That makes sense to me; I think most EU countries that allow private gun ownership require licensing for each firearm, or something similar. I know that it’s exceptionally difficult in many areas, and the guns that I shoot matches with–semi-automatic pistols with 15-20 round magazines, and semi-automatic rifles with 30 round magazines–are very tightly controlled in many places.

I don’t use a lot of them regularly, or at all. I use my Canik, Rock Island 1911, and AR-15 for competitions every month. If I don’t use it, I don’t think about it very often. Like, my Mosin Nagant? That was a gift from my dad. I’ve shot it exactly once, and realized that 7.62x54mmR from a bolt action, stipper-clip-fed carbine that has a 10#, gritty trigger, and exceptionally poor iron sights is not a fun rifle to shoot. Now it’s hanging on a set of deer antlers that I inherited from my grandfather. The Winchester 1894? It’s over a century old, and while it’s still functional, .38-55 ammunition is somewhat difficult to find.

Just stuff like that. I don’t think about a lot of them very often, so counting them gets difficult.

Once I get my pistol instructor certification, I’ll probably be using my Ruger Mk IV mostly as a gun to let other people learn on. It’s .22LR, so it’s a very forgiving firearm.

At this point, I’m getting guns for a specific purpose. For instance, I want an SBR AR-15 and silencer mostly for doing PCSL. I plan on getting a CZ Shadow II Compact as a carry gun, and also using it for IDPA. I need (well, want) to get a Glock 17P to use as a training aid; it does all of the things that a regular Glock 17 does, but it’s incapable of firing.

Hopefully that makes some kind of sense.

For many things, yes. Canning can be done for some things (although you want to be really sure about what you’re doing; you can kill yourself pretty fast with botulism if you do it wrong), freezing is good for other things (although not great if you have power outages). If you’re trying to live off the land, you do need to be aware that certain parasites are not adequately dealt with by salt curing, smoking, dehydration, or even freezing; feral pigs and bear both have trichinosis, and must be thoroughly cooked to be safe. In wild populations, the parasite has been demonstrated to be highly resistant to freezing, etc.

Dried, etc. things should be vacuum sealed with desiccants and oxygen absorbers for maximum preservation. I test the e.g. apples that I’ve dried every so often (I live in an area with a lot of orchards; apples can be very cheap when you buy them by the bushel directly from the orchard), and as of this year, the apples I dried six years ago are still good.

One thing that freeze drying can be very good for is complete meals. E.g., if you make a stock pot full of jambalaya, you can freeze dry it in individual portion sizes, vacuum seal it in 9mil mylar, and you’ve got a meal that should be good for 10+ years.

For anyone that’s seriously considering a freeze dryer, check this video out. Yeah, I still want one, but seriously, it can take a lot to make it practical. I’m not enamored of the control system that they use; a blended automatic and manual control system would probably work better than something that supposedly takes the guesswork out of it for you.

'Course, the good news about the reciprocal tariffs is that soybeans are gonna be very cheap domestically. You can make a very functional flour out of soybeans with a good grain mill/stone grinder, although you’ll want to add gluten to it if you’re going to try to make bread. And soy is very high in proteins (compared to most grain flour), so you can live off it when other protein sources are too expensive.

Water is the hard one; the amount of water that people go through in a day, even in desert communities where people are very aware of the amount of water they consume–drinking, cooking, cleaning–is quite high. Storing enough for a full year for a household of four is functionally impossible. If I lived in California, I’d be looking for high-volume desalination systems.

That’s a pretty wild take, since there are TONS of Ukranian anarchists on the front lines, and they’re there quite willingly. They recognize that Russia is, by far, the greater evil.

War is always [emphasis added] the hallmark of a political-diplomatic failure

Um. That’s a… Statement. It’s an objectively false statement, but it’s a statement.

Let’s take the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Pray tell, what political or diplomatic failure happened, and how could it have been prevented while also allowing Ukraine to determine their own future and move towards the EU in the way that the people of Ukraine wanted? Or, to put it more succinctly, where is the political or diplomatic failure in standing up to a bully?

Russia started the war. That’s an undeniable fact. The only way to avoid the war would have been for Ukraine to simply roll over and accept a Russian dictatorship. If you think that not capitulating to a dictatorship is a failure, well, that’s a bad-faith claim.

I’m weird about it. But I’ve always been weird about it. I’m diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, and it’s been a particular interest of mine since i was in elementary school. The only reason I don’t have an entire armory is because I’m far, far too poor. As it is, I’ve got, um, 10?, I think? With three more planned, plus an SBR and silencer(s)? And yeah, I’ll talk your ear off about gun rights. And motorcycles (I only have one of those).

OTOH, I also care about LGBTQ+ rights, and I’m working on an instructor certification specifically to train LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic/religious minority, SW, etc. people that aren’t going to feel comfortable in any traditional gun space. If it’s uncomfortable to me when an instructor goes off on a Christian nationalist rant, it’s gotta be 10x worse for people that can’t pass as a cis- het- white person. No one should have to deal with that shit just so they can get basic safety and marksmanship instruction.

Freeze drying on a large scale takes a LOT of time. You need to be ready to treat food prep like a full time job for it to make serious financial sense.

I will point out that we’re right now entering a time when basic foodstuffs are going to become very expensive, and a lot of day to day items are likely going to rise sharply in price, or become unavailable. Having industrial amounts of these day-to-day things is a hedge against that.

That was a pretty roundly panned movie.