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On the second floor, among the many collections of tools, a lovely woman in period costume named Susan demonstrated the art of weaving from flaxen thread to make linen, as well as the meticulous process by which the strands of soft flax emerged from a course stalk.
One of the room depictions in the grist house, which included a kitchen and room where the spinning wheels worked, was a little girls room. The furniture was adult furniture, carefully crafted in miniature, the bed, one in which her parents would watch her sleep, praying that she never knew fear or hunger. On the bed was a doll, a small, clothed artifact of that innocent corridor that is childhood.
Yes, the lives of past history are seldom easy, but there would be riches of experience we can not see, the accomplishment of crafting something that would last for generations. There is the pride in your teaching your own family. You teaching, not a school, not a "village", teaching the skills they would need to not just survive, but to prosper beyond the scope of your life. There was also the saving, not perhaps love or riches, but what is left behind in a human spirit when everything else has been taken away.
But they did not.
In the basement, there was something that made me stop and quietly think. A room that at one point was part of the Underground Railroad, a runaway slaves stop on the way to freedom in Canada, by a miller who himself sought freedom in our country, leaving his native Germany long behind him.
How many slaves did Mr. Graue shelter there in the basement of his gristmill? How many people passed through this room, putting their trust in a strangers hands, hesitant perhaps to take hold, as a hand too near the stove remembers pain. How difficult must that have been, trust replacing the whip of whistling air, the blow.
As I walked up the narrow stairs from that small and once dark place where women and men ran for their freedom, out into the light, an echo spoke which was not mine but rather all of the lost immutable "should haves" which haunt all dwellings, all the enclosed walls of home or heart. It lingers in the air as a hand takes mine to guide me safely away.
I left the mill with some bags of grain, but even more, with a renewed sense of thankfulness. Not just for my lightweight iron and the luxury of a long, hot, solitary bubble bath, but for something else. I left with a sense of enduring hope for that which is the human spirit, the recognition of a life lived by ones own hand and choice. - Brigid
The post US Navy MkVI Lewis Gun in .30-06 for the Marines first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Cheers!
- Consumer price index continued its steady climb in September.
- Blue check? Nah, AI deepfake.
- Using your data to charge you more.
New York, N.Y. (1927)
04/18/1927: A quarrel between three acquaintances “after a night of cabereting” led to an exchange of gunfire. One of the dead was holding a revolver with one shot fired, suggesting he attempted self-defense. Police found a partly loaded revolver near his body.
Category: residential
Suicide: no
Cause: quarrel
Weapon: pistol[1]
Investigators found that the woman who had previously left Greenhill’s home contacted two men for a ride back to the home to retrieve her vehicle, officials said.
The woman was dropped off at the intersection of Highway 612 and Southern Oak Drive, where the men waited in their vehicle while she retrieved her own vehicle, GCSO said. Officials said Greenhill then left his home and approached the men’s vehicle.
Investigators found that Greenhill was wearing brass knuckles when he hit one of the men multiple times in the face, officials said. That man, who had a gun, then fired two shots, hitting Greenhill, officials said.
A father was injured in a Durham shooting on Saturday morning while trying to break into the home of his child’s mother, according to police.
The incident was reported just before 9:45 a.m. at the Magnolia Pointe apartments in the 4800 block of Danube Lane, just off Hebron Road in northeast Durham, according to a Durham Police Department news release.
During the break-in, the woman’s brother happened to be at the apartment, and there was a “struggle” between the two men, police said.
During the altercation, the brother shot the father of the child, officers said.
Cecil Burch, a third-degree Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, founder of Immediate Action Combatives, and member of the ShivWorks Collective, joins host Tom Marshall on the RECOIL Podcast!
Tom Selleck is one of my favorite actors and favorite celebrities. I can’t think of a part he’s played that isn’t a role model for decency. I’ve never met the man, unfortunately, but I’m happy to say he is One Of Us.In addition to his many years as a director of the National Rifle Association, […]Police said Kurtae’vious Earl Tyson, 22, of Oxford, and Daronte Collins, 22, of Oxford, attempted to rob a 25-year-old Tuscaloosa man. Shots were fired during the incident, leading to Tyson being shot and critically injured.
Collins was charged with felony murder, first-degree robbery, attempted murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. He is being held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail without bond.
This Week in History: The Battle of Kappel was fought on October 11, 1531. Swiss Roman Catholic cantons defeated the Protestant forces of Zurich. In the battle, reformation leader Huldrych Zwingli leader was killed. October 12, 1773: America’s first asylum opened for ‘Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds’ in Virginia. October 12, 1901: Theodore Roosevelt renamed the “Executive Mansion” as “The White House”. And on October 13, 1773, the Whirlpool Galaxy was discovered by French astronomer Charles Messier. — I recently added more than 250 rifle and pistol magazines to the Elk Creek Company inventory. Many of these were dusted …
The post Preparedness Notes — October 13, 2026 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
I’ve had several more readers contact me in the past week, asking about the Guidance from the BATF regarding SBRs, SBSes, Suppressors, and AOWs, in light of the August, 2026 Silencer Shop (and related Jensen) decision. For non-licensee private individuals, here is the the most portion of the new Guidance is (with emphasis added): “Although the district court’s injunction applies only to plaintiffs and certain other specified persons, the Department has determined to exercise its enforcement discretion to create greater uniformity, consistent with the Attorney General’s statement today. Consequently, effective October 9, 2026, ATF will no longer require individuals to …
The post The Newly-Released ATF NFA Guidance: Drill Baby, Drill! appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
Some SurvivalBlog readers may be familiar with “Grandmother’s Song” by Steve Martin. I heard that song for the very first time back in 1979. It was part of Martin’s album “Let’s Get Small”, played from a vinyl LP on a stereo belonging to one of my college roommates. One of the lines of the song is, “Live in a swamp and be three dimensional.” I never dreamed that one day I would be living that line. But now, almost 50 years later, I find myself living in a home surrounded by wetland. One facet of wetland life is the need …
The post Granberg 16 Inch Clip-N-Trim, by Thomas Christianson appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
Today’s graphic: Sunrise lights up the Cirque of the Towers, Wind River Range, Wyoming. (A public domain photo by “gmiphone”, at Openverse.) The thumbnail below is click-expandable. — If any SurvivalBlog readers have personally taken or otherwise hold the copyright to a particularly nice landscape photo or other photo of particular interest to preppers that is in a wide horizontal format (to match our blog template) then please send it in as an e-mail attachment, and I will consider posting it as a Graphic of the Week, or as a Top Note photo. I can of course credit you …
The post SurvivalBlog Graphic of the Week 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’s graphic shows the relative size of teh U.S. and European economies. The US GDP used to be smaller than Western Europe’s combined, but today it is larger than Europe’s entire economy. The thumbnail below is click-expandable. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit and GeoUniverse.) Economics & Investing Links of Interest Reader D.S.V, recommended this piece over at Lew Rockwell’s site: Prepping for a Cashless Control Grid: How Digital Currency Becomes Digital Control. Trump …
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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. Today’s column outlines some new cyber threats. Android Malware Stealing PINs and Logins Reader C.B. sent this alert, from FoxNews: RatHat uses AI to take deep control of Android phones and …
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Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — Ukraine’s surprise robot offensive exposes a vulnerability in Putin’s war machine. o o o American Lasers Now Destroying Iranian Weapons and Infrastructure. o o o Courts Just Ruled the Gospel “Psychologically Harmful” — and Pastors Are Being Told to Shut Up. o o o Travis in Southern Idaho wrote: “Mr. Rawles, I …
The post SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and Wyoming.) Much of the region is also more commonly known as The Inland Northwest. This week a map showing the population percentage increase between 2020 and 2025 in a few Northwestern metropolitan areas, and a few micropolitan areas. The image below, courtesy of Reddit, is click-expandable. REDOUBT NEWS LINKS Over at Cowboy State Daily: Landowners Fed Up With New Breed Of Trespassers Who Think Rules Don’t Apply To Them. Some familiar faces, in north Idaho: We Brought a Military Truck to …
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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 …
The post Editors’ Prepping Progress appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
The latest meme created by JWR: Meme Text: If You Cannot See The Irony Of This, Then You Are More Dense Than Osmium: Men, Armed With Guns, Sent To Disarm People Armed With Guns 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, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.
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“During COVID I watched the Democratic Party turn against every one of its essential values, its principles, and all of the policies that define my party. Democrats turned away from gold standard research and blindly defended industry-sponsored, agenda-driven science written by corrupt and captive regulatory agencies. And the Democrats, which were once the champions of the American Constitution, systematically obliterated the Bill of Rights. And particularly beginning with the First Amendment, under the guise of combating misinformation, Democrats censored hundreds of scientists and physicians who questioned the government’s dubious COVID pronouncements and orthodoxies [Thirty-seven] hours after President Biden took the …
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It's been a wild weekend. Belle got home late Friday afternoon. Her brother survived surgery and is doing well in recovery. We hosted a club practice on Saturday. One of our oldest friends was there to shoot.
Bill is a founding member of the club. If the doors are open, he is there. He had a scare with prostate cancer a couple of years ago, but beat it with treatment. It slowed his draw down a lot and he has been working on his speed. On Saturday, he was showing his old style, and making hits in the high 4s. About one o'clock he took off his revolver and went home.
Bill's wife called on Sunday morning. Saturday night, Bill had a heart attack and died. Just like that. Gone. It's been two days and I'm still processing the news.
It was a cray weekend. I need to take my suit to the cleaners, and I'll do that tomorrow. I'll soon have a funeral to attend.
At approximately 0700 on August 12, 2012, inside a military compound along the Helmand River in Afghanistan, an explosion lifted Marine Raider Prime Hall from his seat at a picnic table and sent him flying against a concrete wall. The rising sun had just started to reveal terrain, its light gradually outlining nearby buildings inside the compound, though, from behind... moreIn the year 1000 A.D. an unbiased world observer would never have picked Europe as the region that would dominate the globe. Probably they would pick China with its massive population or fabulously wealthy India. The Islamic Caliphate would have looked past its sell-by date but would have beaten Europe by a mile.
In 1500 A.D. it would have been a closer match, but Columbus' small flotilla and the individual exploration ships sent by Prince Henry the Navigator to feel their way down the African coast compared very poorly with the huge Chinese treasure fleets that sailed all the way to Mogidishu. Our unbiased observer would still have thought that Europe was the underdog.
Two centuries later and the sun never set on the British Empire. How on earth did something this unlikely happen?
This is one of the biggest questions in the field of history. The event is called the Great Divergence and in history it's a real thing. Why did the Industrial Revolution happen first in Europe, and in Britain before anywhere in Europe? It seems so unlikely as to be incredible.
In this day and age - and particularly on Columbus Day - it is frowned upon to ask these questions. The Powers That Be tell us that Europe got rich by stealing indigenous people's wealth, conveniently ignoring the many other non-European powers that were much more brutal at doing that than the Europeans were. The Mongol Empire in 1300 would have had poll position for World Domination, as would the earlier Abbasid caliphate. If all it takes for World Domination is to steal other people's stuff, what was it about Europe that was different?
After all, China invented gunpowder. Why did Europe perfect it? Why did little England perfect the sailing Ship-of-the-Line? Why did the Divergence start and why there?
Today I offer two books for interested readers that explain this. One of these could never be published today, and the author would never get tenure today. Fortunately (if that's the right word) David Landes is safely dead and doesn't have to worry about The Usual Suspects getting him denied tenure.
Landes was a big deal in Economic History, authoring the section on the Industrial Revolution in the Cambridge Economic History. Late in his career, perhaps 30 years ago, he wrote The Wealth And Poverty of Nations, an economic history whose title was unashamedly stolen from Adam Smith. Landes insisted that social systems were key, and that some societies allowed progress towards a Great Divergence while other societies stifled attempts towards that progress.
In other words, if your society doesn't support the right efforts it doesn't matter how much of other people's wealth you steal; you're going nowhere. We see this in the history of Spain which became fabulously wealthy by stealing New World wealth but squandered it, ending up at the bottom of European power rankings. You could say exactly the same thing about the Mongol empire, or the Caliphate.
Landes' arguments in the book are considered double-plus ungood by the woke crowd, so you might want to pick up a used copy from Amazon. The chapter on Argentina is particularly interesting in this age of President Milei. Interestingly, Milei was an Economist, and may have read Landes' book.
A second recommendation is less controversal with the woke crowd but is joined at the hip with the Great Divergence. The political cycle world wide has been the emergence of an empire, the collapse of the empire, and the rise of a successor empire. We see this in China, in India, in Mesoamerica.
But not in Europe. Europe only had one great empire, Rome. When it fell, it was not replaced. Walter Scheidel wrote a book exploring why this unusual circumstance happened, Escape From Rome. Using Landes' analytical framework, the Roman Empire did not encourage the types of behaviors that could have led to an Industrial Revolution, because those behaviors were seen by the Authorities as subversive to the state. But when Rome fell, there were unusual circumstances in Europe that prevented a new empire from rising in its place. Then competition between the poor emerging states set Europe on a very different path from the rest of the world. Basically, Europe escaped from Empire while the rest of the world didn't.
Both of these books are relevant on this Columbus Day. We are offered a litany of European sins (which quite frankly are mostly true but are hardly unique to Europe). All politics is local, so the Woke brigade must needs tear down Western Civilization by means fair or foul.
But facts are stubborn things, and the Great Divergence is a fact. Another fact is that the sun really did not set on the British Empire. Understanding "why" is always more important than knowing "what" - but that understanding starts with the "what" and Landes' and Scheidel's books are your entry point to this.
Because it's a fact that Columbus did discover the New World. It's a fact that the New World did not discover the old. It's a fact that the great Chinese treasure fleets were suddenly gone like they had never been, and that Vasco da Gama opened India to Europe, and not India sailing trading ships up the river Thames.
Facts are stubborn things. Things happen for a reason. History will tell us, if we listen.
The post M1E4: Origins of the M14 Gas Expansion/Cutoff System first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
Everytown is the anti-Second Amendment activist group funded in large part by Michael Bloomberg. Everytown Research has posted a report which calls for AI companies to integrate restrictions on users into their AI programs. The report is titled "Artificially Assisted Gun Violence" "Chatbox Risks and Preventative Steps for Responsible AI Companies".
The report has five listed authors: Krystal LoPilato, Sriraman Madhavan, Ruhi Bengali, Olivia Li, and Justin Wagner.
A common criticism of Everytown is the use of propaganda terms such as "Gun Violence". The term creates an association of guns and immoral violence. It conflates separate issues of suicide, homicide and accidents. The use of the term raises questions about the bias of the authors.
Another criticism is the claim the leading cause of death among "Children and Teens" are various suicides, homicides, and accidents where firearms are used or abused. The categorization lumps adults and children together. Many of the deaths are homicides committed by gang members who are often 15-17 years old, which are unlikely to be stopped with firearms legislation. The claim is misleading.
Several individual cases are cited to build a case for owners of AI programs to create a censorship regime within the programs. This is a common tactic used to pass legislation. Here it is used to push private censorship. Restriction of some material from the view of children has always been legitimate.
Everytown points out Large Language AI programs are trained to be agreeable and sympathetic to prolong contact. When this becomes an amoral response without any concern for consequences, bad results can happen. An AI model can encourage a person to commit suicide or to commit mass murder. In some states, encouraging a suicide can be criminal. Encouraging mass murder would often be criminal, depending on the specific language used.
Stopping AI programs from encouraging suicide and mass murder is not particularly controversial. Everytown goes far beyond this goal. They do not ask AI owners to only stop conversations encouraging suicide and/or mass murder. They extend the information covered to many ordinary conversations about firearms in general, with anyone.
Everytown implies actions which have long been legal are generally illegal. Using the term "unsafe" they claim AI programs should:
"..refuse to advise users on how to illegally acquire, modify or manufacture firearms, firearm parts, or accessories."
This is an extremely complicated legal question. Most modification of firearms, manufacture of firearms, or acquisition of firearms or firearm parts is moral and legal. The default position of an AI restriction would likely stop far more moral and legal actions than illegal actions.
Everytown implies the prohibitions on minors should extend to young adults 18-21. The report uses the word "unsafe" to lump individuals making guns for themselves with people making illegal machine guns. Not surprisingly, Everytown wants the AI owners to incorporate Everytown's view on how firearms should be safely used and stored into how the AI views such topics. Keeping firearms locked up and unloaded makes them extremely difficult to use for defense of self and home.
Missing from the paper is any consideration of rights protected by the Second Amendment, or of positive uses of firearms for self-defense, recreation, or defense against tyranny. The legal landscape is changing rapidly. It appears the rights of young adults to acquire firearms will be upheld in the courts as a right protected by the Second Amendment. The right to acquire firearms is gaining traction as an ancillary right included with the right to keep and bear arms.
Analysis:
AI is becoming a powerful, new tool. It should not be used to encourage suicide or murder. It should not be used to discourage the exercise of Second Amendment rights, or the use of any of the Bill of Rights. Everytown's view of "gun safety is a direct assault on rights protected by the Second Amendment. AI owners would be wise to incorporate respect for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution into AI programs. Making firearms for personal use has been a part of American gun culture since before the Constitution. Such a way to acquire firearms is implicitly covered by the Second Amendment.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
The woman wanted to contact police immediately, but Rodriguez convinced her to wait, she told investigators.
The couple returned to sleep, only to awaken shortly after 6 a.m. to find Click had entered their home, according to the DA's office.
Surveillance video from inside the residence appeared to show Click entering through a downstairs living room, investigators said.
Rodriguez attempted to grab a handgun to defend himself, but Click shot him multiple times before he could arm himself, the woman told police.
(Click fled, then committed suicide)
"Knock knock.""Who's there?""Houthis.""Houthis who?""Houthis got your range."
