The Tavor is Officially Here!

I wasn't sure if the US made version of the Israeli Tavor would actually see the light of day here in the US since all the anti-gun sentiment had flared up.
But we have held out and the Tavor is starting to show up in gun shops across the US.
Sturmgewehre of Military Arms Channel just got his in, and he's putting it through it's paces.

Check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEY1XdQf_JA

ATTENTION COLORADO!!! MASSIVE GUN CONTROL IS ON ITS WAY

Well, the Elite just keep pushing and pushing the gun control agenda.
From New York, where the Draconian laws have already passed restricting mag capacity to 7 rounds and making once law abiding gun owners into overnight criminals, to now Colorado where legislation is moving through their House and poised to pass through their Senate to put the boot to the gun owners of the Centennial State as well.
Magpul Industries has already threatened to leave the state if this occurs, and I am sure they will stick to their word.
In this video from Nutnfancy discusses what gun owners in Colorado will face in the future.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCNM9Tgp0OM

Our Friend Doc Discusses Gear Bags, In Particular The FAK

My friend Docwatmo from Average Guy Reviews penned a great article on the subject of FAKs (first aid kits).
If you don't have a FAK in your vehicle, or if you don't have one for quick use at the range you might want to consider putting one together.
Check out Doc's blog at http://averageguyreviews.wordpress.com/
(This post was actually the second of a 2 part post on the subject, so be sure to check his blog for the first article as well as the rest of his great articles.)
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Gear Bags Part II, The FAK (First Aid Kit)

by Docwatmo




First of all, do you have a FAK in your car? Do you have one at home? Do you have one with you when you’re out and about? FAK’s are one of those critical pieces of gear that should be around us whenever we need it. From the simple Band-Aid to ease a young child’s mind (More so than to protect the minor scratch usually) to the pressure dressing for a major laceration, or eyewash to clean the eyes of chemicals, a FAK really is a piece of GO TO gear. As with any gear or bag system, there are dozens, hundreds or even thousands of options available. No one “Bag” or “Case” works for everyone in all situations. And the contents of your FAK’s will be just as personally different as your situations and locations.

I’m not going to discuss much on the contents outside of a few items that I like to keep in our kits. Everyone should decide for themselves what items they need. There are plenty of resources available online to give you good ideas for what contents you may want in your own kits. One of my personal favorites is a forum I’m lucky enough to be a moderator on. www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum. There are some wonderful threads with list of kit for different situations. Give them a look, you won’t be disappointed with the amazing level of information on the forum. But back to FAK’s, you could have a giant kit with everything under the sun, but it’s going to be heavy and “Left at home” or “Left in the car” when you need it the most. Personally, I work from a system of kits and I’ll display them below. I am really just hoping to give some ideas that might make it easier or more functional to keep “Right Sized” kits available when you need them.

My personal preference as you’ll see by the pictures are soft side tackle boxes. They have a few advantages to the standard soft pouch kits. They do tend to be slightly larger than a pouch to contain the same equipment so if weight/size is a major issue (Normally just on the personal FAK’s) then pouches tend to work better. (See my personal kit below).

I call my FAK kit’s an FAK System. Because they are not necessarily individual items and sometimes they are interchangeable and overlap. It’s broken down into 4 major components.

Personal Kits (Carried by each individual when out and about).
Vehicle kits (Carried in each vehicle)
Basecamp or “Home” kit. (Readily accessible mobile kit at home).
Stock yard. (In my case a filing cabinet with the extra items)
I’ll start at the Stock Yard and work back. The stock yard is where I keep the bulk of replacement items, stuff to refill the other kits with. This can also be considered a Non-Mobile home kit. This can suffice as a home kit, but as you see the format of my system, I think you’ll appreciate the need for both base and mobile home kits.

Base Camp Kit ready to go

The second kit is the Base-camp or Mobile Home kit. This is a medium to large sized soft side tackle box. The reason I have this as a mobile kit is for stuff that happens close to home or even inside the home. Rather than keep running back and forth to the cabinet to get first aid stuff during an emergency, I can grab the kit and bring it to the area of my home, or outside in the yard or nearby. We live in a small community and know all of our neighbors and our vantage point on the upper edge of a hill gives us a great view of our surrounding neighborhood and all the kids that run around (And wreck their bikes on the street) or the neighbor down the way who is always working on his cars out front etc. So having the kit be mobile just makes sense. Now I use the soft side tackle boxes for this type of kit for a couple of reasons.

Base Camp Kit Contents


Base Camp Kit Contents
Portability: They are lighter than hard cases and easier to carry with a shoulder strap or handle. You aren’t going to need first aid yourself from running down the street carrying one like you would with a hard case (I know this from experience, put a nice cut in my hand carrying an old hard case tackle box first aid kit running to my neighbor’s yard when he cut his leg). Just easier to carry.
Both soft storage and hard storage: The plastic inserts meant to hold lures are perfect for separating and organizing smaller first aid supplies and also protecting them. One of the problems we run into with soft pouch style FAK’s is the crushing that happens to some of the kit inside, (Break open a tube of first aid cream and watch it soak into all your gauze and band aids for example). The tubes and single use antiseptic wipes and other items are protected inside the plastic cases. Other items like tape, bindings, rubber gloves etc can be stored in the soft pouches on the bag.
Lots of size options. You can find a bag that is JUST the right size for the kit you want in whatever location you need the kit.
The 3rd kit is the Car kit or transfer kit. This is a kit that primarily stays in the vehicle, but also comes out and goes to the campsite or the soccer game or anyplace else you want the supplies available, but don’t want to drag the bigger kit around. We also keep 1 weeks’ worth of any maintenance medications and some extras like several pain killer/fever reducers in this kit. When we go on vacation or have a surprise overnight at a relative’s house or in case we get stranded somewhere. We always have what we need without having to go back home and pack medications.

I’m also a big fan of keeping a separate trauma kit in the vehicle (I do not have one currently) for helping out in case of accidents that are normally above and beyond the items in most FAk’s. I also keep a towel and some heavy duty maxi pads (Great for pressure dressings) and some scarfs (For bindings) in a separate emergency kit in the vehicle along with a radio, some tools and other useful items. Just good stuff to have in case it’s needed.

Here is a similar model to this Walmart special that I use. 

Personal field Kit

The last kit I will discuss is the personal kit. This one is going to be one of the most varied items between individuals. In fact I have 2 different personal kits that I use depending on where I am and what I’m doing. The first is my “Field” kit. This is the kit that I have attached to my shoulder strap knife harness and it goes over my shoulder whenever I’m in the field. This guy looks promising as well.

This kit is small and I hardly even notice it, (About double the size of the old Pressure dressing kits we used to use in the army). I don’t normally throw this over my shoulder when I’m going to work or traveling or any other time I’m not headed out into the field. My other personal kit is a little different. I am an IT Manager for an electric cooperative. I carry a small tablet computer everywhere I go for remote access. (Yes, you can call it a murse, don’t bother me at all LOL). This bag has some pockets that I include many first aid items in. That way I always have some basic first aid kit with me pretty much anywhere I go. We also have first aid kits at work, but again they are not portable (Wall mount units) so running back and forth to them to grab gear could be a pain.


I hope this post was interesting and maybe you could pick up some ideas that might help you keep the gear you need accessible.

Stay safe my friends.

Doc
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You can read more of Doc's work over at his website:
http://averageguyreviews.wordpress.com/

From Matt Bracken: "Democide: Socialism, Tyranny, Guns and Freedom"

What strange days we are living in, my friends.
With each passing day we move closer to the edge of a cliff that once we go over there is no returning.
Here is Matt Bracken's latest article and video on democide.
Share this as much as you can.
(Bear with me until I have some time to produce some original articles, I simply cannot do it right now with my schedule)


Democide: Socialism, Tyranny, Guns and Freedom

by Matthew Bracken



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rmfs_QM0OIA

Democide is the elimination of a despised group by a government. It includes genocide, politicide, and other forms of state-sponsored mass murder. The hated minority headed for extermination may be defined by religious, racial, political, class, cultural or other attributes. Between 200 and 260 million people were the victims of democide in the 20th century, several times more than were killed in international wars during that period.

The first widely studied modern democide occurred in Turkey between 1915 and 1923, when the Turkish government decided to eliminate the country’s Christian minority, primarily ethnic Armenians and Greeks who had Turkish roots extending back to before the Islamic conquest. Two million Christians were murdered on forced marches into deserts without water or food. This democide occurred in view of Western reporters, who took photographs and posted contemporary wire reports. The fact that the democide was known outside Turkey did not deter the Turkish leaders.

The Armenian Genocide, as it has become known, was also widely known inside Turkey, where the majority Muslim population either supported or at least passively tolerated the democide. It was impossible to miss the sight of thousands of Christians at a time being rounded up and force-marched through towns and into the burning deserts on one-way trips.

Stalin and Hitler both noticed the lack of world reaction to the democide of Turkish Christians and planned accordingly. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s henchmen purged millions of “kulaks” (farmers deemed to have too much wealth), intellectuals, businessmen, and anyone who had ever traveled outside the USSR or even had had contact with foreigners.

In Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, Hitler proceeded with his own “final solution to the Jewish problem.” Where the German national socialists simply eliminated Jews as quickly as possible in mass graves and gas chambers, Stalin’s international socialists deported their “class enemies” to Siberia, where they were put to work in Gulag slave-labor camps, with years of torture through cold, malnutrition and brutal working conditions preceding the release of eventual death.

Stalin also devised another means of democide when he ordered the forced starvation of the Ukrainians, and five million more innocent victims were added to his totals. In Communist China seventy million people were the victims of democide, murdered by overwork in slave-labor camps, by direct execution, and by regional forced starvation. Millions more were victims of democide in Pakistan, Cambodia, Rwanda, North Korea, and many other countries.

Democide, as the name implies, does not happen in the dark of night without any awareness of it in the country where it occurs. The Turks knew the Christians were being mass murdered. Average Germans were fully aware of what was happening to the Jews between 1938 and 1945, and a large majority either actively supported or at least tolerated it. (I strongly recommend reading Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Goldhagen, to fully appreciate the wholehearted German support for the Jewish democide.)

Today, we sometimes hear that the Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness, that it is a relic of our barbaric past and is no longer needed in the modern era. Horrific mass shootings by deranged individuals are cited as the primary reason for Americans to surrender their most effective firearms and rely solely on a state monopoly of force for their protection. This government-dependent attitude is shortsighted, historically ignorant, and extremely dangerous.

In each of the cases cited above, a necessary preliminary step on the road to democide was the confiscation of privately owned firearms. In Turkey, “reasonable” gun control laws enacted in 1911 permitted the democide of two million Turkish Christians a few years later. In Germany, the “commonsense” 1928 gun control laws of the Weimar Republic preceded Hitler’s Holocaust by a decade.

The Weimar politicians did not intend for their gun control laws to lead to the slaughter of millions of people, but it is an historical fact that those gun control laws permitted the Nazis to carry out their Holocaust. How? By making it economically and militarily feasible to round up and mass murder entire towns without any significant resistance.

In fact, the Nazis quickly learned that they needed only a hundred ordinary military policemen to exterminate towns of a thousand Polish Jews in a single day. Contrast that fact with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. If the Jews had not first been disarmed, using previous gun registration lists as a map for confiscation, the Holocaust would not have been possible.

Likewise in the Soviet Union and in every other case, democide was preceded by “reasonable and commonsense” firearms registration, followed eventually by gun confiscation and then by the extermination of a despised minority population.

During the past two centuries, while America has avoided tyranny, Turkey, Germany, Russia and the other nations mentioned above have spasmodically lurched between monarchs, democratically elected leaders, and often quite popular dictators, allowing them frequent opportunities to commit democide against their unwanted minorities.

The situation is fundamentally different in America, because we have a centuries-old tradition of private firearms ownership guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The Second Amendment does not “grant” us this right; it puts into writing our God-given natural right to effective self-defense, including armed defense against tyranny.

“Pure democracy” has been described as two wolves and a sheep voting on their dinner plans. The two wolves might see this election as an expression of their highest democratic values, but for the outnumbered sheep, pure democracy is highly problematic. On the other hand, a republic has been described as two wolves and a well-armed sheep voting on dinner plans. The well-armed sheep can veto the outcome of the dinner election simply by brandishing its firearm. The sheep has inherent rights as a sovereign individual, including the right to self-defense, a right that cannot be stripped away by a simple majority vote.

So, when a democratically elected American president speaks of “fundamentally transforming” his country, and of his need to act outside the constitutional framework, the population should be on guard. When that leader begins to push for strict new “commonsense and reasonable” gun control laws, including national firearms registration in the name of “public safety,” the citizenry should be on high alert.

Can any glib politician, pundit or ivory tower academic give us an ironclad guarantee that tyranny will never arise in the United States? Not even a popular tyranny, like those of Ataturk, Stalin, Hitler or Mao? Can anyone assure us that today’s “commonsense” gun registration lists will not be used for future gun confiscation? Of course not.

The future may be unknowable, but history is well understood, and American gun owners know and understand the history of democide in the 20th century. That is why they will never accede to what is currently portrayed in the predominantly left-wing mainstream media as “commonsense and reasonable” new gun control laws.

While American gun owners lament and regret the inescapable fact that deranged individuals in a free country may on rare occasions murder a dozen or a score of unarmed victims, they also understand that government democide murders by the million. And in every case, tyrants can conduct these democides only after disarming their unwanted minorities, rendering them helpless to resist murderous government pogroms.

American gun owners will never permit this historical pattern to be repeated in their country, because they understand that the government’s heavy hand will be kept in check only as long as they are armed. Ask yourself: Were the Armenians, the Jews or the kulaks treated better, or worse, after they were disarmed and rendered helpless by their oppressors, who thereafter held an absolute government monopoly on armed violence? The answer is too obvious to require elaboration.

Naive utopians and other “low-information voters” might not understand the historical pattern, and we don’t expect them to bother to learn it. Cynical and dishonest “progressives” who do understand the historical pattern cannot yet reveal their ultimate goal of creating a disarmed and helpless American citizenry. Nevertheless, millions of Americans understand their hidden aim with crystal clarity, seeing through the false sincerity of power-hungry leftist politicians who are actually Marxist wolves dressed in Democrat sheep’s clothing—for now.

But unless and until these secret Stalinists and sundry other “progressives” can figure out a way to disarm Americans, they cannot execute their historically standard final solution to the “reactionaries-standing-in-the-way-of-utopia” problem. And this is a thorny problem for them, because tens of millions of Americans, disbelieving their deceitful bromides, will stick to their guns no matter what.

Unlike the Armenians, Jews, kulaks and other exterminated peoples, Americans who support the Second Amendment will never be disarmed quietly by government edict prior to meekly boarding a train to a socialist “reeducation” camp. They will not be taken at government gunpoint on a one-way forced march into a desert or a Zyklon-B “delousing shower,” simply because they foolishly agreed to be disarmed by their future oppressors in the dubious name of “public safety.”

If American “progressives” truly intend to disarm the American people, they will have to do it the hard way, by taking their bullets first, one at a time. As the 300 Spartans announced to the vastly larger Persian army at Thermopylae, “Molon Labe!”

You want our guns? Then come and take them!

No registration—no confiscation—no extermination!

Freedom now, freedom forever!
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Matt Bracken was born and raised in Baltimore, and graduated from the University of Virginia and Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training in 1979.

He has written four novels about defending freedom in an era of steadily encroaching tyranny.

Excerpts of his novels, and all of his recent essays, may be found at EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com.