This morning, Insty highlights a problem that we have talked about before. Homelessness.
Homelessness is a problem that is as old as the United States. Those of us who grew up in the last century are familiar with a demographic that we described as "hobos". Those traveling folks without an address who went from place to place, looking fr handouts or work. The problem was the same. Folks on the low end of the income scale, who from one reason or another had no place to call home. Some were adventurers, some were down on their luck, others had addiction or mental health problems. During those simpler times, the agencies responsible for dealing with hobos were the police. Keep them moving, arrest those who could not take a subtle hint.
Come this century, and our nobler and more empathetic society wants to "solve" the problem. throw money at it. Hire social workers to manage it. Then the homeless people case to be the problem, per se, as much as the money spent and the careers launched to manage a problem. Social workers wan continued employment and if the problem is solved, there is no reason to keep paying the social workers to manage a problem that has been solved.
Therein lies the problem.
The post North Korean Type 68-1 Export “Asian Contract” Underfolder (Semiauto Build) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
In the continuing study of how effective handguns are when used as a defense against bears, this correspondent posted two articles on Ammoland showing the distribution of the number of cases vs the number of shots fired. The first article was for the statistics for all cases, which included brown bears, black bears and polar bears. The second article separated out the statistics for brown bears. Unsurprisingly, ursus arctos (brown bears, grizzly bears and Kodiak bears) showed more shots being fired per case than black bears and polar bears.
This article shows the statistics for black bears and polar bears. There were 63 cases where only handguns were fired in defense against black bears. In 57 of those case, the number of shots were known. In six cases, the number of shots fired was not shown in the documentation. In 1 case, the effect of shots could not be determined. In 1 case, the use of the handgun did not stop the bear attack. Here is the distribution:
1 shot - 25 cases 43.9% of the cases where the number of shots is known. 3 cases involved warning shots. In two cases warning shots were successful, in one case the warning shot was unsuccessful.
2 shots - 9 cases 15.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were involved in 4 cases. In 3 cases the warning shots were successful (1 temporary), in 2 cases they were unsuccessful.
3 shots - 6 cases 10.5% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were involved in 4 cases. In 2 cases they were successful, in 2 cases they were unsuccessful.
4 shots - 1 case 1.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. The case did not involve warning shots
5 shots - 3 cases 5.3% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were fired in one case and were not successful. This case is the only case where use of a handgun was unsuccessful in stopping the attack.
6
shots - 4 cases 7.0% of the cases where the number of shots is known., In the 1 case involving a warning shot, It was temporarily successful. After the husband left with the handgun (a .22 rimfire) to go get help, the bear returned and killed Darcy Staver in a predatory
attack.
The number of cases where six shots or less were fired is 48 or 84.2%.
7 shots - 3 cases 5.3% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were fired in 1 case. They were unsucessful.
8 shots - 2 cases 3.5% of the cases where the number of shots is known. There were no warning shot cases.
9 shots - 1 case 1.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. There were no warning shots recorded.
10 shots - 1 case 1.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. There were no warning shots recorded.
12 shots - 1 case 1.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. There were no warning shots recorded.
18 shots - 1 case 1.8% of the cases where the number of shots is known. There were no warning shots recorded.
There were 6 cases where an unknown number of shots were fired. In 1 case of those cases it is unknown if warning shots were fired.
The number of cases where only handguns were used to defend against polar bears is much smaller, only 12 cases. In 11 cases, the number of shots was recorded. In one case the number was not recorded. In the 12 cases there were two cases where shots fired from a handgun did not stop the aggressive behavior of the bear(s). One of those is the case where a .22 handgun was used in defense against a polar bear. That case is the only recorded case where a human was killed by the bear when a handgun was fired in defense against a bear. The other case is where warning shots were fired from a .44 magnum in an attempt to drive off polar bears, but the bears did not react to the shots. No humans or polar bears were injured in that case. With such a small number of cases, the distribution of shots does not have much statistical value.
Here is the distribution of the 11 cases:
1 shot - 3 cases 27.2% of the cases where the number of shots is known, no warning shots were recorded.
2 shots - 2 cases 18.2% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots fired in 1 case which was unsuccessful. No people or bears were injured.
3 shots - 3 cases 17.2% of the cases where the number of shots is known. No warning shots were recorded.
5 shots - 2 cases 18.2% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were fired and were unsuccessful in one case.
6 shots - 1 case 9.1% of the cases where the number of shots is known. Warning shots were fired and were unsuccessful. This is the case of a .22 rimfire handgun used in the Svalbard archipelago. One man was killed and one severely injured.
In 100% of known cases six shots or fewer were fired. There was 1 case where the number of shots fired was not recorded. No warning shots were used. In the experience of the government of the Svalbard Archipelago, warning shots are recommended. Most cases of warning shots are not recorded in publicly available materials.
If you wish to read about each case individually, they are available from the following links:
Last full list, published on June 2021, 104 incidents.
First update, April 11, 2022; Eleven additional cases, March 16, 2022; Second update November 21, 2023; Third update May 8, 2024; Fourth update October 22, 2025.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Further investigation determined the male was trespassing in several backyards throughout the day. The male shooter stated he attempted to get the suspicious male to leave the neighborhood when the male began to assault him. The male discharged his firearm striking the suspicious male. The shooter remained at the scene and provided information to investigators. .
A Massachusetts State Police trooper and a civilian with a license to carry a firearm went toward the gunman and fired their weapons at him. Officers treated Brown at the scene, and he was brought to a Boston hospital, where he is in intensive care, according to the district attorney.
"Klaus, what if we made something that resulted in the same outcome as an airbag, but it had a whole bunch of moving parts and also effectively totals the car when it goes off?"
On May 16th, 1903, George Adams Wyman began the first transcontinental motorcycle ride, in San Francisco. Riding a 1.25-horsespower (90 cc) “California” motorcycle designed by Roy Marks, he arrived in New York on July 6th. — May 16, 1943: No. 617 Squadron of the British RAF began the famous Dambusters Raid, (Operation “Chastise”), bombing the Möhne and Eder dams in the Ruhr Valley with bouncing bombs. — May 16, 1997: Zaire’s president, Mobutu Sese Seko, ended 32 years of dictatorial rule, giving control of the country to rebel forces. — Just two days left! We are running a two-week-long sale …
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(Continued from Part 4. This concludes the article.) Medical needs I don’t often have to call a vet, but establishing a relationship with a large animal vet is crucial. If you don’t have a relationship, you will have a terrible time getting help when you need it. It’s worth it to spend money with the Veterinarian. I use them for my cats and dogs, as well as my cows. We are on a first name basis now. I needed them when my first cow went down hard with milk fever. I know how to prevent that now. I needed them …
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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 …
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“Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven, A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak! Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, …
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A woman who earned a West Michigan Woman of the Year award will serve over five years in federal prison for a $1.4 million fraud scheme that misdirected money meant for preschool services, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Michigan said.
Nkechy Ezeh, 61, of Kent County, was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 70 months on fraud and a concurrent 60 months for evading income taxes, the district attorney's office said. She was ordered to start serving the prison time immediately.
Ezeh was also ordered to pay a total of $1.4 million in restitution to the victims of the scheme, along with $390,174 to the Internal Revenue Service.
Her nonprofit organization, Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, shuttered in 2023, with 35 people laid off as a result, the district attorney's office said.
A million here, a billion there, to paraphrase Sen. Bayh, after a while, it adds up to real money. If all this welfare state funding was making poor people better off, you might excuse the good intentions.
I don't know if this is on everyone's Top Ten list of great blues songs. I suspect it is on everyone's list of Top Ten Blues Songs to Sing at Karaoke.
Over on X, I have been seeing TDS sufferers complaining that allegations of Medicare fraud are overblown and are just a small number of bad actors. The scale of bad actors matters.
The owner of a healthcare software company was convicted of massive Medicare fraud on Thursday, the Department of Justice said, ending what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called "one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history." ...
Blackman and his co-conspirators billed Medicare and other federal healthcare benefit programs over $1 billion throughout the course of the scheme, the Department of Justice said. Medicare and the other programs paid out more than $450 million.
The post Masterpiece Arms MPA-971: Frankengun of the Assault Weapons Ban first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Tennessee Capitol
The Tennessee reform of use of deadly force bill, SB1847/HB1802 is about to be or has been sent to Governor Bill Lee. The case is instructive about the intricacies of a bill becoming a law.
The Tennessee Legislature passed SB1847 on April 23, the last day of the legislative session. SB1847 includes the right to use deadly force to protect property under certain limited circumstances. In this correspondent's reading of the law, the legal ability to use deadly force under the bill is not very wide or broad. In the previous law, residents could use force to protect or recover property, but not deadly force.
The new language allows residents to use deadly force to prevent "the other's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, or aggravated cruelty to animals; "if the resident reasonably believes the property cannot otherwise be protected and the use of lesser force would expose the resident or a third party to "a risk of death, serious bodily injury, or grave sexual abuse."
The initial versions of the law were more radical. They allowed the use of deadly force to prevent trespassing. They prohibited a person from using deadly force if the suspect was facing away from them. Both instances were radical changes in the use of deadly force law in Tennessee. In the final debates leading to the passage of the bill, both the trespass and "facing away" parts of the bill were removed in the last amendment before both houses passed the bill.
In legislatures across the United States, it is common to have a post-vote process to send the bill to the governor to be signed. An administrator or bureau checks the bill to be sure the language is what was voted on. Then the house and senate leadership sign declarations the bill language is correct. These are checks to insure the legitimacy of the bill. After the legislative leadership signs off on the bill, the bill is sent to the governor for signature. States vary significantly in how long a governor has to sign a bill, and what happens if the governor vetoes the bill, or refuses to sign it.
SB1147 passed with significant super-majorities in both houses. The final votes on the amended bill were: 62-24 in the house, 3 present and not voting; 23-5 in the Senate. The bill final votes occurred on April 23, the last day of the session. The bill was not enrolled (checked and made ready for signatures) until April 30, a week later. The Speaker of the Senate signed the enrolled bill on April 30. The Speaker of the House did not sign the enrolled bill until May 7, 2026.
In Tennessee the bill is automatically sent to the Governor after the signatures. In Tennessee, the governor has 10 days, excluding Sundays, to veto or sign the bill. If the governor does not veto or sign the bill during the 10 days, it becomes law. The 10 day clock does not start until the bill is officially received by the governor.
Analysis: The rules for sending the bill to the governor can be used to play legislative games, depending on whether the leaders of the legislature want to see the bill vetoed, want to discredit the governor, or want to insure the bill is made into law. This correspondent has seen legislatures accelerate the process so the governor receives a bill one or two days after the vote. Legislators have been known to delay the process to allow the governor to veto the bill without the concern of a veto override in some states. Sometimes the timing is a matter of convenience, to allow the Governor to arrange a bill signing ceremony, for example.
The two week span to send SB1147 to Governor Bill Lee is a mild cause for concern. It may mean the legislative leaders are not worried about a veto. The Tennessee legislature can override a veto with simple majorities in both houses. It would appear to be an easy thing to do, with the super-majorities which voted for SB1147. Ballotpedia shows of four vetos done in Tennessee from 2010 to 2020, only one was overridden by the legislature.
If Governor Lee officially receives SB1147 on May 8th, he has until May 20 to sign, veto, or allow the bill to become law without his signature.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Gist: Two unknown black males confronted third subject. One suspect struck third subject in face and produced gun. Third subject also produced gun and began shooting. During exchange of gunfire, one suspect was struck by gunfire and went to a local hospital via private conveyance
Officials first believed the shooting stemmed from a carjacking incident. Now, sources at the scene say the shooting victim had come to a resident's home with a car jack, and the resident came out and shot the man.
The man was driven to a hospital, then flown to another hospital via Lifeflight. Sources say he is expected to recover.
Knowledge to make your life better. If you have some free time, check out some of these links this weekend. What’s the fastest way to reload a CCW revolver? Caleb is bucking long term revolver dogma in this thought-provoking article. He is correct. If you doubt his thesis, fire up the shot timer and […]On May 15, 1896 a tornado — now estimated as a F5 — killed 78 people in and near Sherman, Texas. This was part of a multi-week tornado outbreak in the South and Midwest. Pictured above is the first-ever photograph of a tornado, taken in 1884. — May 15, 1911: The U.S. Supreme Court dissolved Standard Oil and upheld the Sherman Antitrust Act. — And on May 15th, 1942, gasoline rationing began in 17 Eastern states as an attempt to help the American war effort during World War II. The main concern behind the rationing scheme was conserving scarce imported rubber, …
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(Continued from Part 3.) Calving I have been very fortunate that all my cows have calved without assistance until this last one. I’m praying that disaster does not happen again. I could not have saved that calf by myself, and there was only one available Veterinarian on call at the time. She also could not have done it by herself. I am thankful for good friends who would drop everything to come over and assist. While we saved the heifer, we lost the calf. The heifer has recovered beautifully due to our intervention, and she’s doing well. I have three …
The post Small Farm Dairy Cattle – Part 4, by SaraSue appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. Today, a map showing the world’s trillion dollar economies. The thumbnail below is click-expandable. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) Economics & Investing News and Links of Interest Spot silver jumped almost 7.09% on Monday (May 11, 2026) to an after-hours high of $86.88 USD per Troy ounce. By Wednesday, it was up to $88.27. Profit-taking took silver down to around $84.27 on Thursday afternoon. But, obviously, this bull is not finished with his quest to trample the residents …
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“We must distinguish between a man of polite learning and a mere scholar: the first is a gentleman and what a gentleman should be; the last is a mere book-case, a bundle of letters, a head stuffed with the jargon of languages, a man that understands every body but is understood by no body.” – Daniel Defoe ‘The Complete English Gentleman’ (written in 1728.)
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Via Insty, here's proof of the utter futility of gun control:
A man named Tyler Brown opened fire on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Mass., this week, turning an ordinary Monday afternoon into a rolling ambush near Harvard and MIT.
Middlesex DA Marian Ryan said Brown, a 46-year-old Boston man (notice no doctor was needed to identify Brown as a man), fired roughly 50 to 60 rounds from a rifle at vehicles on the roadway.
A Mass Statie and Our Hero (legally carrying, natch) shot the dirty perp. So well done! And I hear you ask, what's the tie in to gun control. This:
Brown didn't appear from thin air; his criminal record included a 2020 shootout with Boston police, and he had pleaded guilty to charges tied to armed assault with intent to murder. He was reportedly out on probation when the Cambridge shooting unfolded.
OK, so Massachusetts is run by dumbasses. Dude was out on parole for armed assault with intent to murder, and he shot up a bunch of stuff, including a Massachusetts State Police cruiser.
But here's the punch line:
[The perpetrator] survived with non-life-threatening injuries and faces serious charges, including armed assault with intent to murder. [Emphasis mine - Borepatch]
This time he'll be sorry!
Some Masshole judge will release him in 4 or 5 years. But more gun control is just the thing. Oooooooh kaaaaaay.
It's quite a mystery why all the retarded Massachusetts liberals think they're so much smarter than we are. The evidence is against them.

New from Safariland is the next generation of the INCOG holster, meet the INCOG XS! Developed by Safariland and Haley Strategic, is this the ultimate EDC?
A budget thermal scope that actually works? After months of testing and a lot of feral hogs put down, the Sightmark Wraith Mini has impressed us!I'm preoccupied. For the next 10 days i will be deep into final stages for the big match I host every year. Ranges are being torn down in preparation for loading into a trailer. Everything I need to make this event a success has to be catalogued, inspected, packed and loaded so that when we ge there we have everything we need.
I'm not ignoring y'all, I'm busier than a cat in a sandbox.
It will be okay. Y'all play nice.
Speaking just ahead of Trump, Xi noted the global attention on the meeting, and said a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the “Thucydides Trap,” according to an official English translation of his remarks broadcast by CCTV.Trump was probably rolling his eyes and thinking "Only dummies stick their fingers in those little tubes in the first place."
For the last few years, each second quarter on the calendar has become my 1911 pistol season. The reason: in June I have a couple of matches coming up where John Browning’s most popular auto pistol design is particularly suitable. One of those events is a gathering of gun geezers, a match held by my […]By Dave Workman The nation with the highest total gun deaths—in spite of what you may have read or heard—is not the United States. According to a report at How Stuff Works, basing its findings on data from the past, it’s Brazil, where more than 49,000 gun-related deaths were reported in 2019. And, as […]
The post Which Country Has the Worst Gun-Related Violence? It’s NOT the U.S appeared first on Liberty Park Press.
On May 14, 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to draft the Constitution of the United States. — May 14th, 1686 was the birthday of Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, who invented the thermometer. — We are running a two-week-long sale in all of our percussion revolvers at Elk Creek Company, with deep discounts. This sale will end on Monday, May 18th, 2026. Please note that there are cartridge conversion cylinders available for many of these guns — particularly the Ruger Old Army revolvers and the Pietta and Uberti brand clones of the Remington Model 1858. This provides a great opportunity to acquire un-papered …
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(Continued from Part 2.) Winter housing When I bought this farm, there was an existing small barn and a two car garage sized shed that the door had broken off of. The property was completely fenced, and cross fenced, and there were even a couple of water troughs, which had to be replaced because they leaked. But, all in all, there was some structure to start with. Back then, I had no plans to obtain dairy cows, but I probably would not have gone with large livestock without adequate fencing and buildings. There is no water or electricity to the …
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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: Even more Agentic AI risks. An Agentic AI Destroyed a Company’s Database and Backups The Telegraph reports: AI ‘agents of chaos’ run riot inside companies. Could Claude Mythos …
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“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” – C.S. Lewis, as quoted in in chapter 31 of Cyril Connolly’s ‘The Unquiet Grave’ (1944)
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By Dave Workman The first-of-its-kind “Firearms Advocacy Conference,” organized by Massachusetts gun rights activists and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, will be held Saturday, May 30 at the Castle of Knights, 1599 Memorial Dr., Chicopee, Mass. Cost to attend the one-day event is $25.00 and includes a one-year membership […]
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