SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— 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, we look at New Zealand’s Gun Confiscation Failure. But first, a brief book review.
Freehold Resistance — A Great Read!
Ads most SurvivalBlog readerts know, Michael Z. Williamson is our volunteer Editor At Large. I finally got the chance to finish reading his latest sci-fi anthology, titled Freehold Resistance. It is set on the planet Grainne (spoken “Grahn-ya”), two hundred years after it’s colonization. This is a rousing collection of short stories, all written from different perspectives about an interstellar invasion attempting to bring a “rogue” world under United Nations control. Be forewarned that there is some crude language and of course description of combat, so this book is not for kids. This is the ninth book in Mike’s Freehold series, but you don’t need to have read the others to enjoy reading this book. The book was released late last year, and is a popular seller. It includes short stories by Larry Correia, Michael Z. Williamson, Brad R. Torgersen, Mike Massa, Kacey Ezell, Robert E. Hampson, Aaron Haskins, John F. Holmes, Marisa Wolf, Justin Watson, Jason Cordova, Jamie Ibson, Jessica Schlenker, Christopher Dinote, Rob Reed, Chris Smith, Jaime DiNote, and Philip Wohlrab. These stories are cleverly interspersed in a way that carries along the underlying tale of a war of resistance to an occupying force. I believe that this anthology will be enjoyed by anyone who enjoys military fiction–especially folks with a libertarian bent, or anyone with an interest in resistance warfare. There is definitely a lot of “food for thought” in the pages of Freehold Resistance!
New Zealand’s Gun Confiscation Failure
Reader T.B. sent us this news from New Zealand: Total Failure: Gun Confiscation Reached 13% Compliance. JWR’s Comments: Here we have a Socialist Nanny State government, at its worst: Governments tax our money, using coercive force, and then they take away our birthright, with more coercive force. And once they’ve disarmed us, they will feel free to use as much coercive force as they please, to ramrod the rest of their collectivist hive mind agenda. Why? Because they will then have a monopoly on coercive force. Comprende? Here is an excerpt:
“It turns out that New Zealand didn’t fall for the lie, because the official numbers are now in.
33,619 hand-ins were processed and 56,250 firearms were confiscated. Assuming these were all by licensed owners, about 12% of the country’s LFOs participated.
6,250 guns were handed-in without compensation as part of the amnesty programme.
Only 63% of the remaining 50,000 were centrefire semi-automatics—that’s 31,500.
When I ran the numbers in early September, I established that Gun City estimated there were at a minimum 185,000 centrefire semi-automatic firearms in the country, and according to the National Party there were 240,000. The first is based on extrapolated sales data and the later might be based on some figures from Customs. The government has not released any official numbers.
That gives a final 13% to 17% compliance rate on the targeted firearms.
OK, that was a fail, but what about those scary “Military-Style Semi Automatics” (MSSAs)? Of the 15,037 registered prior to the confiscation, 9,532 were handed-in. That’s 63% “off the streets”, the rest of the owners have applied for exemptions. The MSSA category also used to include some .22s due to their aesthetic configuration, and this is where the new legislation has a silver lining: all .22 MSSAs are now fully legal on a standard firearms license. They’re being imported by the crateload and flying off the shelves.”
Weeks Alone in Remote Alaska Wilderness After Cabin Burns Down
Reader Jim L. was the first of several readers to send this: Man survives weeks in remote Alaska wilderness after cabin burns down, writes ‘SOS’ in snow.Continue reading“The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods”