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Tropical Depression Two got its act together for a few minutes last night and became Tropical Storm Bertha. She ain't much as tropical storms go, but she will limp along the coast and cause havoc. Eventually going into Texas and becoming a rain maker. The weather weenies tell us that she is getting a lot of wind shear from the northeast, which is ripping the north side of the storm apart.
It is what it is, and if this is the worst storm we see this season, I will be mightily pleased.
LG's Smart TV features being overly intrusive is common among smart TVs, but LG's newer UltraGear computer monitors are now also taking liberties with user privacy and security.
On some Windows systems, connecting a new LG monitor will spur Windows Update to download drivers and the LG Monitor App Installer, which will then display pop-up ads for other LG applications or even McAfee antivirus software. This is disappointing news to say the least, but fortunately my LG UltraGear 27GL850-B doesn't seem to be impacted.
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"Great-great-grandpa survived malaria, typhus and Spanish Mauser bullets and came home with his trusty Springfield floptop. In the intervening years, the wooden forearm had been shortened and the barrel had been chopped back to a more manageable length for stalking whitetail in the laurel groves of the Appalachians, and at some point, a Lyman peep sight had been added to the old tomato stake, but that timeworn militia rifle had been making meat every autumn since William McKinley was in office. It was just in for a checkup."Bringback firearms, both captured war trophies and issued... uh, "souvenirs" ...were common among our nation's citizen soldiers for most of two centuries.
CTV News recently published an article about "crime guns" traced by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Careful analysis of the information provided shows the article is as much about spin as enlightenment.
Only 8% of firearms crime result in a firearm being recovered. Of those, only 20% of firearms seized by police are sent for tracing. Of the ones sent in for tracing, the sample in the CTV News article excluded most of the traces done in Ontario and Quebec. Of those, the definition of a "crime gun" is broad, and includes many non-violent crimes.
Ontario and Quebec have their own firearm tracing systems. Information from those systems was not included in the article. Quebec and Ontario contain about 61% of Canada's population. Information from the most populated parts of Canada was not included. The sample for the article for CTV news was not representative of the Canadian population.
The way the numbers are used is confusing. For example: the article says the RCMP completed 6,951 firearm traces. Then it says 4,197 of those were identified as "crime guns". Of the 4,197 "crime guns" it says 2,814 had a known source. The implication is: of the 4197 "crime guns" 1,384 did not have a known source. If the 1,384 did not have a known source, how could a trace have been completed? Perhaps the author meant to write the RCMP attempted to trace 6,951 firearms, but was only successful in tracing 67% of those.
The article then states 71 percent of the firearms traced in 2024 (by the RCMP) were domestic long guns. Long guns are the vast majority of firearms in Canada (89%). We know 2,654 of the 6,951 guns "traced" were not crime guns. Those would be 39% of the firearms traced. If the vast majority of those were long guns, as would be expected, over half of the 71 percent of long guns traced were not "crime guns".
The definition of "crime guns" is broad and worth considering. From the article:
The RCMP centre defines crime guns as firearms that were used or suspected to have been used in criminal offences, guns whose serial numbers have been obliterated or altered, firearms that were found but not reported lost or stolen, and replicas, toys, 3D-printed guns, pellet or air guns that have been used in criminal offences.
The article does not break out the numbers of toys, replicas, pellet and air guns from the total. The article lists 67 home manufactured guns or "ghost guns". Those can be made in a number of different ways than 3D printing. 3D printing can be used to make replicas or toy guns.
Of the guns which were traced, or perhaps attempted to be traced, 17% were identified as smuggled handguns, or 1,165. Presumably, these were all classified as "crime guns", because they were smuggled. Handguns in Canada are required to be registered. Nine percent (616) were domestically sourced handguns. This probably means they were registered in Canada at some point. Handguns do not appear to have been commercially manufactured in Canada since Para-Ordinace moved to the USA in 2009. From the above numbers, about 65% of the handguns were smuggled handguns. 9+16 = 26, so only 26% of the total firearms mentioned in the RCMP traces were handguns. Only two percent (137) were smuggled long guns. Almost 1% (67) were privately manufactured firearms sometimes called "ghost guns".
Of the 2,814 "crime guns" where the source could be identified, 86% were found to have come from within Canada. Only 14% were smuggled. The number may be biased because Canadian guns are more likely to be successfully traced. The vast majority of traces for the largest Canadian urban centers were not included. This could explain the relatively low handgun figures.
In an official Canadian government report published in 2025, 49% of violent firearms crimes in Canada were committed with handguns. It is obvious "crime guns" includes a great many non-violent crimes. When firearms are involved in violent crime, very few are recovered. From the article referenced above:
Where these data were available, more than nine in ten (92%) incidents of firearm related violent crime did not involve the recovery of a firearm, eight in ten (81%) did not involve the seizure of a firearm and nearly all (99%) did not involve a firearm being reported as stolen.
In a separate Parliamentary report using data from 2020, 58% of firearms traced in Canada were reportedly from Canada, and half of those were handguns. This means 29% of the firearms which were traced were handguns from Canada. The same report states 28% of handguns traced were domestically sourced. If 29% of all firearms traced are handguns from Canada, and 28% of handguns traced are from Canada, then 29% of firearms traced cannot be long guns from Canada. The use of percentages instead of raw numbers allows many statistical games to be played.
The percent of successful traces done by the RCMP in 2024 matches precisely with the report for all of Canada for 2023. 67% of traces were successful.
The raw numbers show there were only 277 firearms homicides committed in all of Canada in 2020. Less than half of those, only 135, were committed with handguns. 135 deaths, or even 277 deaths of the 300,000 annual deaths in Canada is a very small percentage. Homicides are shocking events, but less than .1 percent of deaths is a very small number. For handguns alone, it is .044%. Nearly three times as many people die in drowning accidents each year in Canada.
Analysis: One of the ways to lie with statistics is to pick a sample which delivers the result you want. When the Canadian government wants to ban handguns, the reports emphasize the percent of homicides committed with handguns. When the Canadian government wishes to ban large numbers of long guns, the article attempts to frame firearms crime in Canada as mostly involving long guns. Firearms in Canada are not a serious problem.
In Canada, 80% of firearms related deaths are suicides, about 19.8% are homicides and .8% are accidents. The numbers of Canadian suicides by firearms were listed at 80% without precise numbers. Rounding results in slightly over 100% total.
Draconian firearm restrictions may reduce the number of suicides committed with firearms. They do not reduce the total number of suicides. Draconian firearm restrictions may reduce the number of homicides committed with firearms. They do not reduce the total number of homicides. The per capita rate of firearms ownership in the United States is unrelated to the homicide rate.
Playing games with the number of firearm traces reduces the credibility of the source.
©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Once the two were face-to-face arguing, victim/suspect #1 lifted his shirt to show a firearm in his front waistband. Police said victim/suspect #2 started to reach for the firearm, and the two began fighting.
They said that’s when a third man, later identified as the brother of suspect #2, came into the store, pulled out his firearm, and began shooting at victim/suspect #1.
Police said video also showed victim/suspect #2 pulled a handgun from his waistline and started shooting at victim/suspect #1, and his brother picked up victim/suspect #1’s firearm, and the two left the scene in a White GMC.
This Week in History July 21, 1403: The Battle of Shrewsbury. An army led by the Lancastrian King of England, Henry IV defeated a rebel army led by Henry “Harry Hotspur” Percy of Northumberland thus ending the Percy challenge to the throne. This was also the first battle English archers fought each other on English soil. — 1669: John Locke‘s constitution for the English Province of Carolina was adopted. — July 23, 1764: James Otis published “The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved,” in which he argued against taxation without representation. — And on July 24, 1847, Brigham …
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Most people live in a state of perpetual psychological comfort known as Normalcy Bias. This is the deeply ingrained, warm, fuzzy assumption that the systems keeping us alive today will function indefinitely tomorrow. We unconsciously believe that the grocery store will always hold a fresh supply of organic kale, the kitchen tap will never run dry, and the wall outlet will indefinitely pump electricity on demand. Spoiler alert: It won’t. When we analyze why individuals, organizations, or entire societies collapse during a crisis, the root cause is rarely a complete lack of preparation. Instead, failure occurs because someone mistook a …
The post Mastering the P.A.C.E. Model for True Self-Reliance, by A.C. appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
“As the twilight drew on, [the dog’s] eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained silent. . . . [The dog] caught the scent of death.” (Jack London, “To Build a Fire”). Fire is important. It is so important that I recommend carrying at least three different tools for starting a fire while in the field. I recommend that one of these tools be a ferrocerium (ferro) rod. The Fire-Fast Trekker Fire …
The post Fire-Fast Trekker Fire Starter, by Thomas Christianson appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.
Today’s graphic is a map that shows U.S. counties by the number of weeks experiencing extreme drought, as of mid-July, 2026. (Graphic courtesy of Reddit.) The thumbnail image below is click-expandable. — If any SurvivalBlog readers have personally taken or otherwise hold the copyright to a particularly nice landscape photo or other photo of particular interest to preppers that is in a wide horizontal format (to match our blog template) then please send it in as an e-mail attachment, and I will consider posting it as a Graphic of the Week, or as a Top Note photo. …
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In Economics & Investing Media of the Week we feature photos, charts, graphs, maps, video links, and news items of interest to preppers. Economics & Investing Links of Interest Wall Street expert says a massive stock market crash is coming and this tech company will be the ‘first domino to fall’. Mapped: Where Food Inflation Will Hit Hardest in 2026. 30-Year Fixed-Rate Mortgage Reaches Highest Level In Almost A Year. A 28 Item Grocery Order From Target That Cost $64.50 In 2020 Now Costs $158.30. At Contrarian Thinking: The Delusion Premium. CBS: Student loan defaults hit record highs in wake …
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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods. This column is a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from JWR. Our goal is to educate our readers, to help them to recognize emerging threats, and to be better prepared for both disasters and negative societal trends. You can’t mitigate a risk if you haven’t first identified a risk. In today’s column, Data Center Power Demand. Normalizing Martial Law in America Reader Mark in Florida recommended this article: The Great Normalization (Nobody Declared Martial Law… Yet America Began Looking Like …
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Our weekly Snippets column is a collection of short items: responses to posted articles, practical self-sufficiency items, how-tos, lessons learned, tips and tricks, and news items — both from readers and from SurvivalBlog’s editors. Note that we may select some long e-mails for posting as separate letters. — First up, over at The Washington Post: The death of the stick shift is almost here. “Driving a manual vehicle is a lost art. Hopes of a revival have fallen flat. With the rise of EVs and autonomous vehicles, only a few die-hards are holding on.” o o o House passes Trump’s plan …
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REDOUBT NEWS LINKS Video of a classic graceful plane in gorgeous scenery: Catalina splashing in Priest Lake. (Ignore the inane, tipsy chatter.) “Princess of the Stars” is one of North America’s last flying Catalinas. Oregon petition to ban hunting, fishing fails first round of signature vetting. The latest video from Expedition Rove in North Idaho: We’re Building This From the Ground Up… Jackson Couple Gives Historic Flat Creek Ranch To Longtime Caretakers To Save It. Two structures lost in over 6,000-acre wildfire southwest of Inchelium in Ferry County. This weekly column features media from around the American Redoubt region. (Idaho, Montana, …
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To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year. We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds …
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The latest meme created by JWR: Meme Text: I Voted… But It Was For Huckleberries Notes From JWR: Do you have a meme idea? Just e-mail me the concept, and I’ll try to assemble it. And if it is posted then I’ll give you credit. Thanks! Permission to repost memes that I’ve created is granted, provided that credit to SurvivalBlog.com is included.
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“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in preparation.” – Basketball coach Bobby Knight (1940-2023)
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Checking with NOAA this morning, it appears that TD2, the storm brewing in the Gulf. It is not meeting expectations and as of right now, it is a matter of claim that it ever becomes a named storm. It may be a rain maker, but dry wind shear keeps shaking it apart.
Is the World Cup over? I'm still seeing reports from the visitors about how awesome the USA is. I wonder how many gallons of Ranch Dressing they smuggled out? The really should have taken the little packets we use as seasoning and make fresh Ranch at home.
Belle and I hosted a family reunion this weekend. Loads of fun and family. The final hangers-on left this morning and Belle and I are spending the day in kick-back mode.
Bourbon Aperol Spritz
- 1½ oz bourbon
- 1 oz Aperol
- 2 oz Prosecco
- 1 oz club soda
- Orange slice
Build the drink over ice, stir gently, and garnish with an orange slice.
The post Prototype SAKO Boy’s Rifle Version of the m/39 first appeared on Forgotten Weapons.
From a Link Trainer to the F-14, the Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum has it all!
- "Quick! Announce talks are re-starting before the markets open this morning!"
- Ghost Bikes
- Do the Euros have the stomach for a fight?
I had several calls in my 25-year police career where I did everything right, but I still can’t help but think that my solid police work caused more harm than good. Here’s the one I think about most. It happened a couple years before I retired. One of the new guys on the […]Investigators said the employee, who is in his 70s, heard loud banging behind the business and went outside armed with a handgun to see what was happening.
According to HPD Lt. Willkens, the employee encountered one person acting as a lookout while another suspect came from behind the building carrying burglary tools, including a crowbar and hammer. Police said the second suspect then charged toward the employee, who fired one shot, striking the man in the leg.
The wounded suspect, believed to be in his 20s, ran from the scene and was later found at a nearby Jack in the Box after employees called 911. Police said the man had asked workers to contact his girlfriend instead of calling police.
Tropical Depression Two is a weird little storm that is brewing in the northeast Gulf. It is expected to head westerly. Strangest warning cone I have ever seen.
If it reaches storm status, it will become Bertha. This one bears watching, because the currently predicted landfall is in Texas.
Northeastern Illinois gender studies major enrolls just 4 studentsI wonder what it costs taxpayers to fund a no-demand major.
Police say a person in a house shot the suspect in self-defense during a home invasion near West 46th and Union around 7 p.m. on Wednesday. Officers say the people in the home and the suspect knew each other.
TPD says they found the suspect in a pickup truck at I-44 and Union.
When deputies arrived, they spoke to a homeowner who said a man came onto their property, threatened to steal his truck and told him he would kill him if he resisted.
The homeowner said he turned to go back inside his house, but the man followed him into the home.
At that point, the homeowner said he grabbed a baseball bat and hit the suspect.
The struggled continued outside where the homeowner said the man charged at him. That's when the homeowner pulled out a gun and shot the suspect in the leg.
Gov. Tim Walz is defending his vote to pardon a man convicted of molesting a 10-year-old child more than 20 years ago.
Last week, the Trump administration deported Tou Lue Vang despite a pardon approved by Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson in their role on the Board of Pardons...
Walz questioned whether Vang’s removal improved outcomes in Minnesota.
“I guess the question I would as is, did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day?” Walz said.
I think Walz just had his "worst day."
Vang defended his multi year molestation of a 10-year-old as part of his culture.