The Times We Live In......

[JimP]

....They are a'changin'.......

15 years ago, the Good Colonel Jeff said:

One of the outstanding requirements of the Scout rifle is that it takes the 308 cartridge, which is universally
available worldwide, but one wonders in this day of modern transportation methods if there really is any
danger of running out of the personal supply carried by the shooter.

5 years ago, Mr. Glenn Beck foretold that I would not recognize my Country in 5 years ........


..... and now I cannot find what was once the most singularly ubiquitous cartidge in the history of the world, the .22lr, at Walmart, Bass Pro, Cabela's, Guns Unlimited, and/or Scheel's .....

I do not, in fact, recognize my Country.  Glenn's prediction ........... Is So.

[Gary]

I was born in 1956, in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  My wife was born the same year, In Woodbine, Iowa. 

Things are so much different, it is as if we were dropped into a different country.  You are not in a box store three minutes till you hear people talking loudly in some unknown language.  If you buy something in the box store, good luck finding the English directions to operate it, and you almost faint, if it says Made In USA.  That almost never happens anymore.

Children are disrespectful to family, and to adults.

My business phone rang a couple days ago, and a youth was asking me questions.  I answered their questions, and my answer, got the response, A$$hole!, and they hung up.    About an hour later, two girls were at my counter asking my wife the same question, so I broke off doing what I was doing with another customer, and walked up front.  I said, I am the A%%hole, can I help you?   I then refused them service, and asked them to leave.

Where did these kids learn to act this way?

I am very sad for what my country has turned into, and I fear it will grow worse before it gets better.

Someday, we will elect a President, that does not salute our own flag when the official song of our country is playing, honoring those that fought and died to protect our liberties.  O, wait, we already have.

[DangerousDrummer]

5 years ago, Mr. Glenn Beck foretold that I would not recognize my Country in 5 years

and they called HIM the wacko!

[unfy]

and they called HIM the wacko!

To be fair, he IS a wacko .  You can be right and still be coocoo.

[abbafandr]

.. and now I cannot find what was once the most singularly ubiquitous cartidge in the history of the world, the .22lr, at Walmart, Bass Pro, Cabela's, Guns Unlimited, and/or Scheel's .....

That's why I bought a 9mm handgun to start out, easy to obtain ammo

[DangerousDrummer]

That's why I bought a 9mm handgun to start out, easy to obtain ammo

And how is that workin out for you?

[GreyGeek]

The change in the last five years are nothing compared to the last 70.   My dad was born the same year the Wright brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, and when he died in 1998 he had seen transportation change from horses to cars to planes, and men walk on the Moon.

When I was a kid I remember electric trolley cars running on rails down the middle of the main street, picking electricity off of overhead wires.  Our house had a coal burning stove for heat and and ice box food storage.  I used to write on the back of the stove with  crayons.   In the summer us kids would follow the ice truck, pulled by horses (circa 1946 or 47)  and pick up pieces of ice to suck on till they melted away.  The phone was a party line and you called someone by telling the operator the number of the person you wanted to talk to.  When I was in the 5th or sixth grade, about 1953 or so, we got a black & white TV and for 6 months I was the most popular kid on the block.  That was about the same time our phone got a dial, a gas furnace  replaced the coal stove, and an electric refrigerator replaced the Ice Box.  But, my step mother still did the wash with a wringer washing machine and hung the clothes on a line to dry, right up till my dad kicked me out of the house in 1958.  From the middle 1950s till around 1970 the best rock'n Roll was on radio,  with "Wolfman Jack", a D.J. working at at a 100,000 watt station in Ciudad Acuna, Mexico.

All through the  1950s, as an 11 year old boy until I was a 17 year old teenager in 1958, I could carry a weapon on a bus or on my bike and no one raised an eye.  That was when people still understood the 2nd Amendment and what its purpose is.  Just about all the adults, male or female,  carried a small pocket pistol.  The Jr and Sr high schools had rifle shooting teams. 

Mass shootings were rare: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20130112/NEWS02/701129949 

Duwe defines a mass public shooting as an incident in which four or more victims are killed publicly with guns within 24 hours -- in the workplace, schools, restaurants and other public places - excluding shootings in connection with crimes such as robbery, drugs or gangs. (Note that this would exclude a number of "mass murders" that sometimes get lumped into the data, such as the sniper who killed 10 people over a three-week period in the Washington region in 2002.)

Since 2005, when the assault ban expired, there have been 32 such mass public shootings, including seven in 2012, Duwe said. So that's just over 20 percent of all mass public shootings, which is much less than Clinton's 50 percent.

Here's a breakdown per decade of Duwe's data. It is important to note that these are raw figures; the United States had far fewer people 50 or 100 years ago.

Mass Public Shootings per Decade

1900s : 0
1910s: 2
1920s: 2
1930s: 9
1940s: 8
1950s: 1
1960s: 6
1970s: 13
1980s: 32
1990s: 42
2000s: 28
2010s (three years): 14

Duwe says that 2012 was certainly a horrific year, but it is too early to tell if it signals an ominous trend. The worst year for public shootings was in 1991, when eight incidents took place, he said. With seven incidents, 2012 ranks second, along with 1999 - when the assault ban was in effect. (Duwe says his research shows that assault weapons are used in a relatively small number of cases, but they do result in far more wounded victims)

[DangerousDrummer]

ice box food storage.  I used to write on the back of the stove with  crayons.   In the summer us kids would follow the ice truck, pulled by horses (circa 1946 or 47)  and pick up pieces of ice to suck on till they melted away.

My grandfather had the ice delivery company in Omaha back then. My Dad told me about how the horses wore diapers on the water resivor in the winter when they cut the blocks of ice and stored them undergound for summer. He was a big man built like a tree trunk and would carry 150 # blocks of ice up many flights of stairs. I can remember his draft horses which like him, were huge.

[Gary]

My Grandparents walked to school, three miles, up hill, both ways. 

Kidding aside, we are able to build this country, and things like the Hoover dam, Brooklyn Bridge, thousands of airports, millions of miles of highways, because as people, we used to work.

Just a few years ago, one person was on disability for every 51 workers.  Know what that number is today?  I in 13, and getting worse daily.   It is not that we are more disabled, it is that we as people, milk the programs, rather than pushing through the pains and going back to work.

We have traded pride in doing a good job, for looking for the easy buck.

We now call the USSR, the former soviet union.  Our fate is spelled out for us, along similar lines.

Know why the DOW and NYSE is so high, breaking all record numbers?  Because a wine glass, breaks into smaller
un-glue-able pieces, the farther it falls when it breaks.  We are being set up to break, and break much deeper than in 1929.

In 1929, no country wide electricity.  No countrywide plumbing.  No countrywide pipelines of oil.  No country wide dependence on cars and trucks.  Most people still lived in rural communities where they could take care of one another.

Today, when the SHTF, we are toast, because everyone is dependent on the machine of industry.  When the machine stops, lights go out,  no water, no air-conditioning, no heat, no refrigeration, we are doomed.  200 million people will die in the first 30 days.

[Gary]

Today, and more so tomorrow, the 1% will not need the 30% that still work, and the 69% that are useless eaters.    Drones are being built by robots, and factories are being replaced by 3D printers that can build things as large as multi-level homes and offices, and as small as wrist watches.

Big business, and world governments, no longer need the peasants to work for them.  Apart from the time travel BS, the movie Terminator, where the robots of big business do away with the common man / woman, is about to become life imitating art?

[Gary]

Sorry I kidnapped your thread, stop by my store, and I will toss you a box of .22 and point you to where more can be had just down the street. 

[JimP]

Sorry I kidnapped your thread,

Not at all- I'm here to BS and kick it around ........

Today, when the SHTF, we are toast, because everyone is dependent on the machine of industry.  When the machine stops, lights go out,  no water, no air-conditioning, no heat, no refrigeration, we are doomed.  200 million people will die in the first 30 days.

Define "we"....... I think that there are more self-reliant people out there than that ......  I do worry about those multitudes that have no skills, tools, and foresight deciding that others continue to owe them 3 hots a cot and entertainment ......

Big business, and world governments, no longer need the peasants to work for them.  Apart from the time travel BS, the movie Terminator, where the robots of big business do away with the common man / woman, is about to become life imitating art?

I doubt it.  They may or may not need them (I think they do, if only to provide a market for their widgets), but if they did not, then the "common man" should either find a market for his abilities and talents so as to be needed, or become so self sufficient as to not care whether he is needed .....or better yet, BOTH.

....and FTR, I resent being labeled "common": I am certainly "uncommon" in my abilities and talents ......

[Gary]

Not at all- I'm here to BS and kick it around ........


Define "we"....... I think that there are more self-reliant people out there than that ......  I do worry about those multitudes that have no skills, tools, and foresight deciding that others continue to owe them 3 hots a cot and entertainment ......

I doubt it.  They may or may not need them (I think they do, if only to provide a market for their widgets), but if they did not, then the "common man" should either find a market for his abilities and talents so as to be needed, or become so self sufficient as to not care whether he is needed .....or better yet, BOTH.

....and FTR, I resent being labeled "common": I am certainly "uncommon" in my abilities and talents ......

Do you own a hand drill, a hand saw.  Bastard files for sharpening tools.  Hammers, nails, candles, manual well, or fresh water spring?   Have a dog?  Does he feed himself, or do you feed him?  Feed him what?

Just trying to live without a cell phone for a day cripples most of us.

Can you ride a horse?  Have a horse?  Have hundreds of silver dimes for barter of food, medicine, safe passage?  Have 25,000 rounds per gun, per person in the household? 

I have never lived like that, and at 56, I am beyond going back to nature.  Me and about 300 million other adults and children in the USA alone.  Factor in Canada, Mexico.  What a mess.  Imagine the population of Mexico City marching into Arizona towns looking for food and water?    Imagine the population of Omaha marching into Lincoln looking for food. 

[Gary]

Google 100 monkeys.  If you can find the research, a university was studying monkeys that lived on pacific islands.  Missionary's introduced the monkeys to eating potatoes, or maybe it was the university, I forget.  Anyway, the monkeys liked the potatoes, but did not like the sand in their teeth as they ate them.  The students taught some of the monkeys to wash the potatoes in the ocean, before eating the potatoes, to remove the sand.

Once apx. 100 monkeys learned to wash their own potatoes, to remove the sand, other monkeys picked up the behavior, without being taught.  Even monkeys on other islands, that could not have been taught directly, by visual skills, learning skills, monkey see, monkey do, learned to wash their potatoes.

It seams there is a general conciseness among species, to suck nipples as a new born, kick other birds out of over crowded nests, and even wash potatoes. 

Where am I going with this story, and line of reasoning?  Go to a quiet place, and just sit.  What do you feel?  Do you feel good about today? Tomorrow?  Do you feel a harsh future, somewhat like a long cold winter ahead?

Many people report in blogs, forums, talk shows, church pot lucks, a uneasy feeling around the corner.  I feel it.  I see it in the headlines. 

What did I do to prepare for the long winter?  I purchased a sailboat.  Not to escape physically.  To escape mentally.   I can't fight what is coming. 

I will do what I can.  Vote, support NRA, and other groups, write letters, blog, forum, pray a little.   But the storm coming, is bigger than I can fight. 

I have had 56 great years.  Wonderful Mother, wonderful wife (she might read this - lol) great living, born in a good country, with good families, and good people.  Grew up in the 50's & 60's when you could trust everyone.    Doors were unlocked, and windows were open.  Air was clean, water healthy, food untainted.

I lived in an era where lower middle class in America lived better than Kings for thousands of years.   I have no complaints.

Will I resist, and pay an ultimate price, or exact an ultimate price from someone else? No.  I will lay down and die, knowing my time in the sun was wonderful, and I was blessed. 

 

[bullit]

Dan W.....I say you create an "Old Men and Their Stories" heading.  I rather enjoy reading the extraneous information.  And yes, being 43 I am "mocking that which I will soon become" (endearingly)......

[GreyGeek]

My Grandparents walked to school, three miles, up hill, both ways. 

[GreyGeek]

Drones are being built by robots, and factories are being replaced by 3D printers that can build things as large as multi-level homes and offices, and as small as wrist watches.

True, but without a consumer market, with consumers being able to AFFORD that stuff, its all worthless.

[abbafandr]

And how is that workin out for you?

Since I reload, and have components, not too bad.   But still  wish I would have stocked up on cheap 9mm when it was available

[DangerousDrummer]

So did I! In the snow!  Actually in 91 I returned to the Nebraska farm of my childhood. Garyowen, the one room schoolhouse that I attended through 2nd grade was long since gone, but my cousin took me to the site where we found the old merry go round with trees growing through it. My wife laughed and said "You said the school was three miles from your house!", I replied, "it was to eight year old legs!" i guess it is all about perception.

A piece of trivia. The school was named Garyowen as it was built on the site where Gen Custer camped on his way to fight the injuns. Garyowen was the name of the marching song that his men sang when traveling. At least that is the story as told to me. You could still see the wagon ruts where the old Oregon Trail cut through our farm even in 91.