don't ask don't tell

DON’T ASK DON’T TELL


Two weeks ago I finally got around to sending a check off to MCA Sports

http://www.mcace.com/adapters.htm

for a chamber insert to turn my beloved Lee-Enfield ( Accurizing & Shooting Lee Enfields ) into a commie carbine shooter. Since the terrain in these parts is all rolling hills outside a few flat parts by water, you don’t necessarily need a whole lot of range. It is nice to have the knock down power but even nicer to be able to cheaply stockpile more rounds. I could have gone with the

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/cb.aspx?a=471502

.32 chamber insert but then I’ve gone from a carbine round to a pistol round. Plus, it is a insert that completely ejects ( take out insert, remove shell, insert new shell, insert into weapon ) rather than the MCA Sports version which is glued in and thus much faster to reload. Alas, it seems that Baby Jesus himself is having a bit of fun at my expense. There he is, sitting around a nice oak table ( evidently being a hangout for deities, there is no Wal-Mart particle board or plastic furniture with few worriers of resource depletion unlike here on Earth where you tend to start running out of easily accessed petroleum after pumping A FRIGGIN TRILLION BARRELS YOU SILLY TWATS ), probably with Oden ( Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology ) since he’s a pretty cool guy and not neurotic like a lot of other gods, and giggling like little Japanese school girls ( sorry, I tend to visualize the Japanese school girls a bit more prone to humor unlike our own version who are super sized and pretty compulsive about losing a hundred pounds and/or meeting Justin Timberlake ) over how he tends to act like my buddy as we chug a few Pabst Blue Ribbon’s ( when it’s my turn to buy ) and tells me my time will come, everything is fine ( you would think I’d have learned by now, like Charlie Brown [ Peanuts: 1960's Collection (A Charlie Brown Christmas / Charlie Brown's All-Stars / It's the Great Pumpkin / You're in Love / He's Your Dog / It Was a Short Summer) ] and the football ) and then pulls a fast one on me. It seems that MCA Sports is no longer offering the conversion of the Enfield 303 ( I assume the Indian 308 version is still available ) to 7.62x39. I’ll quote his note to me “7.62x39/303 will only work with blanks. Ball ammo will split adopter on first shot.” Well, isn’t that just a barrel full of peaches and cream. I love the guy for being honest and not selling me a hunk of crap, but that still really sucks. I was looking forward to a turnkey solution to cheaper ammo. I guess I’ll be stuck reloading, which is probably better anyway. But an alternative would have been nice.

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Once upon a midnight dreary, word from on high was preached to the preparedness masses that come the collapse, your group should consist of professionals. Lucifer’s Hammer ( Lucifer's Hammer ) had the group of survivors only letting in skilled members. The Survivalist ( Total War (Survivalist #1) ) by Jerry Ahern was about a special forces dude that built a hidden bomb shelter in a mountain stocks with a bezillion rounds of ammo. And, if I’m not mistaken about the source, the retired Green Weenie guy that wrote “The Knife Bible” ( Everybody's Knife Bible ) had another book advocating the ideal group makeup ( i.e.- one doctor, one mechanic, etc. ). From then on it was gospel that survival groups followed this plan. Your doctor would save lives by working out of a fully stocked hospital, the mechanic had a million gallon gasoline tank to refill the repaired vehicles, the radio operator evidently had no problem getting through to sources operating by never ending generators with an atmosphere unpolluted by volcanic ash or nuclear fallout ( Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy ), etc. You get the picture- yuppie survivalist fantasy bull pucky. Let me tell you how it is actually going to happen. A group is huddled together around a small fire, heating a pot of corn gruel flavored by human fed cockroaches. A miracle happens and a doctor stops by. I’ll cure your VD, dysentery, chorea, etc. All I need is to be fed ( we’ll ignore the absence of modern medicine he was taught to use and assume he knows herbal medicine and has a stockpile of the plants ). The group looks at each other and tries to decide who to kill to make room for the doc.

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I can’t see but a few dozen survivalists in this country actually having that kind of food surplus. The one where you can support others. I hate to say it, but if both my parents AND my kids showed up needing to be fed, I wouldn’t know what to do ( well, I know what would need to be done-let the old sick ones die-I just don’t know if I could easily do it ). I sure as hell ain’t going to feed strangers. Especially a doctor. He made a heck of a lot more money than me-where are his preps? Student loans ( How to Wipe Out Your Student Loans and Be Debt Free Fast: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply ), malpractice insurance, an ex-wife and the current ho with a boob job notwithstanding, he still should have stockpiled himself. I might change my tune as lead poisoning slowly and painfully kills me, but I doubt it. I still think there will be little modern doctors can do without drugs and electricity. Not enough for me to starve myself while he hangs around on retainer. No, I think that realistically no one can form an association of survivors with any of them being free loaders. You might think your skill is enough, that it entitles you to be supported. And it might be. But the reality is that no one has a surplus. Oh, you might think you do. If the disaster only lasts a few weeks. But I’m talking about collapse. If a major nuclear exchange takes place, if a nation wide EMP attack happens, or if Yellowstone blows, you are in for a long term self-sufficiency existence. Totally alone. Taking on eaters will kill you faster. So I propose that the likely reality of any post-apocalypse group will be that they consist entirely of those with supplies rather than skills.

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A fat nearsighted insurance adjuster with supplies will be welcomed over an ex-soldier with two MRE’s and an AR-15. Now, more than likely an ex-soldier with more supplies than that will show up because he killed the ex-insurance adjuster. Which brings me to my title, don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t ask where the supplies came from. You need members to form a group. Who are supplied. I’m not condoning stealing supplies. I have my own and will kill those that try to take them. All I’m saying is that the reality is there won’t be enough survivors with supplies and you need fed members for mutual protection. It is a matter of your own survival that you ignore how perspective members of your group got equipped. Like a lot of things falling under the heading “reality”, it sucks. But is necessary. You need to survive the transition period to a more civilized society.

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