I’ve had several readers write to ask me about the ATF’s new 108-Page proposed “Engaged In The Business” rule. On August 31, 2023, the Biden Regime announced that it is attempting to redefine “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. This rulemaking will strongly amplify and greatly expand on the wording of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BCSA) of 2022. The latter provides that, as applied to a dealer in firearms, the term “engaged in the business” means “a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business to predominantly earn a profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.”Continue reading“Some Very Bad Law: The ATF’s New “Engaged In The Business” Rule”
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JWR’s Meme Of The Week:
The latest meme created by JWR:
Meme Text:
You know you are getting old when…
The same model as your first home computer is now on display at The Smithsonian Museum
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, provide that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.
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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
“ Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
(For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.
The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.
Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.” – John 4: 5-26 (KJV)
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Preparedness Notes for Saturday — September 9, 2023
On September 9, 1087, the English king William I (“William the Conqueror”, pictured) died from an injury suffered while attempting to capture the town of Mantes. He was later buried at St. Stephen’s Church.
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On September 9, 1492, the fleet of Christopher Columbus (Cristoforo Colombo / Cristóbal Colón) set sail west.
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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
- Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.
Second Prize:
- A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
- Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!
Third Prize:
- A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.
—
More than $840,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 108 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
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A Local Disaster Network – Part 5, by J.M.
(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.)
Cloud Dancing
Next, we’ll set up the Nextcloud application. Assuming your laptop and Raspberry Pi are still connected to your GL.iNet router and it has Internet access, open up a web browser on your laptop and enter the following address: ‘http://nextcloud.local’ – depending on your operating system and browser you may get a warning that says the connection isn’t private – just click to proceed anyway (or click on ‘Advanced’ and then ‘Proceed’). The first screen that will pop up is the following:

You’ll notice that there are two very very very long passwords displayed – the first one is for accessing the Nextcloud maintenance functions (http://nextcloud.local:4443) and the second one is for the default Nextcloud general user account ‘ncp’ (http://nextcloud.local). We’ll change these later on, but it’s absolutely critical that you save them somewhere like in a text file on your laptop for now. If you don’t and can’t remember them you’ll need to go back and re-image the microSD card from scratch.Continue reading“A Local Disaster Network – Part 5, by J.M.”
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Editors’ Prepping Progress
To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those –or excerpts thereof — in the Odds ‘n Sods Column or in the Snippets column. Let’s keep busy and be ready!
Jim Reports:
I had three on-site consulting days, on behalf of two different clients this week. I also went to visit an old friend. And on Friday, I attended a gun show. With so much time on the road, I was barely able to keep up with my writing, editing, and ranch work.
Now, Lily’s report…
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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
“And Moses gathered all the congregation of the children of Israel together, and said unto them, These are the words which the Lord hath commanded, that ye should do them.
Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you an holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death.
Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day.
And Moses spake unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, This is the thing which the Lord commanded, saying,
Take ye from among you an offering unto the Lord: whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring it, an offering of the Lord; gold, and silver, and brass,
And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair,
And rams’ skins dyed red, and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood,
And oil for the light, and spices for anointing oil, and for the sweet incense,
And onyx stones, and stones to be set for the ephod, and for the breastplate.
And every wise hearted among you shall come, and make all that the Lord hath commanded.” – Exodus 35:1-10 (KJV)
Preparedness Notes for Friday — September 8, 2023
On September 8, 1565, the first permanent settlement in what would become the United States of America was formed, in St. Augustine, Florida.
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Also, in 1943, on this day, Italy surrendered to the Allies in World War II.
—
SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
- Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.
Second Prize:
- A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
- Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!
Third Prize:
- A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.
—
More than $840,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 108 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
A Local Disaster Network – Part 4, by J.M.
(Continued from Part 3.)
Cloud Server
Next, we’re going to set up the operating system and Nextcloud cloud application that runs on the Raspberry Pi server. You’ll need to download two or three pieces of software to accomplish this – a utility for loading the Raspberry Pi’s operating system image onto the microSD card, the actual Raspberry Pi operating system/application image file, and a tool for uncompressing the compressed operating system/application image file after downloading it (if you don’t already have something like WinZip or 7-Zip installed). For the Pi’s operating system/application we’re going to use an image called NextCloudPi from GitHub, which is the Raspberry Pi operating system and Nextcloud cloud server application all pre-configured and bundled in one image file. Go to the GitHub download page and click on the link called ‘NextCloudPi_RaspberryPi_vN.N.N.zip’, (or ‘NextCloudPi_[whatever computer you bought]’ for a different kind of computer) where ‘N.N.N’ is the latest version number and save it to your local disk.Continue reading“A Local Disaster Network – Part 4, by J.M.”
Economics & Investing For Preppers
Here are the latest news items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. In this column, JWR also covers hedges, derivatives, and various obscura. This column emphasizes JWR’s “tangibles heavy” investing strategy and contrarian perspective. Today, we look at the possibility of another gold confiscation. (See the Precious Metals section.)
Precious Metals:
Reader H.L. mentioned this, over at Doug Casey’s International Man: Don’t Dismiss the Possibility of Gold Confiscation. JWR’s Comment: This is just one more reason to have a precious metals portfolio that is heavy on silver. Confiscating all of the citizenry’s gold again would be very difficult, but the logistics of confiscating silver (with 15 times more bulk and weight) would be nigh-on impossible.)
o o o
At Gold-Eagle.com: Yields Set To Fall & Gold Set To Soar.
Economy & Finance:
UPS Offers Severance Package to 167 Pilots as Air Cargo Slumps. JWR’s Comments: The “official” announcement of the recession won’t come for several months. But in essence, it is already here, folks!
o o o
Linked over at the Whatfinger.com news aggregation site: US credit card debt has reached a record high of $1 trillion dollars, with an average interest rate of 20.63 percent, indicating a potential debt crisis.
o o o
At Zero Hedge: Peter Schiff: Government Spending Has Bankrupted The US.
o o o
Dollar General Plunges On Missed Earnings, Outlook Slashed; A Warning Sign Consumer Cracks.
o o o
Consumers Win: Apple to Embrace USB-C with iPhone 15. (Our thanks to reader C.B. for the link.)
The Editors’ Quote of the Day:
“I don’t know why liberals want to disarm the law-abiding population, but I do know that not a single argument proffered stands the light of facts. Armed citizens deter far more crimes than the police, and far more lives are saved by the intended victim being armed than are lost in firearm accidents.” – Paul Craig Roberts
Preparedness Notes for Thursday — September 7, 2023
On September 7, 1876, the Younger Brothers, a group of American outlaws who were often allied with Jesse James, were captured following an unsuccessful bank robbery.
Today is the birthday of novelist Taylor Caldwell (born 1900 – August 30, 1985).
Today is the birthday of Dr. Ludwig Vorgrimler (born 1912 in Freiburg, Germany; died 1983). Vorgrimler was the designer of the Spanish CETME rifle, from which sprang a plethora of roller-lock descendants from HK, including the G3, HK21, and MP5. His bolt design was also copied by the Swiss for their excellent PE57 and SIG 510 rifles. (Although the Swiss felt obliged to mount a “beer keg” charging handle on the right side of the receiver, for the sake of familiarity to Schmidt-Rubin shooters.)
And September 7th is also the birthday of Richard Cole, born in 1915. He passed away on April 8, 2019, at age 103. Cole was the last living Doolittle Raider. He was General Doolittle’s co-pilot.
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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest
Today we present another entry for Round 108 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
- The photovoltaic power specialists at Quantum Harvest LLC are providing a store-wide 10% off coupon. Depending on the model chosen, this could be worth more than $2000.
- A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any of their one, two, or three-day course (a $1,095 value),
- Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
- A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
- American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.
- Two sets of The Civil Defense Manual, (in two volumes) — a $193 value — kindly donated by the author, Jack Lawson.
Second Prize:
- A SIRT STIC AR-15/M4 Laser Training Package, courtesy of Next Level Training, that has a combined retail value of $679
- Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).
- Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC.
- Montana Survival Seed is providing a $225 gift code for any items on its website, including organic non-GMO seeds, fossils, 1812-1964 US silver, jewelry, botany books, and Montana beeswax.
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun. There is no paperwork required for delivery of pre-1899 guns into most states, making them the last bastion of firearms purchasing privacy!
Third Prize:
- A $300 gift certificate from Good2Goco.com, good for any of their products: Home freeze dryers, pressure canners, Country Living grain mills, Emergency Essentials foods, and much more.
- Three sets each of made-in-USA regular and wide-mouth reusable canning lids. (This is a total of 300 lids and 600 gaskets.) This prize is courtesy of Harvest Guard (a $270 value)
- A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
- A transferable $150 FRN purchase credit from Elk Creek Company, toward the purchase of any pre-1899 antique gun.
—
More than $840,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 108 ends on September 30th, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
A Local Disaster Network – Part 3, by J.M.
(Continued from Part 2.)
Now we’re ready to start plugging in hardware. Below is a picture of the what all of the connections will ultimately look like for your initial set up if you have a wired home network:

Continue reading“A Local Disaster Network – Part 3, by J.M.”
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. In today’s column, war drums and police chases.
10-Year Anniversary Prepper Camp 2023
The 10-year anniversary gathering for Prepper Camp 2023 will be held September 22nd, 23rd, and 24th, 2023, in Saluda, North Carolina.
Chaos: An Aerial View of the Huge Burning Man Mud Mess
A recent Trent Palmer flying video: It got WAY WORSE – Burning Man 2023 Rain Update Part 2. From Trent’s description: “70,000 people stuck at Burning Man, so Jerry and I decided to take a second quick flight up to Black Rock to check on how Burning Man was holding up after all the newest recent rain storms and see how the exodus was going.”
JWR’s Comment: So-called “Dry Lake Beds” don’t always remain dry. As of Monday, the “Shelter In Place” order was lifted, and some of the revelers were able to slip and slide their way off of the playa.
