Free Republic

Theory du jour: the new Star Wars movie is sucking in whatever meager disposable lucre remains among the economically-flayed mid-to-lower orders of America. In fact, I propose a new index showing an inverse relationship between Star Wars box office receipts and soundness of the financial commonweal. In other words, Star Wars is all that remains of the US economy outside of the obscure workings of Wall Street — and that heretofore magical realm is not looking too rosy either in this season of the Great Rate Hike after puking up 623 points of the DJIA last Thursday and Friday. Here...

Veteran pollster Pat Caddell says he agrees with the premise that America today is closer to another revolution than at any time in recent history, adding, "The strength of this country comes from its people and it has a political system that is run, now, to the exclusion of its people - you have three quarters of the American people saying the government in Washington does not rule with the consent of the governed." Caddell told Breitbart News Daily host Stephen K. Bannon that the current $1.1 trillion 2,000-plus page omnibus bill is "the greatest disaster anyone ever saw...

As we roll into the New Year, we are witnessing the prelude to the culmination of a titanic struggle between three great actors. Three great social forces are now set in motion for a 2016 showdown and collision that will, in historical terms, be on par with the First and Second World Wars. So writes Matthew Bracken, former US Navy SEAL and popular author of the Enemies Trilogy ("Enemies - Foreign and Domestic"; "Domestic Enemies- The Reconquista"; and "Foreign Enemies and Traitors"). In his epic essay titled "Tet, Take 2: Islam's 2016 European Offensive", Bracken writes that two of these...

Matt Bracken discusses his recent essay on the European Muslim Invasion. Interesting!!!!

What rifle calibers are you stockpiling?If you were going to pick a rifle caliber for a long term SHTF situation, what would that caliber be? For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about my 7mm express / 280 Remington, and how the panic buying back in the first half of 2013 caused a shortage in ammunition supplies. When I got my Remington model 700 chambered in 280, I wanted something that was around the 270 or 30-06, and that would also work on heavier game such as elk and moose. In all honesty I put too much thought...

While many preppers are busy stockpiling hordes of rifles, shotguns, and handguns plus cases of ammunition for a looming doomsday scenario, others are thinking more broadly about other weapons options. Thanks to the success of AMC's The Walking Dead, one of the options that has become popular with preppers is the crossbow. On TWD, one of the main characters (Norman Reedus's Daryl Dixon) uses a crossbow with quite an astonishing amount of lethal success. But is this even remotely realistic? Let's take a look at this bolt (arrow) shooting implement to see its implications as a true SHTF tool. Shooting...

Just bought one with 340 hours on the clock.Starts and runs fine.Anyone have any experience with one of these?Anything to look out for?

We've all been part of these discussions, and we've all read a ton of them on forums and blogs over the years: "If you could have only one gun for TEOTWAWKI, what would it be?" A more enlightened-seeming variant on this same theme are discussions that start with, "If you could pick only three guns for TSHTF.." Here's what's wrong with so many of these discussions: no matter what flavor of civilization-ending apocalypse you contemplate-meteor strike, super volcano, global pandemic, EMP blast, etc.-a SHTF scenario is likely to play out in phases, and for each phase you're going to need...

In light of Friday's terrorist attacks, it seems only a matter of time before similar incidents occur in the U.S. The question many people are asking is "What would I do if suddenly in a situation like Paris??" To help answer that concern, Bearing Arms will offer a list of ten things you can do to avoid becoming a casualty in the "War on Terror." 1.Realize it WILL happen here : This isn't a paranoid statement: it is a simple unpleasant fact based upon intelligence gathering efforts, expert opinion, and common sense. At some point, it is likely there will...

My first real exposure to the world of prepping came in 2008, when I became a new father and we moved to San Francisco, an earthquake zone. A lot of people in the Bay Area keep stockpiles of food and water on-hand for when The Big One hits, and since my wife was super nervous about earthquakes and I'm a former Boy Scout, we picked up a few cases of MREs and a water barrel. Later, I added double-barreled coach gun for defensive purposes, making it my first time to live with a gun in the house since I left...

What will a total financial collapse look like? Many experts think you can expect 25 - 50 million dead within the first 90 days. Sound crazy? Think violence, looting, starvation, disease, no prescription drugs, no health care We can talk about terrorism or the Middle East crisis. We can talk about our military readiness or lack of it. We can talk about Obama’s sinking presidency or our country’s plunging morality or maybe Hillary Clinton’s latest scandals. But the other gorilla in the closet, the ugly witch slowly knocking at the door, the hideous monster following you while you’re walking home...

Is 1,000 Rounds Enough or 10,000 Rounds? It’s a very common question posed by survivalists, preppers, and others preparing for the potential likelihood of a SHTF event. Among all the lists of plans for your survival, things to gather, store, gear to buy, and skills to acquire are the huge concerns of security, self and family protection, guarding your property, and just maybe staying alive. Survivalists and preppers are gun people. They believe in acquiring a variety of firearms for defensive purposes as well as offensive tactics if things take a turn for the absolute worst. For these purposes a...

Scott Hunt has no interest in building a bomb out of a paper clip, but as a survivalist prepper, Hunt savors the idea of being somewhat of a MacGyver-type. Thats what I do, says Hunt a professional prepper who is a mentor to the survivalists preparing for the worst on the National Geographic Channel series, Doomsday Preppers. Hunt is among the growing number of Americans who want to thrive when the unexpected happens. We've seen recent natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, Super Storm Sandy along the Atlantic Seaboard and devastating tornadoes throughout the Central Plains. What...

The AK family of weapons is reliable and rugged. It was designed to be operated by illiterate teenage conscripts with little to no training. It was never intended to protect a family after a natural disaster and is ill suited to that purpose. If the answer comes down to supportability and simplicity, you need a shotgun. Everybody has their own ideas about guns, that is part of their charm. There are near-infinite combinations of precision, wounding potential, and magazine capacity. There is much opinion on this. I will give you mine. You are welcome to violently disagree; it is your...

When it comes to “prepping”, many among the elite take things to an entirely different level. As you will see below, the elite are willing to pay big money for cutting edge home security measures, luxury bomb shelters and superyacht getaway submarines. Some of the things that the elite are demanding for their own protection go beyond even what we would see in a James Bond film, and serving the prepping needs of the elite has become a multi-billion dollar business. Meanwhile, the media outlets that the elite own continue to mock the rest of us for getting prepared. All...

While preppers and survivalists have grown in numbers over recent years, preparing for everything from an Electromgnetic Pulse (EMP) to a zombie apocalypse, with sites catering to those prepping on a budget, and the U.S. government continues to stock their underground facilities for an extinction level event, another segment of society is preparing for ‘doomsday’ and how to survive it in style. Billionaires are buying up space in underground bunkers, luxury bomb shelters, paying up to $35,000 just as an entry fee to the Vivos Indiana facility, but the price tag for the Vivos Europa One facility, described as a...

The Obama era is the era of the zombie. It is a strange irony that the politician of “hope and change” has presided over a pop-culture world dominated by shuffling, moaning, undead cannibals who mindlessly rule a post-government apocalyptic landscape. In theaters, we’ve seen zombie blockbusters, zombie comedies, and even sweet zombie romances. But the zombie colossus, the rotting king of this macabre world, is AMC’s The Walking Dead franchise. The Walking Dead (TWD to fans) is rewriting the rules of television. Shows aren’t supposed to keep getting more popular every year, year after year. TWD does. Basic cable isn’t...

Every day brings us closer to what I'm convinced will be a VERY UGLY time in what remains of America, the IDEA! The "progressives" (aka "communists") will continue pushing until they provoke a reaction from those who still remember what freedom was. As was the case in 1775, the flash point will almost certainly be a thrust to seize private firearms and related items. It is then that we will see what their plans are for those MILLIONS OF ROUNDS of ammunition and thousands of weapons now in the hands of previously UNARMED bureaucracies. Oh, did I mention that millions...

In Greece, the age-old practice of bartering for goods and services is experiencing a renaissance as the nation endures the sixth year of its debt-driven economic meltdown. And as bartering has come to mean the difference between starvation and survival for some Greeks, Americans ought to take note. The New York Times on Monday explained how virtual barter networks are popping up in Greece to help individuals and small businesses in the nation survive harsh capital controls put in place to combat a long-standing liquidity crisis. Earlier this year, many Greeks found themselves unable to withdraw money from banks for...

1. You die of thirst or waterborne illness. 2. You die from fantasy-world planning. 3. You freeze to death. 4. You starve to death. 5. You have an accident involving major trauma. 6. You get murdered when raiders or looters come to steal your stuff. 7. You get sick. 8. You get an infection. 9. You die because you are fat and/or out of shape. 10. You die when you daily medication runs out.