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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 7th, 2023

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  • This is a gross oversimplification…laws can be passed just to grab money, power, resources. Or just on a whim. 2 examples come to mind: the Boston Tea Party & the United States Library of Congress making cell phone unlocking illegal. The Americans weren’t begging for a tea tax (and they sure as hell didn’t vote to bring about change). And idk if you’re aware of this obscure little blip in history: James Hadley Billington, Librarian of Congress in 2012, decided to make cell phone unlocking illegal. I was fresh out of college…and an 83 year old man unilaterally passed a law telling me what I can & cannot do with my smartphone. Nobody asked for this, to borrow your terminology, it was unpopular. There were petitions I signed. Do you have any idea how infuriating that is?? The LoC JHB was so old, he’s dead now. Obama said the law couldn’t be repealed (???) 🙄 Eventually 2 years later it was, but it was a wild wtf type moment.

    To be fair to Mr. JHB, you look at his record & it seems like he/his team accomplished a lot of good things during his service. He just really, really fucked up in 2012.

    I don’t know how productive further discussions will be; we appear to take very different positions on law, authorities, government, right & wrong. ¯\(°_o)/¯ Have a good night



  • Ah yes. Lie to the cops. Fucking duh. Idk what deep-dive internet policework your local cops do, but it just doesn’t happen all that often in my opinion. I’ll roll those dice. I only mention it to give others the idea; we the people need to stand in solidarity or our rights will systematically, legally, be taken away.

    If concealment is done properly, there is no physical proof. People literally get away with murder in this manner. Law enforcement doing a sketchy arms confiscation will not aggressively search for…something of low value or concern that they will never, ever fucking find. Common sense. They will be forced to move on. You apparently are not able to understand that. But they will.

    Authority isn’t synonymous with right. The law was rounding up the Jews in Germany. The law was rounding up the runaway blacks in America. At best law is merely a guide for people who are incapable of thinking for themselves, at worst it is a cash/resources/power grab, law does not determine right or wrong. A disarmed population of generally law-abiding citizens is not in the best interest of the private citizens, and I would go so far as to argue the United States.


  • Speaking as a very very casual gun enthusiast myself - - I think it’s a tricky subject. Guns & ammo are great, a million rounds certainly seems excessive, and idk it’s possible this guy was a black market arms dealer for very very bad people.

    When you have guns, you wonder how you’d react to a knock on the door & an attempted gun confiscation. I don’t see many scenarios playing out where violence is called for; they are not (directly) threatening my life, but rather confiscating tool(s) that can be used for hunting, recreation, and yes preserving my life in self-defense. Very not cool. But it’s still technically not a physical threat to me. If I were to pop off some guns in defiance of a gun collection attempt, that would lend credence to the idea that I’m an “unstable person” that “shouldn’t be allowed” to own firearms. Also, my fight isn’t with the guy doing the confiscating. He’s a member of my community, he’s just some guy doing what he’s told, maybe he’s got a wife & kids. What is to be gained from shooting him in the face? Does that not make me a monster? Maybe this guy thinks similarly, he was confronted without a shot being fired.

    No, from one red-blooded American to another, the no-conflict response is wisest & best. Tell them a warrant is needed, when they can’t find what they’re looking for, give them the ol’ classic “lost the guns in a terrible boating accident” line. They will be forced to accept it & move the fuck on. When tyranny reigns, defiance is duty, avoidance/lies/concealment are justified.

    My line of thought is this: you can have twenty safes full of badass guns & ammunition in your basement. But that doesn’t matter if you’ve got a gun to your head on your front porch. What is practical? What is reasonable? What is necessary? Just a handful of nice guns made ready & accessible, a daily carry you’re familiar with, a solid 12-ga, a .223 hunting rifle, and a few thousand rounds of ammo for each caliber you own.

    My gut tells me this guy wasn’t a prepper, if his ungodly massive stores of firearms & munitions were so easily found & rounded up. At least not a good one. My gut tells me this guy was involved in the illegal arms trade, he had a setup in his home that no-gooders could visit & “shop” for what they needed.


  • Frezik is right, there are plenty of small wind turbines. As I alluded to, the tech naturally involves moving parts & has been prone to breakdowns. They’re getting better all the time, but the small ones don’t produce heaps of power. The big ones do; there is a bigger residential one in my community & it outperforms the solar panels 8:1. It also broke down in the first year of operation, and a crane had to come in & take the turbine down, to be shipped to TX for (thankfully under warranty) repairs.

    I like to see everything getting better, I think I feel more comfortable with solar panels & reducing needs, increasing insulation.

    I can’t Google what I remember seeing, but they’re working on very efficient & tough ones that just spin in place. Mounted to the roof of your house. It’s kind of like that vid posted below, but not, the fins looked like 2 ribbons.


  • I don’t have any personal experience, but that sounds like a plan to me. I do really like propane, and I recently got a small generator that runs either gas or propane. Just need to change out the spark plug so it burns hotter or something (for propane). In fact, some people just use propane in their generators because it runs cleaner.

    Idk, frankly I think all fuel is a non-issue, because in an emergency all these things run on money, money, lots of money. Fuel today, gone tomorrow. 20# propane tank? Gone. 8-gal gas? Gone. Hopefully it’s enough to run your appliances & get you by until utilities are restored.

    In an extended power outage or grid down type situation, generators are great to have but you’ll be limited by your ability to obtain fuel. And the money to run it. A generator will be loud & could attract unwanted attention from beggars, looters/thieves. The best investments you can make right now is increasing your efficiency ((insulation)), reducing your energy needs, & investing in things that can help you in a grid-down situation.



  • I am interested in prepping, and if anyone else is, too - - I look at solar/wind renewable energy & I’m concerned about high draw, high demand devices & processes. Well I started to notice that even super green setups tend to have a small generator on-hand for large/rare draws, failures, and emergencies.

    And small generators have become a lot smarter & more capable! Bonus.

    You probably aren’t running tons of major appliances all at once all the time. Buy the generator, have that backup plan…and go into the green energy world with confidence.