Guns Or Ammo Out Of Stock - What Else To Buy Before It Too Runs Out

Have you noticed yet that there is a scarcity of guns and ammunition available in, what was until recently, the free market in this country. If you have not noticed, don't even bother reading any further, this article is not for you. If you have noticed the current guns and ammo shortages, then hopefully you were smart and you also anticipated them. In other words, maybe you stocked up a decent supply of guns and ammo, before they ran out, to last you fairly long while. How long? Like maybe having enough on hand to make it through the duration of a major revolution a few years until our government is again controlled by the people with some sense of Constitutional rights and liberties. I don't think I have enough to last that long but I do have some and I am not about to be giving it out to anyone who shows up at my door begging because they cannot find any.

In the event that the economy fails, or the government decides that in order to save the economy they have to halve federal pensions (or worse), or maybe they will decide on another major devaluation of the dollar  by printing more greenbacks without anything to back them up, or if the government tries to take over militarily or by police force, or in the event of a major natural catastrophe or even a friggin' Zombie Apocalypse or maybe just shortages of consumer goods just as there is now a shortage of guns, ammunition and related items on the market - I want to be able to kind of, sort of, assure I do not have to start bartering what scant ammunition I have on hand in order to get other things that I do not have. That begs the question - What other things should one be buying now to avoid that kind of mess.

My guess would be the number one thing to buy would be food and water storage containers. That is unless you have lots of money right now, in which case I would probably be buying gold and silver and food and water. I do not have a lot of money on hand, so I think maybe I will at least try to buy some kind of long lasting food; maybe I can sneak in a few ounce of silver too. While I see no shortage of gold or silver forthcoming, I can see the prices rising, even now, especially for silver as fears of a worsened economy or a collapse increase. I don't think buying silver now is a good money making proposition but I do think it was a good idea to have some on hand, and some gold too if you can afford it, in the event the economy does collapse. If the economy fails, your dollars aren't going to be worth shit.

Now back to that other commodity that you might want to consider buying - food. Buying things like containers of emergency foods that can be stored for the long term is a good idea. Why, well just because shit happens. People were pretty hungry during the great Depression, during WWII also. The way things are going nowadays, I can easily envision them getting worse before they get better. I do not plan to be caught standing behind the trucks, off of which soldiers are tossing bags of flour or rice to the peasants, when the food riots break out. Is that really going to happen - beats me but I have stood on cheese lines before and shopped with the food stamps that my mother got a long time ago and do not ever intend to do either again. I certainly do not want to see my kids ever have to do it.

Emergency food comes in varying degrees as to quantity. You can get anything from a year's supply for a family of four (a pallets worth of it) down to an individual can of it. I do not think most folks are in the economic position to be buying a year's supply of food at one time, let alone having the facility to store all that food - heck I would have to buy another place just to store that much food. So instead of buying all that much of it at once, you can tailor your buying to your budget and to your storage space. Buying a bucket of emergency food per month, like a 40 lb. bucket of flour, or a bucket of powdered milk, a 20 lb. bucket of rolled instant oats, or a 35 lb. bucket of dried kidney beans, or a bucket of rice, or sugar, or honey and many other long term storage food items can be done, on a fairly low budget, by purchasing one or two such items per month. If you don't use it wit he next year or three - so what - a lot of it will store for up to 20 or 25 years unopened. You can also lay in a stock of things like canned foods such as tuna fish, sardines, veggies, or even canned meats. Spam lasts, I think, at most for about 3 or 4 years but you have to look for the 'best by date' to figure out by when you need use it up.

While you may not have enough room in your apartment or house to stock up for a year for a family of 4, maybe not even enough room to put away enough for 6 months for two people, you sure want to consider having enough spare food to last you and yours at least a month.

Now, back to the original idea. Remember I asked about what to buy now that guns and ammo have become scarce. A lot of other folks are probably asking themselves the same thing because either they have more than enough in the firearms and ammunition stockpiles or because they simply cannot find any more in stock - so they need something to do with their money now. My guess is, that if they have not done so already, they are going to start buying other commodities like the ones I just mentioned. That could bring on new shortages of things that seem to be in abundance right now. Let me assure you, if they start selling like guns and ammo started selling, food supplies will be out of stock within a month or two at most. Why - because while not everyone was buying guns and ammo - everyone eats and buys food. If panic buying of food starts, for whatever reason, food is going to become scarce really quickly.

If food panic buying does take place, then gold and silver will soar. Neither one probably will become as scarce but they will become super expensive and may wind up being the only thing with which you can purchase food.

Think about that and consider buying now.

Wondering where to buy things like those I just mentioned. Here are a few places you can try:

Gold & Silver:

APMEX

KITCO (Mind you, I think their minimum online order has to amount to $2,500 but you may be able to order in lessor amounts over the phone.)

I have used both of the above, in the past when there was no minimum order size, and they gave good service and I hope the real McCoy when it comes to what I purchased.

Emergency Food:

COSTCO (I have made several online purchases of such stuff from them. I had to return one that had been shipped to me and was faulty. They took it back at a warehouse, no questions asked. They also would have arranged for return shipping if I had preferred it.)

SHELF RELIANCE/THRIVE You can purchase their products from COSTCO but you can buy directly from them too. 

EMERGENCY FOOD WAREHOUSE I have never purchased from them; I found a link for them on The Survivalist Blog.

All the best,
Glenn B

Laws Banning Firearms Don't Benefit Society

I have always believed and probably will always be of like mind that laws, banning certain types of firearms (or other weapons) or banning magazines with a certain capacity to hold ammunition, are pointless unless it is that the government wishes to attempt a takeover of the populace. Even then, there is little chance of keeping weapons out of the hands of people whom the government does not want to see armed. A perfect example has just come to light in a terrible tragedy that has taken place in the southern hemisphere. Over the past couple of days there has been an uproar from the citizenry in Venezuela over the massive gun battle that took place in that country between federal troops and armed convicts. That gun battle took place in what should have been one of the most secure facilities in the country or in any country - a federal prison - a place in which gun control should be practiced to its full extent regarding keeping guns from the inmates. That system failed miserably.

Now, you may wonder how prisoners got the guns with which to battle federal troops that had entered the prison to check for weapons and other contraband and to check on prison conditions. You might even hypothesize that somehow, the families of prisoners smuggled weapons into the prison over a period of times and those weapons were used against the troops. Yet, authorities and politicians in Venezuela would probably tell you otherwise, at least it is being reported that they are seeing it differently right now. For now, it is believed that the great majority of the weapons used by prisoners in the gun battle, that claimed 61 lives and wounded over a hundred others, were smuggled into the jail by corrupt jailers, see:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/27/inmates-evacuated-from-venezuela-prison-after-61-reported-killed-120-hurt-in/.

 

In fact, the people of Venezuela are allowed to possess certain firearms but only under strict conditions and only firearms of a very limited variety. 

 

"Venezuela:

 

- Only the state may possess 'weapons of war', including: cannon, rifles, mortars, machine guns, sub-machine guns, carbines, pistols, and revolvers, be they automatic or semi-automatic. Civilians are only authorized to hold .22 rifles and shotguns (repeating and hunting).

 

- Penalty for Possessing Prohibited Firearm: 5-8 years for firearms; 6-10 years for 'weapons of war'

 

- Registration: details of the firearm must be recorded"

 

Sources: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/venezuela and: Parker, Sarah. 2011. ‘Balancing Act: Regulation of Civilian Firearm Possession.’ Small Arms Survey 2011: States of Security; Chapter 9 (Table 9.2), p. 273. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 6 July.

 

So imagine that. If, in Venezuela, you possessed the weapons that were almost certainly used in the prison gun battle, you face a 6-10 year sentence at the least just for having them, let alone the additional sentence for using them to injure or kill someone. I imagine that since Venezuela also requires civilians to register firearms that there would also be an additional penalty for having unregistered firearms. Are you beginning to see how firearms registration laws and laws banning certain types of weapons are totally ineffective. All the legal restrictions above did little to nothing to keep firearms out of what should have been a gun free area, and thus little to nothing to keep them from the hands of those who would commit crimes with them even when those people were incarcerated! As a matter of fact, as I noted above, corrupt government officials were implicated as being the likely culprits to have smuggled the firearms into the prison and that is based upon past cases of such having happened.

 

So, unless you get rid of every gun that there is on the planet, gun control is not going to work. It probably would not even work then because it is just too easy to produce firearms in a workshop, even in a backyard or basement workshop. That is exactly how tens of thousands of firearms were smuggled into Afghanistan, to supply the Afghans, when the Soviet Union occupied that country. The guns were manufactured in home shops by people in Pakistan. 

 

What we need in the USA is not a gun ban or gun restrictions, what we need is stiffer sentencing when guns or any weapons are used in the commission of a crime - maybe a mandatory 25 year add on sentence. This may not prevent the criminal from committing more violent crime once his sentence has expired and he gets out of jail but will assure that he will not commit violent crime on the streets for at least the time he is in jail.

 

We need swift and sure justice that results in the death penalty for the offender when someone is found guilty of manslaughter or murder, or of a felony in which violence resulting in injury was used to commit the crime, resulting in the death penalty. The death penalty may not work as a deterrent however it works without fail as to preventing recidivism once the sentence has actually been carried out. 

 

We need to assure that our mental health system institutionalizes those who are a high potential threat to public safety. We did that many years ago and the incidence of violent crimes committed by the mentally ill was lower than currently.

 

We need to allow our children to properly adjust to aggression and violence. Thus we need to accept, as we used to, that violence and aggression are normal, in children and teens, to a certain degree. Instead of coddling our children and teens and even our young adults, we need allow for an adjustment period in which they learn how to naturally react to things like bullying and other highly stressful situations, maybe by way of them fighting back by using an appropriate level of self-defense. Thus they would gain an understanding that extremely violent overreactions, like what they see in video games and on television, are not the proper ways to react to the great majority of situations although sometimes a situation can be dealt with best by application of the appropriate level of violence and aggression. 

 

None of that should not be difficult to accomplish; not once we realize we need to get rid of some things our society has turned to such as: the Nanny State and the proliferation of nannies instead of educators in our schools, police state in which the police see themselves as above the law yet needing to enforce the law as more important than them living up to their oaths by being the defenders of the Constitution, the soft tyranny that exists and may soon turn to hard tyranny as opposed to having politicians that realize they are public servants who are supposed to serve us instead of us serving them. 

 

It was like that once upon a time, not all that long ago - within my lifetime. It can be that way again and when it is, just as when I was a youngster - mass shootings and mass murders of any sort, within this nation, will be rare occurrences indeed.

 

All the best,

Glenn B

The Bell Just Rang...

...and what may be the last Internet order of ammo I will ever make legally, from my NY residence, was dropped off at my front door. Of course, I would buy more ammo online, before the NY SAFE Act goes into effect, if I could find any available in calibers I want and at reasonable prices. Virtually everything I want has been sold out for weeks now.

As for the ammo that just arrived, it's a hundred rounds of .308 Winchester ammo from Midway USA;  it should be anyway - I have not opened the box to check yet. MidwayUSA was the only dealer I could find within the last 2 weeks with any .308 ammo for sale. The ammo itself is: Federal Fusion Lite Ammunition, .308 Winchester, 170 Grain, Spitzer Boat Tail, five boxes of 20 rounds. As I write, it is no longer in stock; as a matter of fact, it was out of stock within minutes of me placing my order. Right now, MidwayUSA has some: Federal Premium Vital-Shok Ammunition, 308 Winchester, 165 Grain, Trophy Copper Tipped Boat Tail,lead free ammo for sale for 33.99 a box but I am not about to spend that much on 20 rounds of .308 - lead free or not, just posting the availability here in the event someone is looking.

All the best,
Glenn B