Monthly Archives: January 2013

The irony of Newtown

Posted on by
Reply

I had been thinking about getting some high cap 22 clips, and checked Cabela’s to see if they had stock. Zero. Why? The recent dustup about assult weapons and high capacity magazines. Apparently the threat of these items being outlawed has resulted in the near-total cleanout of all larger mags and assault weapons, and a lot of ammunition.  People are backlogged to buy them, so we have the Law of Unintended Consequences giving us far more of the very thing we didn’t want. By we I mean the current administration and the anti-gun people. I personally think they are of little use but irrelevant to mass shootings. 10 rounds at a whack and an extended mag lever means one could bang out shots more or less continuously, doubtful the slight pause wouild allow anyone to take down the gunman.

It’s just annoying how the real problem got lost, which is no guards at schools and allowing mentally ill people to acquire firearms.  Now there’s going to be a LOT of AR-15s in circulation that would otherwise gone unmade and unsold….just what we needed.

 

Observations on Hurricane Sandy

Posted on by
Reply

This is sort of stale news, but watching the aftermatch of Hurricane Sandy was a reminder of what would happen in any widespread disaster. I was struck by the lack of standyby power, fuel, food, and heating supplies. It got fairly cold after the storm, lots of people had no heat and had to leave the area to avoid freezing. As I’ve pointed out, heat is electrically operated in most places and would not function without power, even if the natural gas was still on.  Gasoline either ran out or was unavailable from the pumps (no power), so people had trouble getting out. Telecom was mostly inoperative, payphones became a very valuable commodity, and in some cases the only comms left standing.

It points up the need to be standalone self-sufficient for at least a month, to weather something like this. It’s not some abstraction, it’s reality and Sandy was proof of that. These events are fairly common, so it pays to be ready IMO.

“The Book of Eli” movie review as related to disaster prep

Posted on by
Reply

I recently watched the “Book of Eli”, it came on after another movie I wanted to see. I normally wouldn’t have bothered (too depressing) but the opening scenes caught my attention. It was actually pretty good as entertainment, but not at all realistic IMO. I won’t detail the entire film, but it’s abount a guy who is carrying a Bible from somewhere in the interior of the US to the West Coast, after a generic apocalypse.  There a a few things I thought were accurate:

  • Water was the number one commodity. It was all about filling up that canteen, which is pretty much what combat troops with no supply tail do.
  • Footwear is number three. No transpo, means hoofing it everywhere. Eli was all about scrounging better boots, again a prime factor for infantry guys.
  • Hygiene was number four. Shampoo and soap was the gold of the future, which again jibes with most veteran accounts of being on the line and dreaming of getting clean. I feel nasty after a day or two, weeks and months I can’t imagine.

What was silly:

  • Bandits living in the middle of nowhere after 31 years of anarchy.
  • Victims of said bandits oblivious to danger, including unmuffled motorcyles.
  • Viable 31+ year old batteries, bullet primers and powder, vehicle tires, and gasoline.
  • Road Warrior as a lifestyle. I am pretty sure people would hang all miscreants on sight, it would be all about cooperation and not lone wolf tactics. Makes for a good film action I guess.
  • The strangely sociable prepper cannibals with no prepared firing positions or defensive fortifications.  Surely they would have expected trouble and sandbagged a room or two, and kept a lookout for intruders. I enjoyed how the bad guys DROVE UP, got out of their vehicles, then engaged in a dialog with the heavily armed occupants while casually setting up a Gatling gun. Huh? 4 people inside, please pick off all standing right away BEFORE WE ALL GET WAXED!  I especially enjoyed Denzel’s line “..I expect they are up to no good.” Yeah no kidding, Mr. Wizard.