David Codrea:

“I know Gillespie and I will not support him or vote for him,” a frequent correspondent active in Virginia Second Amendment promotion and support told me. Part of that may be due to Gillespie’s refusal to personally commit to the issue, as illustrated by his failure to return a Virginia Citizens Defense League Candidate Survey. Part of it may be due to his consummate insider loyalties to the GOP establishment as a former Bush White House staffer and head of the RNC. Part of it may be that he established a “bipartisan” lobbying firm with a Democrat partner, and a former White House Counsel to Bill Clinton at that. And the big part is that there was a better candidate that the establishment did not want..

Another survey Gillespie failed to answer is the one on immigration put out by Numbers USA, where he rates “indecisive” on the question of amnesty for illegal aliens …

Read the rest of David’s analysis.  When I see that there was a so-called “tea party” candidate running against an establishment candidate, and the establishment brought in the power brokers and dollars to run the tea party candidate out of the race, I won’t go to the polls on election day to vote for the establishment candidate.  Thus, I will not be voting for Thom Tillis in my own state.

This is entirely a personal choice, and I am not advocating that you make it too.  I’m saying that I’m not a prostitute and won’t whore my vote out to the highest bidder (or in this case, the least progressive candidate).

Dave Workman:

Contrary to what the gun prohibition lobby would have the public believe, the firearms community is hardly a monolithic voting bloc that thinks and talks alike on every issue. Gun owners argue amongst themselves about all manner of subjects, and the disagreements can get downright brutal. Such can certainly be said about the past 72 hours with the discussion and debate over the JPFO/SAF controversy.

And I’m sure there will be more to come.  My expectation is that good folk who work for JPFO will keep us informed of the vicissitudes of their labors there.

Kurt Hofmann:

Both Reid and Horsford appear to be arguing that the fact that sometimes law enforcement agencies do indeed abuse the power of certain firearms should not mean that agencies that do not engage in such abuses be forced to get by with lesser guns. Does the same logic somehow not apply to the rest of us?

Of course not.  Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and Reid certainly has a small mind.  I suspect he is thinking about how his jack booted thugs at the BLM were stood down by boys toting rifles that looked the same as his thugs.  Awe … did your son not get rich selling out America to Chinese business partners because of AR-15s, Harry?

The Washington Times:

An 86-year-old Illinois man with a concealed carry permit fired his weapon at an armed robbery suspect fleeing police last month, stopping the man in his tracks and allowing the police to make an arrest.

Law enforcement authorities described the man as “a model citizen” who “helped others avoid being victims” at an AT&T store outside Chicago where he witnessed the holdup. The man, whose identity was withheld from the press, prevented others from entering the store during the theft.

Police said the robber harassed customers and pistol-whipped one.

Since Illinois started granting concealed carry permits this year, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics. Reports of burglary and motor vehicle theft are down 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively. In the first quarter, the city’s homicide rate was at a 56-year low.

[ … ]

The Chicago Police Department has credited better police work as a reason for the lower crime rates this year. Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy noted the confiscation of more than 1,300 illegal guns in the first three months of the year, better police training and “intelligent policing strategies.”

Of course the police account this to better policing.  What else would a collectivist do?

I have made it clear here and here that I do not support making innate rights contingent upon favorable statistical outcomes.  But the two interesting things about this report are (a) we are discussing a precipitous drop in crime rather than the bloodbath predicted by the statists when more weapons are present in the city, and (b) the police will ascribe it to literally any reason to avoid saying that it has to do with an increase in the ability for self defense.

When policing Chicago has failed for decades, suddenly they have gotten smarter and applied more intelligent policing strategies in order to precipitate this drop in crime – so they would have us believe.

This is a narrative fail of mammoth proportions, leaving the police to scramble and look for excuses, even claiming the credit.  And it’s fun to watch.

David Codrea:

I’m not going to sit here and try to patch up differences people have with Gottlieb. I’ve had them myself in the past, and I’ll be surprised if I don’t have them again. I have good friends who can’t stand him, and think I’m being duped by not joining them in that assessment, and for giving him credit when I think it’s due him.

Here’s the thing: I’ve talked to the guy many times, face-to-face, on the phone, and via email conversations, and it’s easy for those who have not to draw a portrait based on the impressions of others who may not have.

I had a good relationship with Aaron Zelman, too. Guess what: I didn’t agree with him on everything, either.

And I’m not going to condemn Claire Wolfe for taking an action I know to be principle-based and required no small amount of courage, even if I’m not embracing her conclusions. She would not take a paycheck for her final article. That tells you something.

I don’t presume to be smart enough or influential enough to play peacemaker in this. What I’m interested in doing is helping, and seeing that positive efforts toward liberty are promoted and supported. So all I can do is that which I’ve said from the start, from before the JPFO news became public knowledge: I will continue my efforts for the organization until such time as someone tells me they don’t want me to, or until I come to see that my faith has been misplaced.

If I feel further association is untenable due to changes in organizational principles, interference, censorship, control issues, you name it, I’ll bail too.

Please go read David’s entire assessment.  He ends with this: “And yeah, I get that all I may have done here is get supporters of both sides mad at me.”

It’s a hazard of the job.  I’m convinced that half of my readers (or more) stay pissed off at me most of the time.  I’ve got readers who regularly read my prose for the purpose of increasing their hatred of me.  David has run with the big dogs for a while now.  I’m doubt that he will be persuaded by reaction from the readers.

Here is my take – for whatever it’s worth.  I’ve gotten extremely mad at the NRA for endorsing Harry Reid before (or did they simply say nice things about him?).  It makes no difference to me.  Yet I’m still a member – begrudgingly.

One has to consider the limits of his patronage of a given organization very carefully.  Alan Gottlieb has a fundamental problem of perspective, and a fundamental divide with me given his (past) support of universal background checks.  Alan forgets why the progressives want it.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

And yet Alan was prepared to give on this non-negotiable point.  That tells me everything I need to know about Alan.

But I don’t have relationships with corporations or organizations.  If I did, I would have already divorced the NRA.  I have relationships with people, and two people I consider friends write for JPFO: David Codrea and Kurt Hofmann.

As long as David and Kurt are writing for them, I’ll continue to link there.  I know in my heart of hearts that both would rather starve than sell out gun owners, even though I know no such thing about Alan Gottlieb.  When the time comes that I see articles at JPFO advocating universal background checks, regulation of semi-automatic firearms, magazine capacity limits and the like, I’ll separate myself from them and link no more.

Like David, I believe that He and Kurt have a right to eat too.  I’ll help as much as I can, even thought it may not be much.  In the mean time, I feel no compunction whatsoever to support organizations or corporations with my money.  If you think differently, don’t waste your time trying to convince me that you’re right.

Listen, I’m doing as much as I can do sending the NRA my small amout just to see the progressives have a nervous breakdown thinking that the evil gun group is telling its members what to do and what to think.  That’s about as far as I can bring myself to go.  Any other help will be to an individual, not a corporation.

So there you have it.  On the one hand, I won’t send the JPFO my money.  On the other hand, I won’t seek a separation either.  I’ll take a wait and see attitude, expecting David and Kurt to lead the way telling us what they’re experiencing at that organization so that I can make a more educated assessment.

I ran across this fairly informative podcast late last week.  If you want to listen to it I encourage you to do so.  It is just short of twenty minutes.  If not, I will summarize for you.

The law passed several years ago in California forced all new firearms to be microstamped with laser etching right at the time of firing, with spent cartridge casings showing the serial number of the firearm used – ridiculous technology that no professional engineer would seal (this is my judgment, not that of the podcast).  It would be too expensive, it wouldn’t last, and it would be subject to removal by anyone.

The law stipulated that the law becomes effective when the attorney general deems that the technology exists.  The attorney general of California is a liar because she deems the technology to exist even though it doesn’t.  Therefore, all new firearms sold in California must include this technology which doesn’t exist.

Here is the operative phrase: new firearm.  Gun makers can continue to sell existing firearms if they have previously been approved by California, including the silly limited capacity magazine.  But because a new firearms is defined as any firearm that has had any change at all made (part tolerance, alloy specification, gun color, etc.), and because even small changes routinely made by manufacturers would be included in that list and necessarily involve approval which included microstamping (which doesn’t exist), gun manufacturers are no longer selling guns in California.

We’ve discussed this before in slightly less detail, and noted that Smith & Wesson will continue to sell to law enforcement (or at least, they won’t commit to me that they won’t), thus providing weapons to LEOs that other citizens can’t have.

You can let Smith & Wesson know how you feel about this.  I have.  At the same time, remind them that it is way past time to remove themselves from the communist state in which they are ensconced and come South like most other gun manufacturers.

Their customer base is watching – carefully.

Ms. Elizabeth Sharp, VP of Investor Relations (Lsharp@smith-wesson.com)

Janes:

Thales Australia has disclosed it is developing a new family of high-lethality small arms ammunition, including a 5.56 mm round that the company says outperforms 7.62 mm ammunition at all ranges.

The so-called F9 technology is scalable in calibre, from 4.6 mm up to .50 calibre, and is being developed in collaboration with an undisclosed overseas partner, Graham Evenden, Thales Australia’s Director of Integrated Soldier Systems, told IHS Jane’s on 20 August.

The initial focus is on 5.56 mm ammunition. Trial batches use a projectile developed by the overseas company, low toxicity, optimised propellant from the Thales-operated Mulwala propellant and explosives plant in southern New South Wales, and cases produced at the Thales-owned Benalla munitions facility in northern Victoria.

The design of the 5.56 round involves yawing in flight (even for boat tail ammunition) such that impact tends to fragment the round leaving multiple ballistic tracks through tissue.  UPDATE: This is a correct and functioning link to the paper entitled Small Caliber Lethality: 5.56 mm Performance In Close Quarter Battle.  Warning, this is a PDF supporter by a very slow server.

Color me unpersuaded until I see test results.  But I’m interested, if someone from Thales Australia wants to contact me and give me more detail.

Washington Times:

A competing rifle outperformed the Army’s favored M4A1 carbine in key firings during a competition last year before the service abruptly called off the tests and stuck with its gun, according to a new confidential report.

The probable takeaway from all of this is that the Army is in a sloppy love affair with Colt, and nothing will ever replace it.  Colt lost the contract for M4s almost two years ago, and due to pressure from various lawyers, government entities (GAO) and others, they reopened the bidding and testing process.

Then it closed, with no selection of a new firearm.  You know what I think about H&K (their attitude to customers, “you suck and we hate you“).  I really don’t care much for who won the competition because I think it was badly framed to begin with.

Phase one has had nothing to do with evaluating test prototypes, but instead has focused on weeding out companies that may not have the production capacity to make thousands of weapons per month. This has become a bitter point of contention that has driven away some companies with credible names in the gun business.

“I’m not going to dump half a million to a million dollars for them never to review my rifle,” said Steve Mayer of Rock River Arms, standing amid his racks of M4-style carbines at Shot Show, the massive small-arms show here that draws gun makers from all over the world.

But you, dear reader, can have whatever you want for the right price.  The government doesn’t (yet) have the authority to tell you not to buy a Rock River Arms AR-15, or LaRue Tactical, or whatever you want.

And let’s try to keep it that way.  Weapons are best vetted and tested in the civilian market anyway.  The Army and Marine Corps uses what they’re given.  We have the right to use what we want.  We are the most picky users who give the best feedback.

If some reader wants to pick at this issue until he gets hold of this report, we would all be interested to read it.

Reading the comments to this post by Mike Vanderboegh has persuaded me to weigh in on Ferguson and the liberty movement.  It had to happen.  The liberty movement – at least for some – sees a common enemy, the police state, and is allying itself with crooks and liars.  This is to be avoided since it does nothing except harm the movement.

Let’s begin by divorcing the person of the LEO who is the subject of the goings-on in Ferguson.  He has as much right to self defense as anyone else, and had someone tried to beat the shit out me of I wouldn’t have waited until the perpetrator was going after my weapon.  It would have been 230 grain fat boys to the belly until the magazine was empty – and then reload and do it again.  I suspect that the LEO was shooting 9mm, which is why it took six rounds to put him down (wound track is everything).

Furthermore, the perpetrator in question was apparently walking in a traffic lane, which is a crime.  I don’t do that, and no one I know does that.  The cop had a right to tell the perpetrator to get out of the traffic lane and arrest him if he doesn’t.  As for whether the shooting was justified (i.e., it was in self defense), the facts will have to bear that out.  I cannot and will not comment on that.  But the point is that this isn’t unlike a thousand such incidents that occurs every day in America.  There is nothing special about Ferguson.

Now on to the main issue.  Militarization of the police is a bad thing, always, under any circumstances, and especially when it comes to invasion of homes.  Any serious reader can study my tag on SWAT and see my views.  I couldn’t care less if it is a black man in suburbia Chicago dealing drugs or me in my home writing on my web site.  A man’s home is his castle, and he deserves for it to be so.  My history is clear on this.  Find another way to do evidence collection.  If the police want to come into my home, they should call and make an appointment.

As for the militarization of police in Missouri, they shouldn’t have all of that gear.  It’s wasteful, expensive and sends the wrong message – to the LEOs themselves.  As long as they want to dress up and play soldier-boy, the damage is minimal.  If they want to enforce the law that way, I object.  And don’t carry around a patrol rifle unless I can carry one too.  But what I really object to is home invasions, and the best of my knowledge, that has not happened in the context of Ferguson.

In any case, I think it’s a sad commentary on the police that they appear the way they do.  But that fact doesn’t in the least cause me to side with crooks, liars, looters, criminals, ne’er-do-wells, and other maladjusted folk.

I have for a very long time taken the position – at work and at home – that I don’t fill in the gaps for people.  If you work too hard to repair the bad decisions by management at work, they never learn from their mistakes.  If you undo the consequences of every bad decision your child makes, he never learns.  Like it or not, in God’s economy, consequences is the premier teacher.  Blocking consequences is the same thing as hating your child.  Don’t do it.

My position on Ferguson is that the police should back away.  If the criminals want to tear up the gas stations, grocery stores, roads, sewage and water supply systems, then so be it.  Let them do it.  They will learn from the consequences of said actions when no more groceries can be obtained, no automobile gasoline is available, and they have no power for their air conditioners, heaters and televisions.  We owe them nothing.

There are no good guys in Ferguson.  The liberty movement doesn’t have to side with anyone in order to maintain the position that criminals should be prosecuted and the police shouldn’t be militarized.  It’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time.  Aligning with the criminals is a bad move not only from the perspective of optics, but also from the perspective of morals.  I am not a criminal, and I have no sympathy for criminals.

Liberty is not equivalent to lawlessness and anarchy, and if you think so then you don’t understand liberty.  In fact, you don’t understand much.  Battlefield USA discusses warts in the liberty movement.

I support your liberty, just like I support your liberty to house just enough explosives in your own home to blow it and yourself up… not mine, nor the whole neighborhood. You might be the most responsible super-duper explosives handler bar none… but give every idiot the “liberty” to store enough explosives in their home to blow up the neighborhood is just plain stupidity.

There is a reason why the military has hardened weapons bunkers. There was a reason why the colonials had store/arms rooms for their cannons and black powder.

And on and on… There are too many in the “liberty” movement who can not reason, can not logic, who don’t understand that with liberty, comes responsibility.

Just like I told my new neighbor a few years ago. He has every right to party. He has every right to listen to his music… he has no RIGHT to blast his music in my ear and off my windows and walls that my damn windows and walls literally shake and vibrate. I asked him if it was okay if I threw rocks at his ears, windows, and walls… and why not. He GOT THE POINT and apologized.

I’m not the sharpest cookie on the block. I have my faults… but ya know, there are really some dumb fucks in the liberty movement that think liberty is all about them. It’s all about the… individual… and by individual, they mean… all about them.

I have a responsibility to not endanger your life. I don’t drive drunk. I don’t go outside and go all Rambo with my firearm. I don’t drive down the street like a maniac at 120 mph. I don’t house enough black powder to blow up the whole frikkin block… or my own house.

I have as much as a responsibility for you and yours as you do for me and mine.

When you are out there doing your liberty thing… keep that in mind.

Otherwise, you’re just a savage. Which is an excuse for license.

Ferguson is the hive’s chickens coming home to roost.  It is the collectivist’s nightmare.  A class of people who have had the family destroyed for generations, been taught that we owe them something for generations, and think they can break the law with impunity, are at odds with the police and other authorities, while the police and other authorities are under criticism for using the very tactics on this entitled class that the collectivists set them to to use, because they want to fill in the gap and prevent the effects of consequences (I think Mike Vanderboegh pointed out something like that with his clever title).  We should all stand back and say to the collectivists, “Look upon what thou hast created.  Are you proud?”

Nightmare.  And it’s just beginning.  Ferguson is a microcosm of Chicago, LA, Houston, New York, and Atlanta.  It’s all unraveling for them.  Your job is to be prepared, not to side with any of them.  This is their nightmare.  Let them live it alone.  Let Ferguson burn.  Don’t fill in the gaps for them.  Don’t side with criminals or militarized police.  Let it all collapse, you have no friends in the fight.

My good friend Tim Lynch sent me a note today that is so valuable that it needs to be shared with my readers.  I asked Tim permission to do so in its entirety.  Tim was a contractor (military and intelligence) in Afghanistan for about a decade.

He knows more about Afghanistan (and as much about Jihad) as any English speaking man alive.  His words should be studied.

Thanks for that Herschel I didn’t know or correspond with Jim when he was in Afghanistan and that is no doubt my loss.  Seeing him go that way makes me pissed too.  It reminds me that in both Afghanistan and Iraq the Jihadis faced the most danger when activly fighting Americans.  If they were wound and captured or just captured by the Americans they were in the safest situation they could possibly be in given the time and place.  Literally – they would not be safer no matter where they were or who they were with if they were captured by our military.  Conversely an American was in mortal danger not while fighting Jihadis but if captured by them.  The Jihadis were horrible at fighting, cowards when hard pressed but lions once their foes were wounded, hog tied and under their control.

I hate cowards more than just about anything and those punks, who would cut and run in the blink of an eye if they felt pressure on their flanks, are straight up cowards.  And only cowards could believe that beheading captives will put fear in a warriors heart – it does the exact opposite and this country still produces enough men who will run through the fires of hell just to sink a bayonet into the guts of cowards who threaten our way of life.

Those shitbirds will find that out soon enough.

Mike Vanderboegh: Police shoot and kill an Ohio dad, 22, holding a BB gun in Walmart.  I say prosecute them for murder.  If I did that I would be in the state penitentiary.  They should be too.  One long term solution is to legalize open carry everywhere, at all times.

Matt Bracken has an outstanding piece up at WRSA on The Islamic Jihad Conquest Formula.  Matt hits the nail on the head.

David Codrea:

“A citizen will lose his appeal if the Attorney General can prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, not that the individual poses a risk, or that the person is a terrorist, or even that the person is under investigation; rather, the Attorney General must only demonstrate that the person has been placed on a terror watch list,” Titus continued.

“Once that has been proven, a process which affords the citizen no due process, no right to appeal, nor guarantees any reasonable notice or information to the actual fact that the citizen is on a terror watch list, the appeal is over and the citizen loses his Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms,” Titus elaborated. “The individual will not have a chance to introduce evidence of mistaken identity, abuse of Executive discretion or mount any other meaningful defense.”

Oh my.  This seems like more inside-the-beltway rulemaking gone awry.  Perhaps they put this in the federal register, perhaps not.  Perhaps they kept it out with approval of the rubber-stamp FISA courts.  Either way, you can bet that this is more infringement.

And speaking of David, he says he doesn’t like to go around link-whoring his articles.  He isn’t posting to Facebook anymore, but that’s fine with me because I make WoG a stop several times a day to see what David is saying.  David is a nice guy so he doesn’t like to link-whore.  I’m not, and I don’t mind it at all.  Traffic means that even if it is a poor article, my Google page rank increases, sending more traffic and increasing my voice of advocacy.  I do this for advocacy, not for ego (or at least, so I say).  I don’t really care what you think about me, but I want you to listen to my views because I want to change your mind.  But for David, he deserves to make a living at this, and I ask that you stop by every day to see what you can do to send him traffic.

Kurt Hofmann:

Frum notes that about 42 percent of police deaths this year were by gunfire. Whether that statistic is intended to justify the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown, or the outrageously heavy-handed efforts to quell the unrest (a task now being handed off by the heavily militarized police to the actual military, as the National Guard is brought in), we can only guess.

Frum also asks if anyone thinks that “things [would] be better in Ferguson if the demonstrators were armed.” Well, some of the brutalized demonstrators might.

Perhaps the most chilling of this series of tweets was his observation about the supposed law enforcement need for heavy body armor:

Fewer guns in hands of the policed ==> less need for body armor on those who do the policing …

Oh good grief.  We just can’t get away from Frum can we?  Visit Kurt’s piece to see his full analysis.  As for my comments, I think that David Frum is an idiot.  And I think he’s chicken little.  And I think he should feel bad about himself.

Even the NYT is asking Who Will Stand Up For Christians?  Well, not the Christian church.  As I have pointed out, they don’t give a damn.

California:

For one California man, what began as a day fishing trip quickly turned into a five-day fight for survival.

Mike Vilhauer, 58, went fishing Aug. 6 at Lower Sunset Lake in Alpine County when he noticed he wasn’t catching any fish. Deciding he needed more bait, Vilhauer, butterfly net in hand, left on what he thought would be a short trip to find some grasshoppers.

“I was just zigzagging up and down the mountain,” Vilhauer told ABC News. “I didn’t see anyone for quite a while.”

After a few hours, Vilhauer said it began to get late, and he decided he should probably head back to the fishing site. “That’s when the fun began,” he said.

Vilhauer began to make his way towards what he thought was the fishing site. But with darkness upon him at about 8 p.m., he decided to make shelter under a pine tree, covering himself with pine needles and willow branches in an attempt to stay warm. Vilhauer attempted to call 911, but a weak signal thwarted his efforts.

Vilhauer continued his search for the help on Thursday. Weak from his lack of food and water, he adapted what he called his “survivor man routine,” drinking water out of puddles, regardless of what else was in the puddle.

“I thought ‘I’m going to keep walking, I’m going to get back to my wife,’” said Vilhauer, who lives in West Sacramento.

After trying to find a way back the whole day, Vilhauer came across a stream and began to follow it before the sun began to set. Setting up a camp of tree bark and needles, he slept for another night in the open wilderness.

He was crushed to find on Friday morning that the stream came to a dead end. “At this point I’m thinking ‘Man, this is looking bad,’” Vilhauer said.

Vilhauer continued to wander in circles on Friday, unsure of where he was or where to go next. Exhausted and hungry, he set up camp under a large rock.

“I hadn’t slept at all,” said Villhauer, “It was cold and I just tried to keep moving around. It rained every night.”

Saturday morning brought no relief.

“I hadn’t eaten since Wednesday morning,” said Villhauer, “I was so weak, I could only do so much before getting too exhausted and having to lie down.”

Grounding himself underneath the rock, Villhauer tried to build up his strength. He decided he would try to climb up the side of the ridge, only to find out that every time he thought he had reached the top, there ended up just being another peak ahead.

Suddenly, Villhauer could hear helicopters in the distance. One flew overhead, but kept going, leaving Villhauer “disheartened.”

“It was a rollercoaster of emotions,” said Villhauer, “I thought, ‘You know what? I’m done. This is it.’”

“I was thinking about my family and my wife and all of the stupid things I’d done to get myself into that position,” said Villhauer.

“And then, after 10 to 15 minutes I decided ‘No. Hell no. I’m not going to give up, I’m going to get down to that stream and I’m going to sit there and wait until somebody finds me,’” he added.

Villhauer made his way back down the stream, drinking out of puddles along the way, and made his way back to the rock.

He picked up a piece of driftwood and began writing his last words to his wife.

“I put all of these thoughts down, I had to continue on another piece of drift wood,” Villhauer said.

He then used cypress needles to spell out “HELP”, saying “I figured if I don’t make it, at least I gave it my best shot.”

Sunday morning, Villhauer had just had his first meal in five days – a dandelion – when he heard the helicopters again.

“I got excited, I started waving around my blue shirt on a stick,” said Villhauer as the helicopter kept repeatedly flying over and then leaving.

“It was a big rush, and then the letdown. A big rush, and the letdown,” described Villhauer, who assumed that the choppers were operating on a grid system, so once they deemed the area clear they would not be returning.

“I figured, if they hadn’t seen me yet, I was in here for the long haul.”

The choppers returned and began circling Villhauer, when he suddenly heard a bark from behind him. It was a search dog leading one of the rescue teams that had been looking for Villhauer since Friday.

After five days in the wilderness, he had been saved.

Folks, as I have pointed out so many times, carry a day pack / patrol bag.  Twenty pounds can save your life.  You need: (a) a gun, (b) fire starter, (c) a tactical light, (d) 550 cord, (e) water, (f) a heavy rubberized poncho, and (g) a compass.

With the gun you can protect yourself, with the light you can see at night, with the fire you can prevent hypothermia, with the poncho and 550 cord you can make shelter in under two minutes, you need the water to live and you need the compass to navigate.  You may even go comfortable and carry along a few energy bars.

Why is this so hard?  Why do people go into the wilderness unprepared?