Sage Advice: Topping Off Ammo and Rounding Out Gun Collections Before July

At a recent gun show here in The American Redoubt, I had an interesting conversation with a Vietnam War veteran who is mostly a dealer in ammunition handloading components. As we spoke, he was sitting at his table behind a quite tall pile of cardboard cases of cartridge primers, packaged with 5,000 primers to the outer case. The subject of the upcoming presidential election came up, and I asked him if that is why he had such a large inventory of primers. He responded in the affirmative and then added: “Every time there is some sort of political crisis, I …





The Statists’ Dream List: Systematically Destroying Our Freedom of Speech

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Although much of the focus in Constitutionalist circles is rightfully on combating threats to the Second Amendment, there is an equally important issue: Our First Amendment freedoms of speech, press, religion, to peaceably assemble, and assuring our right to petition for redress of grievances. These rights are in peril.  Gradually, the United States is devolving into a quasi-Police State. One goal of the statists/collectivists is to marginalize and muzzle independent journalists. In this essay, I will outline some of the methods that could provide multiple gains for the statists: to control the press, to steer mass media content in a …



The World Through Pink-Colored Glasses: Wikipedia’s Leftist Editorial Distortions

Wikipedia, launched in 2001, now has more than 39 million articles. It is now informally used by millions of students as a reference by students and journalists—usually as the starting point for researching nearly any topic. Wikipedia’s entries are given great weight by search engines, such as Google, placing their articles at the top of search rankings. In the 21st Century Internet age, one can safely say: All Roads Lead to Wikipedia. Most SurvivalBlog readers have noticed that I refer to Wikipedia as LeftistAgendapedia. I do so for good reason, as a I will explain in this essay. Because it …


Jim’s Quote of the Day:

“The ability to refer to a document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is more efficient but changes nothing else. . . . We cannot regard anyone as having the “right not to be referred to” without completely pulling the rug out from under free speech. . . .It is difficult to emphasize how important these issues are for society. The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, for example, addresses the right …


Off-Paper: The Importance of Making Private Arms Purchases

Firearms sales in the United States, as measured by the number of completed National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background checks, are near an all-time high. In February, 2016, there were a whopping 2.6 million background checks! But those sales numbers only reflect the sales of new guns sold by Federal Firearms License (FFL) holders. The bigger and largely unreported news is of the upswing in the sales of used guns (“secondary sales”) by private parties. At a recent gun show, I observed that the folks who were there selling guns from their private collections were met by very …


Notes for Monday – March 07, 2016

I was saddened to hear that former First Lady Nancy Reagan passed away on March 6th, at age 94. She was born Anne Frances Robbins, on July 6, 1921. She was a devoted Presbyterian Christian. Although their marriage was Ronald Reagan’s second marriage, they were inseparable. In many ways, she was a much more glamorous First Lady than Jackie Kennedy. I’d recommend avoiding Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography on Nancy Reagan, which was a hatchet piece.  Instead, I recommend: Reagan: The Life, by H.W. Brands. That biography includes quite a bit about Nancy Reagan. March 7, 1707 was the birthday of …


Occupy Wall Street Versus Occupy Malheur: Clear Cases of Selective Prosecution

This news headline makes it clear that the BHO Administration is widening their net:  Nevada Standoff Indictment Names Bundys, Five More.  These “add-on” indictments are quite troubling. I believe that the assessment by Brandon Smith’s (previously mentioned in SurvivalBlog) may be correct:  A Warning To The Feds On Incremental Prosecutions Of The Liberty Movement.  There may be dozens of more indictments of people who attended the Bundy Ranch protests in 2014 that filter out over a the next six to nine months. Let’s draw a comparison: There were overt and quite visible physical threats and considerable actual violence in the …


Recipe of the Week: Super Lasagna, by P.L.

Ingredients: ¾ lb lean ground beef ½ lb lean ground pork 1 small onion chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1 (16oz) can tomatoes, cut up 1 (8oz) can tomato sauce 1 beef bouillon cube, crushed 1 tbs parsley flakes 2 tsp sugar ½ tsp salt ½ tsp crushed basil 1 pt. cottage cheese (16oz) ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese ½ tsp salt ½ tsp crushed oregano 8oz lasagna noodles, cooked and drained 8oz mozzarella cheese, sliced Directions: In a large skillet or slow-cooking pot with browning unit, cook and stir beef, pork, onion, and garlic. Drain off excess fat. In …


Letter: Advice on Establishing Retreat Group SOPs

Dear Mr Rawles: I wanted to reach out. I am now reading your novel Patriots and in it the topic of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) is addressed. Do you all have a good template example to help me get started in this arena? Thanks, – Jon B. JWR Replies:  There are no “one size fits all” SOPs. Your SOPs should definitely be tailored to your particular circumstances. Military SOPs are usually a good starting point.  (These include: immediate action drills, perimeter security (including challenge and password), patrolling, field sanitation, communications CEOI procedures, OPSEC, COMSEC, et cetera.)  I don’t want to …


Letter Re: Know Your Limits

Dear Sir, Regarding the article in SurvivalBlog by “Molon Labe” titled: Know Your Limits: The thing is to also know your real personal limits.  Too many people think that if “I have this gun and this ammo then I can hit anything.”  I recently tried to talk some sense into a guy who was looking at a $3,000 .338 Lapua Magnum rifle with a $5,000 scope in a sports shop.  He was looking at it as his first firearm. I tried talking him out of it.  He insisted that he had friends who were snipers so he knew what to do. The …


Economics and Investing:

I see bubbles bursting everywhere: Top academic Vikram Mansharaman o o o Reader D.S. mentioned this troubling news, over at Forbes:  How Fiduciary Rule May Censor Financial Broadcasters Like Dave Ramsey o o o Items from Professor Preponomics: US News Fed Proposes New Limits on Big Banks’ Exposure to Each Other (Reuters) Jobs Report Reveals Lingering Long-Term Unemployment (Washington Examiner) GAO Study Documents Massive Fraud Likely in Obamacare Exchanges (Contra Corner) International News Debt “Explosion” Awaits Unless Policymakers Defuse Demographic Time Bomb, Warns IMF Chief (The Telegraph) EU’s Tusk Warnes Illegal Economic Migrants: Do Not Come Here (BBC News) Brazilian …