Year: 2026

Preparedness Notes — October 13, 2026

This Week in History: The Battle of Kappel was fought on October 11, 1531. Swiss Roman Catholic cantons defeated the Protestant forces of Zurich. In the battle, reformation leader Huldrych Zwingli leader was killed. October 12, 1773: America’s first asylum opened for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia. October 12, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt renamed the “Executive Mansion” as “The White House”. And on October 13, 1773, the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier. — I recently added more than 250 rifle and pistol magazines to the Elk Creek Company inventory. Many of these were dusted …


The Newly-Released ATF NFA Guidance: Drill Baby, Drill!

I’ve had several more readers contact me in the past week, asking about the Guidance from the BATF regarding SBRs, SBSes, Suppressors, and AOWs, in light of the August, 2026 Silencer Shop (and related Jensen) decision. For non-licensee private individuals, here is the the most portion of the new Guidance is (with emphasis added): “Although the district court’s injunction applies only to plaintiffs and certain other specified persons, the Department has determined to exercise its enforcement discretion to create greater uniformity, consistent with the Attorney General’s statement today. Consequently, effective October 9, 2026, ATF will no longer require individuals to …


Granberg 16 Inch Clip-N-Trim, by Thomas Christianson

Some SurvivalBlog readers may be familiar with “Grandmother’s Song” by Steve Martin. I heard that song for the very first time back in 1979. It was part of Martin’s album “Let’s Get Small”, played from a vinyl LP on a stereo belonging to one of my college roommates. One of the lines of the song is, “Live in a swamp and be three dimensional.” I never dreamed that one day I would be living that line. But now, almost 50 years later, I find myself living in a home surrounded by wetland. One facet of wetland life is the need …


SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week

Today’s graphic: Sunrise lights up the Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Range, Wyoming. (A public domain photo by “gmiphone”, at Openverse.) The thumbnail below is click-expandable.     — If any SurvivalBlog readers have personally taken or otherwise hold the copyright to a particularly nice landscape photo or other photo of particular interest to preppers that is in a wide horizontal format (to match our blog template) then please send it in as an e-mail attachment, and I will consider posting it as a Graphic of the Week, or as a Top Note photo. I can of course credit you …


Economics & Investing Media of the Week

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. Today’s graphic shows the relative size of teh U.S. and European economies.  The US GDP used to be smaller than Western Europe’s combined, but today it is larger than Europe’s entire economy. The thumbnail below is click-expandable.           (Graphic courtesy of Reddit and GeoUniverse.) Economics & Investing Links of Interest Reader D.S.V, recommended this piece over at Lew Rockwell’s site: Prepping for a Cashless Control Grid: How Digital Currency Becomes Digital Control. Trump …


The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods

SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. Today’s column outlines some new cyber threats. Android Malware Stealing PINs and Logins Reader C.B. sent this alert, from FoxNews: RatHat uses AI to take deep control of Android phones and …


SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets

Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Ukraine’s surprise robot offensive exposes a vulnerability in Putin’s war machine. o  o  o American Lasers Now Destroying Iranian Weapons and Infrastructure. o  o  o


SurvivalBlog’s American Redoubt Media of the Week

This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. This week a map showing the population percentage increase between 2020 and 2025 in a few Northwestern metropolitan areas, and a few micropolitan areas. The image below, courtesy of Reddit, is click-expandable.   REDOUBT NEWS LINKS Over at Cowboy State Daily: Landowners Fed Up With New Breed Of Trespassers Who Think Rules Don’t Apply To Them. Some familiar faces, in north Idaho: We Brought a Military Truck to …


JWR’s Meme Of The Week:

The latest meme created by JWR: Meme Text: If You Cannot See The Irony Of This, Then You Are More Dense Than Osmium: Men, Armed With Guns, Sent To Disarm People Armed With Guns Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks! Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.


Editors’ Quote:

“During COVID I watched the Democratic Party turn against every one of its essential values, its principles, and all of the policies that define my party. Democrats turned away from gold standard research and blindly defended industry-sponsored, agenda-driven science written by corrupt and captive regulatory agencies. And the Democrats, which were once the champions of the American Constitution, systematically obliterated the Bill of Rights. And particularly beginning with the First Amendment, under the guise of combating misinformation, Democrats censored hundreds of scientists and physicians who questioned the government’s dubious COVID pronouncements and orthodoxies [Thirty-seven] hours after President Biden took the …


Preparedness Notes — October 6, 2026

This Week in History: On October 4, 1535, The Coverdale Bible — the first complete Bible to be published in English — was printed in Antwerp, Belgium, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale. Pictured above is a Coverdale Bible on display at the Museum of the Bible, in Washington, D.C. — October 5, 1274: Around 1,000 soldiers of the Mongol army landed on the Japanese island of Tsushima in the first attack of Kublai Khan‘s Mongol invasion of Japan / — October 5, 1908: Bulgaria declared independence from the Ottoman Empire, and Ferdinand I (Ferdinand Maximilian Karl Leopold …


My Predictions for the End of the Year 2026, by Dr. Rick

I have always had an active interest in survival. I have always tried to look at the big picture without bias. Previously, I prepared for vague, generalized threats. Within the last year, however, the world situation has dramatically changed – threats have become more specific, easily identifiable, significant, and realistic. In other words, the present world situation makes prepping more meaningful, practical, and necessary than ever before. We need to cast off our “Normality Bias” complacency of “everything is going to be okay, just like it’s always been” and take measured actions to prepare for what is probably coming. I’m …


Recipe of the Week:

The following recipe for Crockpot Venison Stew is from SurvivalBlog reader Tony D. Ingredients 3 lb venison stew meat cut into 1-inch or smaller cubes. (You can substitute elk meat or beef chuck roast.) Salt (quantity to suit your taste) black pepper, ground (quantity to suit your taste) garlic powder (quantity to suit your taste)  onion powder (quantity to suit your taste) garlic powder (quantity to suit your taste) paprika (quantity to suit your taste) 1/2 cup flour 2 tbsp butter 1 cup red wine (I use and inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon) 1 1/2 cups celery, chopped 2 cups carrots, chopped …


SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week

Today’s graphic shows the metropolitan areas in the United States projected to reach 1 million people within the next decade, if current growth rates continue. Also shown are those that recently crossed the 1 million mark. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) The thumbnail image below is click-expandable. — If any SurvivalBlog readers have personally taken or otherwise hold the copyright to a particularly nice landscape photo or other photo of particular interest to preppers that is in a wide horizontal format (to match our blog template) then please send it in as an e-mail attachment, and I will consider posting it …


Economics & Investing Media of the Week

In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. This week, a map showing GDP Per Capita of the US and Canada (in US Dollars in the calendar year 2025.) The thumbnail below is click-expandable. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.)   Economics & Investing News Links 10-year Treasury yield slides after hitting highest levels in 24 years. Michael Burry believes the AI bubble ‘may burst’ sooner than he first believed. Fortune: Stocks are in a late-stage bubble and poised to crash 21% next year, while Treasury yields …