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ELP I could understand. I reckon NASA should have sent Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Karn Evil 9 to the aliens via Voyager. OK, the British rock trio isn’t an appropriate topic for NRA PR. But neither are electro-magnetic pulses. Don’t get me wrong: I get it. EMPs threaten to destroy our power grid at a stroke and throw America into chaos, as X-Box deprived teenagers suddenly discover this thing called “outside.” (Note: they won’t like it.) In the aftermath, guns will be extremely handy, one way or another. But . .

does the NRA really want to promote survivalism? I know that the NRA’s Board has more than a few survivalists in its number. PR-wise, I’m thinking it’s best for the NRA to focus on guns for fun, hunting and (especially) defense against enemies both foreign and domestic (i.e. government tyranny). Am I wrong? Does embracing survivalists make the nation’s oldest civil right group seem a bit, well, nutty?

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105 COMMENTS

      • First off survivalism is a lot less nutty to the mainstream than it was 5 years ago. Secondly there are a number of possible survival scenarios that make having a gun an even better idea than normal. A man made emp is one that could happen and a natural emp is certain and likely in most of our life times. Here where I live we have hurricanes and the NRA would do good to run ads with those in them here, that’s if every body was not already armed lol.

    • +1 Somebody needs to talk about it.

      It is related to firearms, but more importantly, it is related to the security of the free state – which is a fundamental part of the 2nd Amendment.

  1. I think it makes them look alarmist and paranoid. While it is a possibility that an EMP could happen, the chances are very low of this happening in the near future. Survivalists have their niche but I think that the NRA is too big to worry about every gun-owner niche. They should leave it to someone else to discuss.

    • Very low? The last study I read put the chance of a Carrington Event level solar storm in the next ten years at 1 in 12. That’s not very low to me.

      • And that’s the big one. Smaller ones are even more likely and could cause real regional trouble. There was a emp issue in Canada or BC I LN like the 90s that was pretty bad. Had it been 2000 and NYC it would have been something you knew about already that’s for sure.

      • It’s probably not bad to bring up or discuss.
        “Prepping” has become rather mainstream.
        But I guess I’ve got an open mind and I tend to read a lot.
        An EMP solar event is a very real possibility. Probably more likely than an enemy doing an air burst nuke over us.
        The book “One Second After” is a pretty good read on the subject.
        It makes you think… And that’s a good thing.

      • We’re already overdo for it, they hit every 250 years or so if I remember right. We’ve got 8 minutes from a flare to trip all the power plant breakers and throw our ham radios into foil lined faraday cages. My money is still on zombie apocalypse for the fun factor, but the damage potential for a solar EMP is freaking nightmarish.

      • Who needs an EMP? what about a regular old fashioned cascading blackout or the aftermath of a hurricane. Remember the blackouts after Sandy? Talk of EMPs sounds too far fetched for most people, but if you tie it back to events people remember reading about and point out that the effects are the same you give fewer people an excuse to tune out.

      • Someone should, but I’m not sure that someone should be the NRA, it’s rather far afield.

        Also, the use of guns is against the state, looting isn’t something you need to worry about (not saying it doesn’t happen), rather, the powers that be freak out, and use force to do awful things. Go read “A Paradise Built In Hell”, which is about how people and the state respond in disasters. Your fellow man (unless he’s worked himself into a frenzy about “looters” and shoots you on sight) will give you a hand, the state will be there to force you to do what they think is right (like, say, stay in a flooded city, rather than cross a bridge into their dry one).

    • Educate all on how one calculates the probability of a high altitude airburst nuke EMP event. Don’t leave out the impact of Obumer greenlighting Iran’s nuke program.

    • Nothing at all. But inner city libs would rather criticize people who would mention the topic than allow it to disturb their blissful ignorance and illusioned safety bubble.

      • +1. You are disturbing their *PERCEPTION* of safety – which as we’ve seen is all they care about anyways.

        Excuse me sir, can you please stop building that wall to keep the wolf out, you’re scaring the sheep.

    • I have to agree here. The only thing about that presentation that made it seem nutty was having North as the narrator. Other than that, it was just a dose of reality Americans need to be aware of.

      Sadly, one of the biggest enemies of preparedness on this issue is the electrical generation industry: they keep opposing measures to get people off the grid or even make the grid safer. Effectively, they’re putting their profits ahead of the nation (one of my ‘favorites’ was an effort to get it written into law that rather than paying people for power put into the grid, they would be allowed to charge people for the privilege of doing so!).

  2. EMP, ELP, ELO (Rockaria!), ATF — all fine topics. In the event of a natural or man-made catastrophe — Katrina, the Great Northeast Blackout and Hurricane Sandy come to mind — the Survivalists won’t look so damn nutty. They will look smart. The rest of us will look stupid. Or worse, we’ll look dead.

    Preparing for a worst-case disaster like an EMP assures the preppers that they can handle a lesser tragedy. The attitude that nothing bad can happen is something that we have come to expect from the unarmed and unaware. The AI knows better.

      • “…do you remember the birth rate after the great northeast blackout?”

        A big spike if memory serves. 🙂

        People got down to do recreation that doesn’t require electricity and can be comforting in times of stress… Like when the lights go out.

        I’m right here in Florida at the triangle where 3 hurricanes passed over in one month back in 2004. In August. It sucked.

        Those neighbors with generators were suddenly very popular with their neighbors.

        One guy got a reefer from the trucking company he drove for and was the neighborhood refrigerator. He suddenly had friends he never knew he had…

        • Sounds like they were all grateful and civil new friends…. lucky for him the incident didn’t last long enough to see that civility come to an abrupt end.

        • @Rad Man, ELO must be the most underrated of the big-selling rock bands ever. They sold 50 million records. There are other great bands out there that get no respect, but most of them were not big sellers. RF is a big fan of Little Feat, which was a good band that sold basically nothing.

  3. Since when did being prepared make one nutty? And if guns are important to survival, why shouldnt an organization that represents them care about sirvival also.

  4. Those underestimating what a rouge nation bent on hurting the USA could do with a single 1st-gen nuke need to grasp the reality.

    Put it in the cargo hold of airfreight and detonate over NYC. You now have 8 MILLION people on foot, doing whatever they can to get out of the hell NYC just became. No electricity. No transportation. Think of the riots.

    Where are you gonna put 8 million people, right now, not next week?

    Iran wants Israel *dead*. The best way to do that is cripple the US so we won’t be able to help them.

    “Carrington’ events can be planned for. You have some time to prepare. It involves taking the electric grid down to isolate the transmission transformers. Bringing the grid back on-line will be a major challenge, but we *can* prepare and practice for it.

    Protecting the grid from a solar event is something we MUST be proactive about.

    Demand a plan to protect the grid.

    (Perhaps the Demanding, nagging mothers can help…)

    • Iran attack the US with an EMP? The thought is laughable. They would be more likely to detonate such a device over Israel, and for which they would probably send a missile. Moreover, Iran’s military is geared towards defense; it is no position, from a tactical perspective, to back up a strike with an armed invasion, any more than they could invade Iraq back in the days they were fighting Saddam with chemical weapons. Third, attacking either the US or Israel would leave Iran massively exposed to a counter strike from US forces in the Gulf region and in Europe, which counter would likely include low yield “tactical” nuclear weapons delivered by cruise missile, against which it has no defense. Iran’s leadership can be pretty fanatical, but it is not suicidal.

      • “Iran attack the US with an EMP? The thought is laughable. They would be more likely to detonate such a device over Israel, and for which they would probably send a missile.”

        If Iran hits Tel Aviv with a nuke, Israel hits Iran with nuclear armed cruise missiles launched from their very quiet diesel-electric submarines.

        Saudi Arabia hates Iran and has already announced they will grant overfly rights with tanker and AWACS support to Israel to take out their nuclear program.

        House Saud has publicly implied they were the ones who funded the Pakistan nuke weapon programs and in return the Paki’s are holding for Saudi Arabia a complete nuclear weapon and all they have to do is pick it up.

        Hitting the US with a crude Iranian nuke stuffed into a cargo 747 offers them the biggest bang for the buck, so to speak.

        That’s hardly laughable…

        There’s also the upside that would turn New York State from a solid ‘D’ to a solid ‘R’ in the bargain.

      • Iran is different. Mutually Assured Destruction is not a viable defense against them. They would warmly welcome the opportunity to die in the process of bringing The Infidel to it’s knees. It would be a win-win, for them.

      • Mark,

        What stops a nation with a decent bankroll (like Iran) from loading a small nuke into a Lear or Citation jet and flying it all the way to the U.S.? Once in the U.S., they could fly just about anywhere and detonate it anywhere they want. Better yet, just load it into a modest (e.g. $4 million) yacht and sail it to the U.S. Then load it onto a Lear or Citation jet at a private airport and fly it wherever they want.

        Even easier, just load it into a shipping container and ship it to the U.S. The U.S. only inspects something like 1% of shipping containers that come in. As long as they ship it through some other country first, I highly doubt anyone will give it a second thought.

        Caveat: Lear and Citation Jets do not have the range to fly from Iran to the U.S. non-stop. They would of course have to make stops to refuel somewhere.

      • Anyone who is fearful over Iran’s military “might” has never sat in an intelligence briefing on the military status of SWA nations.

  5. Wise men prepare for the world to end, fools try to predict how it will happen. An emp being the catalyst for change is probably a bit farfetched, but it captures the imagination and it doesn’t involve the undead. In the mean time, it also opens up chances to discuss with the uninitiated all the other ways society can fall apart, tornadoes, flash floods, riots etc.

  6. Our electric grid a is real vulnerability. Man-made EMP, Carrington level solar flare, direct physical attacks on several nodes at once, or cyber attacks on the network are all valid threats that we’re not well defended against.

    To me this isn’t so much a survivalist issue, it is a national security issue. So yeah, it seems a little out of the NRA’s field to be talking about national security issues, but it’s an important one that potentially affects everyone (so the survivalist angle isn’t completely out of line) and it could certainly use the scrutiny.

  7. EMP is one of the long list of reasons why “smart guns” are a horrible idea. Whether man made or naturally occurring you don’t want to rely on a firearm that requires electricity to operate.

  8. Taking off my gunsmith hat and putting on my EE hat, the real threat to electrical grid reliability in the next 10 to 20 years from EMP/solar flare/magnetosphere issues isn’t what people should worry about.

    What people should worry about is nutty environmental policy shutting in or decommissioning huge amounts of scheduleable base load power sources and replacing coal-fired plants with solar panels, windmills, and unicorn flatulence as power sources.

    We have a 25kVA genset to deal with this issue, which is more than we need, but it was a deal at the time. In the future, I think people would be prudent to have a 8 to 10kVA genset powered by natural gas or propane hooked to a transfer switch on their house.

    • Whole-house gensets with automated transfer switching fed from a propane tank buried in the yard are quite popular here in hurricane alley.

      And should be with everyone everywhere.

    • Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but wouldn’t all electronics in the house (at least those turned on at the time) be permanently fried anyhow? Computers, TVs, auto ignitions, etc? Light bulbs and refrigerators, fine, but firing up a gen won’t fix everything. Still, a lake in the back yard, tame deer all around, and a gas grill with extra tank all make me feel like I can survive for a while.

      • ” Light bulbs and refrigerators, fine, but firing up a gen won’t fix everything”

        If the genset is electronically regulated, it may not survive either unless it’s in a properly constructed Faraday cage. For this purpose, a 1960’s unit with a mechanical governor, breaker point ignition and a manual transfer switch is the thing to have.
        The same applies to automobiles. If you own a classic with carb and points you’ll probably find it still runs.

        • Why take the chance? Mechanically injected diesels from the 70s/80s…

          Mercedes W123 diesels are still being used in the thirdest of third-worlds as taxis – and they haven’t built one since the mid 80s.

          As far as power generation, a Lister diesel will survive just fine.

    • What people should worry about is nutty environmental policy shutting in or decommissioning huge amounts of schedulable base load power sources and replacing coal-fired plants with solar panels, windmills, and unicorn flatulence as power sources.
      The biggest threat to our power grid is fanatical Donkeycraps, not fanatical Muslims.

  9. Actually the one thing that worries me most, is my the electronic lock on my gun safe. Someone pops off an EMP bomb, I wouldn’t be able to access a thing because they are all ‘safely’ locked up. Been thinking about getting a second manual box for the stuff I need to access in an emergency.

    • After having an electronic lock on a safe, and a mechanical lock on a second safe, there’s no question in my mind that all additional safes I buy will be mechanical.

      A local locksmith told me that he loves, loves, loves electronic locks on gunsafes. “A great little cottage industry for locksmiths…” as he termed it.

      If you have an electronic lock on your safe, use good batteries and change them often.

      • DG, I have five mechanical safes and one electronic. The electronic safe has a key override, so I’m not too concerned about being locked out. But I trust my mechanicals much more, and the rotating dials on my rifle safes also look cool. 🙂

        • The electronic safe has a key override, so I’m not too concerned about being locked out.
          What my electronic safe has as well.

      • If the lock is standard bolt pattern, sure they have a term for it you might be able to swap it out for a high security key setup like this: http://inkassafes.com/product/la-gard-keylock-assembly/

        La Gard high security key lock

        I had cheap Stack-On safe with mechanical spin lock, could not change the combo, with a little fabbin’ I got that lock to work in it. Now I just have to remember where I hide the key 🙁 Using it for documents and non firearm stuff but might be worth a moment to pull the inner door panel off and see if the bolts look like they are in the same place. I think I paid $120 for the lock with 2 keys.

    • I bought a large browning safe last year and it came with a package that included a keypad and fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint unlock was super cool and worked each time. However I still had a locksmith replace it with a S&G mechanical dial.

  10. Our government has a very impressive track record of failing to handle just about any emergency that comes along. It also has a pretty good track record of smashing the rights guaranteed by the Constitution any times it feels that the situation requires it to do so. Lincoln and posse comitatus and habeas corpus, Roosevelt and the Japanese- American internments, The firearm seizures during Katrina and Obama deciding that he could order the death of any American because they said scary things (drone strikes).

    An electromagnetic pulse is man made by the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the stratosphere over a targeted area. Congress if concerned enough about to have issued a report that warns we are in fact at extreme risk:
    http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109shrg21324/pdf/CHRG-109shrg21324.pdf

    and it’s not like Iran and Korea aren’t considering attacking the US via an EMP strike:

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/iran-endorses-nuclear-emp-attack-on-united-states/article/2561733

    There is also a coronal mass ejection (CMP) which is another horse of a different color:
    http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/CMEs.shtml

    A CMP can also destroy the electrical grid including anything with transistors or it could just incinerate all of us altogether.

    Should the NRA pursue this? I say yes because i think the NRA should use every possible argument to increase the public’s understanding that the government is not your friend and they probably will not be able to save or even help you in a regional or national emergency and you will most likely be on your own when it comes to defending yourself and family.

    An EMP attack or a CMP event is just one of a myriad of events that result is a regional or national “without rule of law” (WROL) event. The NRA does stand for all us in defending our right to keep and bear arms so i don’t think they are out of line

    • Thanks for the link to the Senate report. I remembered they’d done one but couldn’t remember when. I just sent a note to my Senator, suggesting a way to get some back up transforners n stock,

      I wouldn’t normally think that the NRA wouldn’t invest in something like this. The context of SHTF and needing firearms to protect oneself makes sense though.

  11. Pretty long list of factual errors in the video:
    – “there hasn’t been a new generation plant built in decades” – Preposterous. EIA data shows over 10000 megawatts added in 2012 alone.
    – “EHV transformers are only built in 2 foreign countries” – False. There are multiple plants in the US (Efacec and ABB) as well as others in Canada and Mexico.

    EMP is an issue that could threaten our grid, but not to the scale that the video suggests, and certainly it wouldn’t be an “easy” attack for someone to carry out.

    • The EHV transformers are all made to order, and order to delivery is about 3 years, as I understand it.

      And that’s if the factory has electricity.

      • SPX builds them right here in Waukesha (WI), although it isn’t the sort of thing that’s stocked too deep or wound up quickly.
        Oak Ridge Natn’l Laboratory has done some testing and found that power transformers equipped with direct mounted lightning surge protectors would likely survive an EMP event. Protecting the installed stock would seem the way to go.

    • Lot of new NG powered peak shaving genset and sillyass windmills have been installed. NOT the same thing as a REAL power plant to cover base load.

      I think the point that only source of BIG transformers is correct. Recently a huge transformer installed in NE Iowa (due to lots of sillyass windmills and unicorn fart gensets). I recall that it came from Germany and story was 3yr leadtime. Barged across the Atlantic and up the Mississippi then special 50 some axle tractor trailer rig. Weight of a couple thousand tons or some such. NOT going to replace one of these soon.

      Was not long ago out West (Kommiefornia as I recall) there was a spate of rifle attacks on transformers. Very bad think for a FD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KICOnlut0M8

  12. I would rather them discuss EMP possibilities than try to shift blame wrongful blame from guns to wrongful blame of entertainment.
    .
    At least my son got a laugh when I told him he should take note because he would not like the outside if he couldn’t play his “X-Box” any longer. He just went back to getting his gun gear ready for the outdoor shoot we are headed to. We will probably play some video games together when we get back after cleaning the guns, somehow managing to break the mutually exclusive barrier and hurting nobody in the process. 😉

  13. Candles. Water. Beenie weenies. TP. Lots of buckshot. Check, check and check.

    Never played a video game and like outside better, anyway.

  14. Let’s not forget that FEMA publishes a graphic novel, “Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic,” to demonstrate the importance of being prepared for anything and everything. Download it on Google books. The artwork is okay.

  15. No the NRA needs to stick to. This is the perfect example why, the threat of an EMP attack is essentially nill. All that talk of doom and gloom ignoring two very important facts. First for a single nuclear bomb to do that type of damage it needs to be in the multi megaton range, which a terrorist is probably not going to get a hold of. Second and more importantly how the F*** are they going to get it up to 15+ miles high in order to have that kind of effect.

    • I’m not so worried about Iran or North Korea knocking out most of the major national grids with a high altitude EMP, I don’t think they are anywhere close to having the tech for that. On the other hand, I believe some of China’s plans for a region move in the the Pacific, should they choose to make one, include high-altitude EMP strikes on the US.

      • At that point though we would have other issues, like a major war on our hands, possibly even nuclear one. Our military equipment is EMP hardened, so we would still have a fighting force (or at least it is suppose to be, since during the cold war if things got hot the equipment was suppose still be functional after near blasts. Though since the cold war ended 25 years ago now I am not sure if the military has been keeping up with that requirement)

        • Territorial ambitions aside, China is as much dependent upon our buying their goods to sustain their economy as we are on their credit; not only would an EMP attack on the US destroy the Chinese economy, it would trigger WWIII. I really don’t think, absent massive upheaval in Chinese society over which we have no control, such an event is likely. We have already demonstrated to China that we have three boomers ready to attack should the need arise, one near South Korea, on in the Philippines, and one near Diego Garcia. And then there is the Pacific Fleet, plus all of the troops stationed in the island nations on the east side of the China Sea. China loves to posture and threaten, but I don’t think at this point in time it wants to pull the trigger.

          Nor, given the current situation in Europe, is Russia a significant threat of EMP nuclear attack on us or our allies. Certainly it presents the greatest risk of territorial expansion, BUT should it do so using nuclear arms or EMP munitions, it would suddenly be saddled with a refugee crisis far worse than the one currently engulfing Europe. It is far more likely to use threats of conventional arms, continued intrusions by its Bear bombers, and propaganda and subversion to achieve Putin’s territorial goals of re-establishing the USSR. Given the sad state of most of the militaries on the Continent, especially including the British and German forces, plus the social liberal agenda of Europe’s governments, it may succeed without a shot being fired.

        • I’m trying to remember the year, but save for Cheyenne and some very limited systems – the EMP protection requirement was dropped decades ago.

      • Like I said Kilotons don’t cut it. It might put the hurt on a state but the rest of the US would be fine, so while it would suck for that state organized relief measures would quickly start flooding into the area, and it would not be the complete societal collapse that they are talking about in this video. of course after such an attack our military would than go and destroy whoever attacked us.

        • Although Starfish Prime yield was about 1.5 megatons, there was absolutely nothing around compared to today.

          Consider all the stuff in low earth orbit – without it the electronic world simply crashes. Logistics from getting your milk at the store, to coal for the power plant disappear. A properly designed 10+kt device delivered near any grouping of satellites? Blast takes out tens, EMP many hundreds. Destabilizing the orbits will knock out many more hundreds over the next months.

  16. I have no problem with the NRA doing something like this, but I’m a prepper so no surprise there.

    it’s all about calculating risk, you take the likelihood of an event and the impact of that event and determine the risk level. From there you design countermeasures to mitigate that risk.
    My Risk assessment is that a grid down event is very unlikely but the impact of the event if one should it come to pass will make the Riots in Baltimore look like a Sunday school picnic. As such I have contingency plans in place and none of them involve becoming a zombie hunter or mad max.

    it’s the same as anything else, a home invasion robbery is very unlikely but the impact of it could very well be fatal so prepare accordingly.

    you can never eliminate risk you can only accept it, transfer it or mitigate it. There in never a risk free option.

    Respectfully Submitted

  17. What, foreign enemies would not use EMPs to disable our infrastructure? Would we not want to protect against them? Is protecting against EMP damage entirely divorced from the exercise of RKBA in that scenario?

  18. Nice video, slickly produced, with a couple of real experts, and explained in a way that almost no one could fail to understand. Should it be something the NRA is doing? Yep!

    More and more folks view the NRA as a reliable source for good information and honesty. Not just those of us who are members, but all kinds of folks who own guns, and even some who don’t. The problem with EMP is that if a nation has acquired nukes this is the most efficient way to deploy them against any developed country. Folks are finally waking up to the reality that it isn’t just Russia and China that are potential threats to their own personal safety and welfare.

  19. The focus of the NRA needs to be on two things: protecting the right to keep and bear arms, and facilitating firearms safety and skills classes for people with an interest in shooting sports, self-defense, and the like. There are plenty of things still left to be done in both of those areas, and while the threat of an EMP due to enemy action or solar flare is something that is something that should be a matter of policy concern for state and federal governments, the NRA is the wrong organization to deliver that message.

    I’m not giving them money to talk about EMPs, abortion, immigration, supply-side economics, Obamacare, or anything that doesn’t have to do with guns.

  20. Read the book “One Second After” by William Forschten. I did, it scared the Hell out of me, and I bought my AR a week later.

  21. When I was visiting my family near Flint back in 2012, right around Christmas during a snow-storm, somebody blasted a bunch of insulators that night with a shotgun at an isolated transformer-station. Pretty much all of northwest Genessee County (Birch Run, Montrose, Clio) was without power in sub-20s. It took Consumer Power about 3 days in near 0 degree weather to get out to those insulators and restore service. AFAIK, the sheriff out there never figured out who did it, or why.
    An EMP doesn’t worry me so much as the vulnerable transformer-stations and power-lines, seeing as how other locations have been shot at as well in other states.

  22. Sure why wouldn’t the NRA talk about it-or just general preparedness. Guns will still work won’t they?!? Honestly I think it may be an overdue caldera super-volcano eruption in Yellowstone(or even Italy).Or more likely an economic meltdown( much worse than 2008) Whatever-JESUS is at the door-be prepared.

  23. I don’t see it as the NRA’s place to devote time and money to prepping. There are plenty of other outlets dedicated to the subject already. Let’s stick with the 2nd Amendment, shall we? Kind of a big deal right now.

    I make disaster preparations, but my life doesn’t revolve around it. I live in a natural disaster-prone area, many people have preparations to one degree or another. I’m not planning for the end of the world. but I have tools, knowledge, and skills that will help me should the extremely slim chance it were to occur.

  24. Both the United States and China have been developing drone missiles with EMP weapons. China, Russia, and ISIS all employ hackers who have the potential to target power grids or electronic systems – for example, even if your lights continue to work, bank accounts might be compromised leading to a bank holiday and associated mayhem at the atm, at the check out lanes, gas stations, airports, etc. Our dependence on electronic information is very strong, but the defenses for these systems is very weak.

  25. I don’t worry about EMP from nukes any more (I grew up in the cold war), you need a real rocket, and a nuke, and an understanding that the USA is going to retaliate with nukes, and we have a bunch. So, short of a full scale war, I don’t see it happening. North Korea knows the game would be over, and the same for the rest of them. (Classically, an EMP attack against the USA is a 1 megaton bomb detonated 330 miles (500km) above Kansas City)

    But another Carrington event ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 ) is going to happen sooner or later, and that would be much worse, it may well be global, and take out all power transmission. It would be followed by a mass die off of the population. We need to spend just a little money (and regulatory effort) to protect the grid from it. There is nothing we can do to prevent another event, but we certainly can control what happens to us. It could just be a chance for everyone on the plant to see the aurorae (and if near the equator, to see the aurora borealis and aurora australis simultaneously.

    It’s scary. We should do something about it. And by we, I mean every human who uses electricity. So, yeah, a less survivalist (frankly, having a gun may just mean you starve to death last, because if you are in or near an urban area, people are going to eat everything vaguely edible within 200 miles, and then starve to death, if we have a total collapse) push by the NRA, and everyone else, is a good thing.

  26. Oh, and as to power transmission lines, balloons, with aluminized Mylar ribbons. Heck, one guy driving around doing that would be a huge nightmare. Perhaps with some sort of delay or remote command system for releasing them.

    Having to replace a bunch of chunks of power lines would be bad, and a disaster to have that much of the grid die at once, but as a civilization, we’d survive.

    Also, that video says there hasn’t been a new power plant built in decades. That is absurd. There hasn’t been a new nuke built in this country in decades, and perhaps not major hydroelectric (most of the good damn sites are taken already), but plenty of gas, coal (I assume), solar, geothermal, etc have been built, even in built up areas like Silicon Valley (south San Francisco bay area).

    Yeah, I also thought back in the 1980s that terrorists really wanted to kill people, they’d hijack aircraft, and fly them into things. Not being a religious nut Saudi or a Bircher, I don’t have an obsession with the World Trade Center, my pick would have been the Super Bowl, though thinking about it now, a large automatic mortar would be good enough to cause a panic that would trample huge numbers of people, and you might not even get caught.

  27. A rouge nation does not need an EMP to take out the electrical grid. Those transformers are not guarded, and a rifle with armor piercing rounds can knock them out as easy as an EMP. EMP many be unlikely, but an aftermath that is just as devastating is very likely.

  28. I purposely do not discuss survival types situations and would prefer to keep it within a small community. If in the very unlikely event that something were to happen, I wouldn’t want everyone and their mother fully trained in survival situations; that means more competition. The first few months will be completely chaotic and everyone will be fighting over resources. Once the weak fall off then the prepared can form together and rebuild.

  29. It might come off as paranoid and unrelated to their stated goals, definitely. But for what it is worth I have heard interesting rumors that Russia is now fielding a weapon system that can direct an EMP at specific, city sized targets. It stands to reason that our own government is working on something similar if it doesn’t already exist in our arsenal.

    • We’ve had EMP bombs for some time, flux compression generator bombs or the like. But, that’s a localized thing, even destroying all electrical devices in a 100 mile radius would not be a big deal (a mess, but no one would starve), only a continent or larger sized event is really scary (no way to get enough food, or even water, to the people in the area, or to evacuate them to safety).

  30. Wait, being prepared for a disaster is “nutty?”

    So then you’ve gotten rid of your fire extinguishers and seatbelts and cancelled your insurance, right?

    • Yup. The 49% who will be lined up outside Walmart with the SNAP EBT cards that wont work in the ATMs when the power goes out. How’d that work out after 3 days in New Orleans?

  31. Whether you are surviving a home invasion, corrupt government, EMP, or an attack by a street punk weapons for self protection is a good idea. I have a 5000 gallon water filter, just in case. mrpresident2016.com

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