Um. Okay. No bailout for now.

[xiphias]

So, the House Republicans -- as well as a pretty good number of House Democrats -- have rejected the bailout plan.

I have absolutely no idea if this is a good thing or a bad thing. None whatsoever.

In general, though, if this means that they have to go back and put together a new plan that actually has THOUGHT behind it, one that they can EXPLAIN to people, I suspect that would be a good thing. I was uncomfortable with the "AAAGHHH! PASS THIS BILL NOW SKY FALLING EMERGENCY DANGER WILL ROBINSON GIVE US MONEY THIS SECOND" thing.

I could very well be wrong. Maybe I ought to be buying a shotgun and rifle and stocking up on canned goods -- I have no idea.

. . . I kinda want a .22 bolt action rifle, anyway . . .

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

"Fun to shoot at the range" was my criterion.

And, according to Max Brooks, it is the best weapon to stop a zombie.

When society collapses, if I'm trying to shoot small game, it'll be VERY useful. If I'm trying to shoot people, I've pretty much already screwed up.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I don't know Max Brooks. And I agree about small game, but if you need to shoot people, it may not be you that screwed up. Defense is always optional, but the alternative sucks. The .22 will feed you, within reason (can't take a deer), you can have 2000 rounds of ammo in the space it takes to store one MRE, and if you are clever, you can use a little gun to get a bigger gun, see "liberator pistol".

Two of the guns I don't have but want are .22s. I want a .22 pump action rifle, and a .22 revolver. The pump would be fun to shoot if I lived in a place where I could just toss some reactive targets downrange and shoot a while, and the revolver is a great teaching gun. As it is, when I teach shooting, I have to use a 9mm or rent a .22 semi-auto.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks, and has written two books: The Zombie Survival Guide, and World War Z.

The zombies in his world are the result of a virus which is only transmissible by bites (or by getting a transplanted organ from a zombie, but that's statistically negligible). They have no reasoning capacity, very limited dexterity, don't move faster than 1 step every 1.5 seconds or so.

Bits chopped off of them do not remain animate. The only way to destroy them is to destroy the brain.

If a zombie is decapitated, the body is dead, but the head can still bite, and can still transmit the virus. The virus is 100% fatal, and 100% of the time, will raise the corpse as a zombie about 12 hours later.

Zombies freeze solid in extreme cold -- however, when they thaw out, they are just as dangerous as they originally were. All animals instinctively avoid them -- and this includes scavenger insects, and decomposition bacteria. They decompose very slowly, basically from fungal decompostion, and therefore can remain active for years.

Individually, zombies are not much of a threat, if you know what you're dealing with, but, in World War Z, most of the world didn't know -- and so millions, perhaps billions, of humans ended up as zombies. While ONE zombie is not a threat, a hundred thousand of them ARE.

After much of the world was zombified, humanity eventually went on a resurgence, and the newly-formed militaries discovered that the best weapon against zombies was a line of trained riflemen with scoped .22 rifles who would choose ground where the zombies had only one avenue of approach, and take careful aimed headshots.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've seen the books, but not read them. The gun geek in me wants to pick holes in that tactic. There's a bunch of more accurate, more powerful, longer range rounds that would work better on targets that require headshots. But then, I watch too much Futureweapons on TV. Maybe the vast wealth of .22 ammo would be a factor, we have tons of ammo in that caliber. But if a partial kill just leaves you with a biohazzard, .223 is still a lot better, and we have a lot of that too.

Mel and Max, it's interesting when talent runs in families. Mel was solidly an entertainment genius, and I know a lot of people think well of those two books.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Sure, there's plenty of .223 around.

But it's not in every single Wal-Mart in the remnants of the United States. Okay, you have to be careful entering the Wal-Marts, because there are probably a bunch of zombies still in them (if bitten people died in there, and then, in the twelve hours before they arose as zombies, the power went out, they're not going to be able to figure out how to open the powerless electric doors), but, once you draw them to the door and whack them over the head with a crowbar or hatchet, then you can resupply your entire team.

The advantage of the .22 is not only how much of it there is -- it's its ubiquity.

And there's no such thing as a partial kill with a zombie. If it's still moving, just line up a second shot.

The round in question...

[redknight.livejournal.com]

In World War Z, when the US military went on the offensive against the zombies their rifles used a derivative of the 5.56mm NATO round ("Our staple ammo was the NATO 5.56 'Cherry PIE'."). Although very similar to the .223 round voltbang referenced, there are a few small differences between .223 and 5.56 cartridges (the two are frequently used interchangeably, but they're not).

Re: The round in question...

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Oh, right. Now I remember. Wasn't it designed to fragment within the skull or some such?

Re: The round in question...

[redknight.livejournal.com]

Right. "PIE stands for pyrotechnically initiated explosive. Outstanding design. It would shatter on entry into Zack's skull and fragments would fry the brain."

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

If you're going for birds, you might want to add a 410 over and under shotgun to the mix.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I've never fired a shotgun -- can you load birdshot into a shotgun chambered for 12-gauge? 'Cause that might make the most sense, and allow hunting of deer and so forth as well.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Sorry, this is beyond my ken. You could always ask the local NRA. Seriously; they probably have all kinds of information freely available.