When it really happens: SHTF...

[Ovidio]

We’ve been free to travel inside Italy since yesterday.
Strange feeling indeed...
Saturday I’ll go pick up my new Bernardelli and, if I can get there, also the Colt.
Traffic has increased to normal levels.
People behave almost normally, still keeping distance as required, many still using face covers, but all in all here, where we had it “light” compared to Lombardy, life is starting again. I see it in our only bar. We started again with that wonderful rite of going to mass and, after that, to the bar with our priest following asap. I missed that more than everything else.
I got two nice orders in the last two days, both from Germany.
I have lots of machines to deliver or to make factory acceptance tests with, but still little intereuropean mobility...
My FATs are mostly via Skype.
I can’t get people to even thinking of coming here, although we have had zero new infections in the last few days, and just a handful in two weeks.
Today a shooting pal of mine went to the local arms shop to see his new Remington 700 VSF... a mouthful. They’ll install the optic, then we’ll go shooting together next week. The owner of the shop gave him a small package for me. A present.
He came by a couple hours ago and gave it to me: RCBS neck sizing dies for .303 British. The only calibre (with the 6.5 Carcano) that I still load with the Lee loader or little manual systems. He really surprised me and made me happy.
I’ll go buy a truckload of ammo and powder in the coming days.

[Aragorn243]

Well, we went from the government slowly starving our businesses to death to just outright burning them down. Starvation too slow. And the solution they want to this is to defund the police. Can it get any crazier. Why yes it can. Two videos surfaced yesterday, the first a naked man wearing white socks and picking fights with rioters, two and three at a time. And the second, a freak woman baring her breasts, pulling her shorts down and taking a pee and a crap on an upside down police car while the crazies egg her on.

The vast majority of the nation is moving along but a small number of the big cites are bent on destroying themselves one way or another.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

And the second, a freak woman baring her breasts, pulling her shorts down and taking a pee and a crap on an upside down police car while the crazies egg her on.

Sounds like any weekday in NYC.

[Ovidio]

I took the babies home...
Shot them some... First the Bernardelli, which shot way high. Some adjustment and 60 rounds. Then the Colt on the same target, just changing the reactive one. Shot way low. Some adjustment also here, then fairly ok with 50 rounds in all.
I shot quite rapidly. Not too shabby, but I keep noticing, when at the range, that I’m much more tense than before the virus...
I was surprised by the full size of the Colt. Same as the .38, just smaller holes... Feels great and, if it weren’t for the small bang, it would be difficult to say that it shoots. No muzzle rise at all.
The Bernardelli is like a vault. Solid like a rock, no plays and great trigger. The front lockings keep the barrel so tightly in place...
The Colt’s trigger is, I guess, as good as a trigger can be. A dream.
I’ll use those two babes a lot. We’re great friends already.
It was also great to go out of my region without limits...
More freedom every day. I just hate that I’m getting it back, when I should never have been taken it away, at least not the way it was done here: completely unconstitutionally.
That will stay with me for my remaining days on this world.
I won’t accept it a second time.

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[Aragorn243]

It's funny. All of a sudden the governor is out walking with the protestors with no social distancing yet we are still not to be in large gatherings. Businesses can open now but have a lot of restrictions. Economy is already rebounding to the utter astonishment of the minority party that's done its best to destroy it. Protest today in my home town, maybe 200 people at most calmly standing downtown with their stupid little signs. Saw a couple of police just standing in the middle of them, no riot gear. Didn't expect much else here. So Fauci, the head honcho virus man is now saying a rebound in the fall is not inevitable. Several US doctors are supporting the Italian doctors that said the virus has weakened. Meanwhile, mayors that supported the protests, did nothing about the riots, turned a blind eye to the looting and burning are now working to defund their police departments and at the same time are BEGGING Walmart, Target and other stores that were looted and destroyed to rebuild and not abandon them. I swear these people don't have a bit of brain in their heads. Gun shows are starting locally next weekend, can't wait. I will be getting my Romanian Tokarev.

This was the first weekend of the season for Yard Sales. I did have a pretty good day but not really militarily. I got a shelter half that I'm not sure of the era but it's fairly new. I think at least one of the posts is WWI however which would be nice because mine are reproductions. I'm not sure however. Need to research it. The seller threw in a mosquito net that I know absolutely nothing about, never saw one before. It has nylon construction so it's a "modern" item also. I also got a pair of suspenders I would have had when I was serving with what I believe to be a Vietnam era belt but again, I have to look into that. I got some other non-military items, got a lot of exercise in the process.

Came home relaxed a bit, went and got some chicken from a place we like and watched "The Longest Day". Love that movie. Surprised no one has colorized it yet or maybe they have and I just haven't seen it.

[Ovidio]

Our theorists (virologists) keep the alarm high, while the “clinical” doctors, those who fight in the hospitals, say that the virus is clinically dead and to stop killing the economy.
Now it is funny to see the reactions from politicians, journalists, “dwarfs and dancers”.
The supporters of our clowns in the government don’t know how to attack and make a character assassination on those doctors they called heroes for three months now that they don’t fit their narrative anymore.
I keep doing things as I feel reasonable and sit and watch.
Best movie ever!
And I really never had more grilling, bbqing, pizza baking in my whole life than these last two months.
I’m starting to really appreciate being home.

[Ovidio]

Yesterday, for a short moment, it looked like the Soviets dropped the bomb...
I was just out of a large woods and saw this. 10 km from home. A long, circular cloud moving at full speed...
Seldom got so much water, but it was fun, energising, exciting (but for a couple of lightnings falling a bit too close for comfort...).
And this feeling of freedom!
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[mrclark303]

Yesterday, for a short moment, it looked like the Soviets dropped the bomb...
I was just out of a large woods and saw this. 10 km from home. A long, circular cloud moving at full speed...
Seldom got so much water, but it was fun, energising, exciting (but for a couple of lightnings falling a bit too close for comfort...).
And this feeling of freedom!
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What an amazing picture Ovidio, so glad things are opening up for you again mate..

[Ovidio]

Thanks Mr. Clark.
Also the UK seems to be doing better, correct?
I'm glad to see that this thread is slowly fading. It means that, in general, things are starting to get better a bit everywhere.
I'm thinking a lot about all what happened and the changes that situation caused, especially to me.
I feel a very different person now.
It's just that I still can't really figure out what changed deep inside. I feel it, but I can't focus yet.
The next weeks and months will be interesting.
My fear now is that our donkeys will definitely kill the educational system (schools ended yesterday here, after being closed since the 25th of February).
We don't know yet how they will reopen in September... Our unions in the school system are so powerful, so stalinistic, that they can do whatever they want. Teachers get the full pay and are not even forced to really teach. A lot depends on the school's principal. My son, 17, goes to a very good classical lyceum. He's had 5 to 6 hours of lessons every day through Internet. Great effort by everybody: teachers and pupils. They really could go on with the program. The girls, 14 and 10, no. They got some exercises and homework by mail at the beginning, then through some of those things like Google Classroom etc. But the principal (I could choke him with my bare hands!) always refused video lessons, saying that they are not a good didactical instrument, that he's a professional (from Dover?) and knows what's best, that there are privacy problems with video lessons (my brother's kids, same ages, have had video lessons like my son, all the time!). At the end he budged a tad and the last 4 weeks the girls had 20 minutes of video lesson per subject PER WEEK!!!
Now, everybody got promoted and on holiday. No meeting at the end of the year is allowed. Actually, a ministerial circular explicitly prohibits teachers and other school personnel to organise or even take part also in private gatherings. That is a plain threat.
And behind all this there are the unions. Money for no work. Now they really realised their wet dream.
But the "normal" people, the workers in private enterprises, are getting really angry.
State workers against private workers. South against North. Again, but this time on a much bigger scale.
So, I must admit that, after the first few weeks, my worries shifted from the disease, which started to appear less and less threatening, to the consequences on the economy, on the social balance of the country, on the future of my kids.
Italians are very different compared to other people: here, everybody is a fan, a partisan. There is no way to get the Italians united for a common goal. We are great, unbeatable in small, flexible organisations, but in big ones, everybody goes his own way.
And this is much more so in public matters.
The Covid just exacerbated all this, and is bringing the system to a point where there might be very serious consequences.
I admit that I really dream about a secession of the North. Worst case scenario, a very strong federal system, actually a confederation of independent states. That's all I would tolerate. I'm not like the others down south, and don't want to be with them anymore. Not under this state organisation. If they want to be a third world country, free to go. And all our old school communists with them. Parasites.
And more and more people are drifting in this same direction...

[Gil Boyd]

Ovidio,
I'm certainly NOT a doom and gloom merchant as those that know me will agree, however, I think our death toll, was one probably that could have been reduced greatly, had WE not had that British Stiff Upper Lip in play and listened to common sense.
When I look back, and certainly just days before the lockdown a Madrid football game was allowed to take place here in the UK, where fans were flying in from Spain, from an area blighted by COVID at the time with a very high death rate. Did that have an impact on deaths??
Chelmsford 4 day horse racing event where thousands congregated, did that have an impact?? I hope we have ALL learnt from this virus...........................until the next one!!
I think hindsight is a wonderful commodity, but I do believe the scientists and Policticians that have to heed their advice di the right thing overall.

NO Political views please!!