buy. Dude…you should have had your magazine issues settled shortly after the ban expired. I encounter way to many people who think that “Oh, I have a dozen mags for my AR. Thats plenty.” That is wildly shortsighted thinking that fails to account for what perils the future holds. I’m not going to elaborate about that because I’ve covered it elsewhere on this blog more times than I can recall.
TL;DR for todays post: one of these days, these gun/mag bans will come back and you don’t want to be caught with your pants down. Stack it deep. And if you really want a positive habit to develop, buy one pistol mag per month, and one rifle mag per month. They are money in the bank. (Not that keeping your money in the bank is a good idea, but you get my meaning.)
Much like how Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 became the paradigm for future planning, this recent event in Israel is going to be the touchstone for quite a while. Finally, someone addressed the ‘safe rooms’ or shelters that have been required in new construction for quite a while. I haven’t checked, but I believe this used to be a requirement of the Swiss as well, although they seem to have relaxed it as the Soviet Union disappeared.
I suppose that, if I had the room, I’d construct something similar but more for providing a secure room for valuables to be protected from fire rather than a hole to hide myself and loved ones in. Frankly, if there’s a situation where hiding from people is necessary then I’d probably be more likely to be standing somewhere inside/outside my house with an AR rather than crouching behind a steel door. And if I was hiding behind a steel door in a fortified room as a ‘last resort’ …well…the first person through that door is in for a bad time.
As for gun policies in Israel. I was always under the impression that in certain regions, along the border for example, the rules were a tad different. I suspect that after this recent development, there may be some rather large changes to the current policies.
Moral of the story, though, is that having your own bunker is never a bad thing.
