Australian Survival and Preppers..: August 2022

Thoughts for The Week.

“What you do in your lifetime will echo down through eternity”,
Marcus Aurelius.

All thinking people should by now know that the world is quickly ‘going to hell in a hand basket’. The doubtful should read some of the last few Editions of the Bulletin. Unfortunately there is no Saviour in sight, no Winston Churchill in the wings ready to lead the world to sanity. On one side we have a militant megalomaniac who wants to re create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under his own name and on the other side we have a Socialist suffering from dementia bent on turning the western world into a medieval slum with no electricity or fuels. While the leader of the most powerful nation in the world ‘China’ calculates his moves, biding his time, bullies and lies, waiting to gobble up Asia and the world at the most opportune time.

Like Ukraine, we here in Australia are the meat in the sandwich and by far the most valuable and vulnerable, as we are un-armed, un-prepared and closer to China’s teeth. The realism of the above is now established fact. Unfortunately, I have been writing and predicting this situation for so many years, it has become boring, so it makes no sense to repeat it again in these bulletins.

We have no current defence against Missile attacks.

This monthly bulletin is very late, maybe we skip July and call this one August I have been working very hard on several firearm related projects which will ultimately bring joy to a lot of Australia’s firearm owners and make Australia’s future a little more secure.
War In the World Limits Our Ammunition Supply.
The news I wish to share this week is that I have been told by suppliers that the factories that produce Norma Ammunition in Sweden, Vihtavuori in Finland, and Nanno in Norway have all ceased all production of commercial ammunition and gone fully into military production.

Norma in Sweden.

Remington has recently been sold in the USA and they have appointed a new importer for Australia, but due to world events and the disruption from the factory to the suppliers full stocks of Remington will be a long way off.

Most of you who shoot regularly will know that since 2019, the Australian firearm trade has suffered huge shortages. Having forethought here at Owen Guns we tried to build a stock of ammunition and components (based on our 2 years of previous sales) we purchased mountains of stock. (including primers) During 2020 and the Covid 19 virus scare panic buying took a large chunk out to that stock, but with huge difficulty we replaced it, when and how we could. We also bought brand new Haas CNC machines so that we can manufacture very accurate brass, (Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, that has a higher malleability than zinc or copper,) projectiles. They upset /obturate into the rifling grooves, giving great accuracy, due to precise dimension, leave less fouling in your barrel and the expanding hollow points have an explosive effect on targets.

We named them Whitworth bullets in memory of Mr Joseph Whitworth who did so much groundwork in the 19th century on ballistics, without him our industry would have remained in the medieval era.

However, now in August 2022 ammunition stocks in Australia are at very low levels, I am NOT saying this with any encouragement for you to get into panic buying mode, but to be sensible and buy as much as you can safely afford on a regular basis when it becomes available as these shortages have no end date in site.

An employee checks stamped brass cartridge cases at the Lapua rimfire production factory (Nammo Corporation)

During my travels I have visited many ammunition factories in the world and found factories in Yugoslavia reloading ammunition into Federal boxes and Sellier & Bellot and have been informed on many occasions by the ammunition factories that to keep a good range of cartridges, when any factory in the western world tools up to manufacture a certain cartridge that the other ammunition manufactures send their printed boxes and pays that company to make them for them. Likewise, they return the favour and all work together so that they all have a large range. Recently, when there was a problem with .243 Winchester ammunition and it had to be re-called I was told that Hornady had made it for them.

They can Sell All The Cartridges They Can Make. So Why Sell Components?
In the last two weeks I have had a discussion with a senior manager of one of the largest importer of ammunition and the news that he imparted was not good, he said that their was a large demand for ammunition and as they could sell a packet of 20 rounds of .308 for $49.50 USD, and they could sell all they can make, that they saw no future in selling components for reloading. He said that Australia at present had the cheapest ammo in the world and we could expect to pay a lot more in the future. In past periods of inflation and increases in ammunition prices we have been able to keep shooting by reloading. These days with virtually no primers available and no shotgun or pistol propellants it is becoming increasingly difficult and by what I hear in the trade the manufactures of ammunition are content to collude to eliminate components, so that they can sell more expensive loaded ammunition. In most of the world that might be more acceptable but in Australia we have land owners who have to by law dispose of millions of pests and vermin.

In WW2 When Australia had a factory that produced .22 ammo Government made special batches for farmers as no one else could buy it.

The Reasons For The World Wide Shortages.
For the second time in a decade, demand for ammunition has outstripped supply in the United States. The first ammunition bubble was from 2012 to 2017. The next started in 2020 and has not abated. The data shows that between January 2020 and April 30 of this year, 5.1 million Americans bought their FIRST gun, following 2.4 million who did so in the year before (2019), this surge in overall gun buying was part of an estimated 16.6 million U.S. adults who bought a SECOND firearm in 2020, compared to 13.8 million in 2019. ‘The Trace’, a non-partisan group that tracks guns sales, estimates 2.3m guns were purchased in January alone. Sales, which had remained largely flat for the duration of the Trump presidency, jumped 64% in 2020, the group said. One could assume that was due to the new President Sleepy Creepy Joe.
A third data study, compiled by Northeastern University and the Harvard Injury Control Research Centre and shows that 6.5% of US adults, or 17 million people, have purchased guns in the past year, up from 5.3% in 2019. Gun sales in the United States continue to explode and beat pre-pandemic levels. August 2021 saw the 2nd highest gun sales for that month, beaten only by August 2020 when the nation watched Democrat leaders allow Antifa and BLM to burn their cities with near impunity.
All these firearm buyers all wanted to buy a packet of ammunition, or more, with there firearms. Most thought that President Obama was the best thing for the US firearm industry but all the awards should go to President Sleepy Creepy Joe, he has given the firearm industry the best years since World War Two.
Still, all those increases are relatively small compared to the 400 million guns estimated to already be circulating in the USA, including at least 4 million AR-15s, commonly described as assault rifles.
The more Biden talks about gun restrictions, the more firearms are bought by American citizens. By this point, you’d think Sleepy Creepy Biden owns stocks and shares in the USA firearms industry.

Our Main Stream Media Has Been Glorifying U.S. Gun Law Victories.
However, after the latest Supreme Court ruling, it’s open season on all US gun laws.
The Supreme Court ruling expanding gun rights threatens to upend firearms restrictions across the country as activists wage court battles over all issues including age limits, and bans on AR-15-style firearms. The decision handed down in June already has led one judge to temporarily block a Colorado town from enforcing a ban on the sale and possession of certain semi-automatic weapons.

The first major gun decision in more than a decade, the ruling could dramatically reshape gun laws in the U.S. even as a series of horrific mass shootings pushes the issue back into the headlines. “The gun rights movement has been given a weapon of mass destruction, and it will annihilate approximately 75% of the gun laws eventually,” said Evan Nappen, a New Jersey gun rights attorney.
The Supreme Court decision struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need to get a license to carry a concealed gun in public, saying it violates Second Amendment rights. Several other states including California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island have similar laws expected to be directly impacted by the ruling.

In Massachusetts, for example, police chiefs can no longer deny or impose restrictions on licenses just because the applicant doesn’t have a “good reason” to carry a gun. New York quickly passed a new concealed-weapon law, but Republicans there predict it will also end up being overturned. In its New York ruling, the High Court’s conservative majority also changed a test lower courts had used for evaluating challenges to gun laws.

“Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests like enhancing public safety,” the opinion authored by Justice Clarence Thomas said. Instead, they should only weigh whether the law is “consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding.”
The Supreme Court has ordered lower courts to take another look at several other cases under the court’s new test. Among them: laws in California and New Jersey that limit the amount of ammunition a gun magazine can hold and a 2013 ban on “assault weapons” in Maryland.
Gun rights groups are also challenging similar bans in California, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
“The rifles at issue in this case are the sorts of bearable arms in common use for lawful purposes that responsible and peaceable people across the United States possess by the millions. And they are, moreover, exactly what they would bring to service in militia duty, should such be necessary,” a New Jersey lawsuit brought in June by the Firearms Policy Coalition says, referencing the language of the Second Amendment. The ruling also has come up in challenges to restrictions on gun possession for 18- to 20-year-olds in Texas and Pennsylvania.
The popularity of the current socialist Democrat Party with its leader in President Sleepy, Creepy Joe is on an ever declining ski slope, the coming November elections are going to remove the hair line Democrat majority and allow the Republicans to block any moves by the Anti Gunners. Sleepy Creepy Joe has no chance of re-election, so again it looks like our American cousins have had a reprieve, but we will have to wait until the US firearm market slows down and manufactures have surplus ammunition to sell, before we have a reprieve from high prices here in Australia.

Note.
If you have been waiting for more than a few days for your ‘Permit To Acquire’ in Queensland, contact Weapons Licencing (07) 3015 7777, confirm that they have received your application. If they cannot assure you that you will receive it in 24 hours, (if you have other firearms on your licence) please contact your Local State member of parliament, ask them to make a Ministerial inquiry to the Police Minister on your behalf, supply your receipt numbers and Licence numbers and the date of your application, mention that you are aware that the Police are in breach of the Weapons Regulations Section 101.
Weapons Regulation 2016, Current as at 17 June 2022
Authorised by the Parliamentary Counsel
Part 22 Acquiring or disposing of weapon
“101 Waiting period for decision on application for permit to
acquire
(1) This section prescribes the period for section 42 of the Act.
(2) The period is 28 days after the day the applicant lodged the
application for the permit to acquire the weapon.
(3) However, the period is the remainder of the day on which the
applicant lodged the application for the permit, if—
(a) the applicant already holds a firearm under a licence; or
(b) an authorised officer is satisfied there are exceptional
circumstances.”
Point out to your local State MP that if you were a day late with you renewal under this same Act the police could charge and prosecute you, you would lose your property and have a conviction. Yet the police take no notice of time stipulated in the Regulations. Ask them, do we have a law for public and another set of laws for the Police? These State Members of Parliament of both parties are the people who vote to impose these restrictions on your life. No matter if they are Labour, Liberal or National all of them have a duty to re-present your issue to the Police Minister and to parliament. That is why they are called “Representatives”.
If they refuse, go to your local News paper, explain that the Representative is not doing his job as he has a duty to represent you even though he might disagree with your issue.
No one, including the police can complain about this means of bringing attention to your cause. It is everyone’s right to seek help from your member of parliament. You have been forced to pay for a right, that should be free. They have a duty to supply a performance. You should have a remedy to see that they are prosecuted for there breaches of the Regulations in the same way that the Police would do to you. We are all supposed to be equal within the law of the land. If you would like to phone the man who is ultimately responsible for this mess, please phone the Police Minister Mark Ryan on 07 3035830o.

“There is no Spring without Winter, without Mistakes there is no Learning. There is no Life without Death, without Doubts there is no Faith. There is no Peace without War, without Fear there is no Courage. For without Mistakes, Doubts and Fears there are no pathways to Wisdom.”
Ron Owen

Email owenguns@spiderweb.com.au