Jittery Californians Buying Bullets And Safes

[Kadie]

Oct 1, 2008 8:58 am US/Pacific

Jittery Californians Buying Bullets And Safes

MARYSVILLE (CBS/AP) ― Business is up at a Marysville survival supply store as jittery Californians react to the economic uncertainty.

Tom King, owner of Sutter Surplus Sales, says he's been selling ammunition by the pallet.

He's nearly sold out of instant military-style meals and is urging customers to buy dehydrated foods instead as they bunker down.

His customers say they're getting ready to install security fences and raise their own food if need be.

And with the economy suffering blow and blow, some people are even afraid to keep their money in the bank. Some are buying personal safes.

more...
http://cbs13.com/local/surplus.supplies.safes.2.830083.html

[Hestia]

1. My gosh, for once quit feed the fear, feed hope.

[ThomWV]

2. When I was young the same people's parents were building bomb shelters

[slackmaster]

35. When I was in high school, some friends and I converted a 1950s bomb shelter into a darkroom

We had to pump out about six feet of water first.

The shelter was in the back yard of one of my friends, about a block from where I lived. His father was a junior scientist on the Manhattan Project, as were a number of parents of people in the area.

[McCCain4retirment]

3. This is like Y2K all over again

[Cleita]

4. Putting that money in a safe isn't going to help if the government

prints more money to cover the debt created by the 700 billion dollar bailout. The money then could become worthless. Take a lesson from the Weimar Republic in Germany after WWI. Right now the best thing those rednecks in Sutter County can do is hunker down until after the election. Also, they need to replace their Republican reps in Congress this election as well as local pols. It will help more than all the guns and ammo in the world. Sure growing one's own food doesn't hurt. I'm planning on doing the same but cheeze, this isn't the end of world.

[Virginia Dare]

9. They'd choose the path of Hitler over the path of FDR..

that is a sad reality.

[Captain Hilts]

11. Ain't that the truth!

[SidneyCarton]

38. They need wheelbarrows instead.

There is an apocryphal story of the Weimar Republic at the height of the great inflation. A man took a wheelbarrow full of cash to a shop to buy a loaf of bread. As the currency was patently worthless, he left it out on the sidewalk while he went in to make his purchases. When he got outside he found that someone had stolen his wheelbarrow, and left the cash behind!

While this is unlikely to be true, it illustrates the point. Germans did use Marks as wall paper in the early '20s as it was good for little else.

[Cleita]

39. What was probably true was that many Germans found their life

savings only worth a sack of potatoes, or so said William Shirer in his book, "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich".

[SidneyCarton]

45. I loved Shirer's book.

A lot of historians reject some of his central premises (nazism was a distinctly German phenomenon) but as a basic explanation of what happened on the ground, he knew what was going on.

[mulsh]

5. I'm in Oakland, Ca. I just got back from a weekend party with my

oldest friend up in Nevada City. Nearly every one at this large party was conservative/republican, the ones I talked to spoke of nothing else but how bad Obama and "those people are". Of course it was clear who "those people" are and that they don't live anywhere near the people at the party.

In SF last week I watched the cops let a guy who assaulted three people in Washington Square park go free but arrest the person who got punched and kicked by this guy. In fact all of my interaction with local cops in SF and Oakland has been highly negative. I'm fat, fifty and walk with a cane these days, I look like an older office worker on his break, not exactly a garden variety anarchist/rabble rouser.

so the other night while I was waiting for the Daily show the thought of buying a gun popped into my head. It surprised me, I've never wanted to own a gun but the above people are making me think it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have at least one around my house.

I probably will never buy a gun but just having that thought depresses me.

[Cleita]

6. Those people up in the Sierras need a reality check. They need to

vote their Republican Congress people out of office this time if they want things to change for the better. As far as having a gun if you are handicapped, it's a bad idea. It gives the criminals something else they want to steal from you and they could shoot you with your own gun.

[MicaelS]

14. The worst thing in the world

Is to have a gun and not be psychologically prepared to use said gun. If you cannot take a human life do not buy one.

[avaistheone1]

20. Lately that the idea of purchasing a gun crossed my mind.

But, I still dismiss it. Maybe I can't accept things are getting so bad.

The police really have grown to be quite abusive and militaristic. It is very unsettlingly.

[jrockford]

7. why not just hide it under the mattress? nt

[Virginia Dare]

8. If this is the way you react to an economic crisis, then you are a coward..

face reality folks, you're not going to be able to shoot your way out of every problem. I know your hero Chimpy McFlightsuit led you to believe that you could, but sadly he lied.

[rvablue]

10. California is in a lot worse shape than the rest of the country....

Prop. 13 ruined the state's revenue system

I lived there for more than a decade and was always waiting for it to catch up to them.

The chickens are coming home to roost finally.

[Greyhound]

12. Wrecked their education system too.

Since the looting that Beige Davis allowed, the whole state has been living on their real estate credit cards.

It is inevitable when one sector, housing in this case, is allowed to outstrip the income of the majority of incomes.

[rvablue]

15. Don't think it had much to do with David

Prop. 13 was passed in '73 and froze property tax rates.

And the elhi system is a mess. Schools in upper class communties are third world.

[Greyhound]

21. Oh no, two issues, I think Prop 13 was under Deukmejian**

Beige Davis knuckled under to the energy companies taking a state surplus and put CA into a massive hole.

The only reason he won re-election (which gave then Ahnuld) was the CA republiks were so dedicated to their reich-wing agenda they passed on Riordan as too liberal and nominated a little _bush (stupid, monumental failure at life, born into wealth) already under indictment.

**Oops, it was Jerry Brown.

[rvablue]

23. Yeah, it was under Brown, but it was a voter-initiative, didn't need his sig. n/t

[Greyhound]

25. That makes sense, I was a kid in school at the time so all I really knew

at the time was that my entire curriculum was abolished from one semester to the next (but the football team got $2M).

[Cleita]

41. Proposition 13 was hatched by Jarvis under the approval of Reagan when

he was Governor. They couldn't get it passed then but Al Jarvis and his enablers were able to pass it under Jerry Brown's governorship although Brown didn't approve of it. Brown was able to hold off the fiscal implosion that was caused by proposition 13 for three more years by using a budget surplus he had accumulated, but once that was gone then the awful effects of Prop 13 became apparent, most visibly the thousands of homeless that suddenly appeared in the streets of most major cities.

[slackmaster]

43. The surest way for a California politician to not get elected is to attack Prop 13

Homeowners love it, and we vote.

[Shakespeare]

48. Why, that's downright republican of you.

Good for you! :sarcasm:

Public support of Prop 13 is down to about 56% right now. If the right amendment came along, don't be so sure it wouldn't pass.

[slackmaster]

50. It takes 55% of the popular vote to approve tax increases

Just fix the rules on commercial property assessments, and we'd all be better off.

[spinbaby]

13. As California goes...

...so goes the rest of the country.

[slackmaster]

37. The only problem with the state's revenue system is an out-of-control legislature

One that spends more than it takes in even when revenues are higher than anticipated.

Prop. 13 ruined the state's revenue system

That is bullshit. Property tax revenues per capita are higher now than they were in 1973, even adjusted for inflation. School spending per student is about the 8th highest in the nation. The problem is waste.

[Shakespeare]

40. Bullshit.

If property taxes had been allowed to increase in line with those in the rest of the country, we likely wouldn't have seen real estate prices here go through the roof.

Prop 13 is an unmitigated disaster, and it needs to be amended, if not repealed.

Go into any public school and show me where the waste is. We've lost almost every good (and important) elective humanities program, and the science side hasn't done too well, either.

[slackmaster]

42. Horse puckey.

People were literally being taxed out of house and home.

My parents' house was reassessed in FIVE CONSECUTIVE YEARS from 1969 - 1973. Their taxes more than tripled during that time. They had not budgeted for the increase, we were not wealthy, it was not fair.

Prop 13 is an unmitigated disaster, and it needs to be amended, if not repealed.

The only thing wrong with Prop 13, that I would agree needs to be amended, is the ease with which commercial properties can be transferred from one entity to another without being reassessed. The provisions for residential property are just fine, and protect people from insane taxation like they have in some other states, particularly the ones that have no income tax. California has high income taxes, fuel taxes, and sales taxes. We don't need to gouge homeowners for more property tax.

Go into any public school and show me where the waste is.

The waste is not in the schools themselves. Teachers are underpaid. The problem is administrative waste - too many administrators getting paid too much.

[Shakespeare]

46. Wrong. There's not much administrative waste, either.

A study by the RAND Corporation in 2005 showed that California public schools have fallen to 48th in achievement in most surveys (this, after leading in the nation through the 1960s), and it's directly traceable back to Prop 13. Prop 98 in the mid 80s slowed the sharp decline in spending per pupil by the state, but it still hasn't improved much.

Your parents may have been taxed to the teeth, but--welcome to California. Just because people didn't like paying the taxes didn't mean it should be capped at 1 percent in perpetuity. Letting the tax rates evolve without the cap would, as I said in the previous post, likely have had a mitigating effect on the astronomic rise in real estate prices here. I live here too, and I'm in no hurry to see my taxes go up, but the Heisenberg effect of poorly educated students hurts us all as a society.

The RAND study can be found here:

http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/spring2005/ulttest.html

[slackmaster]

49. It's not capped at 1%

The state, cities, and counties can vote in whatever additional taxes they want to cover things like bond payments, hazard mitigation, etc. As noted in the RAND study, in 2002, bonds totalled over $20 million.

Letting the tax rates evolve without the cap would, as I said in the previous post, likely have had a mitigating effect on the astronomic rise in real estate prices here.

That may be true, and I have said so myself on several occasions. But there is not turning back from Proposition 13. It has far too much support from people who actually vote.

[Shakespeare]

51. It IS capped at one percent. The other taxes go to all citizens, not just homeowners.

I'm a person who actually votes, and as I said in my other post to you, public support for it isn't as strong as it used to be. We'll see what happens when the right amendment comes along.

[slackmaster]

53. My PROPERTY TAX bill has surcharges totalling about 10% of my property tax

Mostly for school bonds, which I voted for. I believe there will be a proposition on the November ballot for another $50 (per PARCEL) assessment for fire protection. If there is, I will vote for it.

I'm happy to pay my fair share, but even with the 1% of assessed value cap on property tax, if the county was allowed to reassess me even now with home values down from a year ago, my property tax would triple.

I pay plenty of taxes.

[AlCzervik]

16. everyone should pay attention to California, what happens here blows east.

[tjwash]

18. Yeah...somethings blowing all right.

And it smells like the pastures I drive by in Ramona.

[tjwash]

17. Bullets? What the fuck; haven't they learned from the terra fear mongering that duct tape cures all?

I know...terrorism destroying the country is so 20 minutes ago...it's all about "unless you give us all your money we're destroyed" now. :eyes:

[EFerrari]

19. Holy cow, I hope no one in this hood is doing that.

I know these people. They'd probably shoot themselves or one of their cats by accident. lol

[spin]

22. It would be my bet that plenty of people in the hood...

already have firearms.

[EFerrari]

24. No here. We don't even have tire irons.

:)

[girl gone mad]

26. My brother in law..

started stocking up on supplies a couple of weeks ago.

of course, he's also Rapture Ready.

[dogpatch]

27. Could be earthquakes

We stocked up recently on earthquake supplies like food, water etc (NOT a gun however) because we feel increasingly insecure about any federal response in case a big one hits and we're on our own for a few days or more. Things have obviously deteriorated even more since Hurricane Katrina so that's what our motivation is, might be what is going on for other Californians as well.

[CreekDog]

28. I'm sure everyone in Marysville will be safer if they have more ammo to shoot at each other

:eyes:

[LeftyMom]

29. Knowing Marysville, they're more likely trying to protect thier meth labs.

Marysville. :eyes:

[CreekDog]

30. Still better than Oroville

:dilemma:

[LeftyMom]

31. What isn't?

Okay, Olivehurst. :scared:

[CreekDog]

32. we could keep playing this game you know

but all we'll accomplish is naming every town in Yuba and Sutter counties.

:hide:

[LeftyMom]

33. Pretty much.

Can we send the Okies back yet?:D

[Freddie Stubbs]

34. This reminds me of the rice shortage a few months ago

[slackmaster]

36. Anyone buying ammunition now is taking it in the shorts

Prices are WAY up compared to a couple of years ago.

I stocked up several years ago. There are two crates of .30-'06 from the Civilian Marksmanship Program under my computer desk. Even their prices have doubled in about five years.

http://www.thecmp.org/ammosales.htm

[ddeclue]

44. Put the bullets in the safes so no one gets hurt...

Paranoia is rampant and the newspapers are piling on to sell their fishwrappers.

This is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Calm down and stop freaking out.

Doug D.

[slackmaster]

47. Wrong

You put the FIREARMS in the safe.

[ddeclue]

52. I was assuming that they were already there...

:)