Good Point

Oleg Volk makes a good point at his blog, which I normally read for firearms information. Oleg is a very influential photographer in the firearms internet and one of my daily reads.  He's also an emigrant from the old USSR, so he speaks to this issue with a certain expertise.

Back in the USSR, something as simple as waxed paper was unavailable. The explanation I got was that it was possible to make them into primitive printing plates with a typewriter. Not sure how true the explanation is, but it fit well with the paranoid attitude of the Soviet government. The point is that I had no idea waxed paper existed until after I left the USSR for a more free world.

Interesting, they didn't have waxed paper in the old USSR.  Citizens didn't know that it existed. But, Oleg cautions us.

 The process is repeating in the United States. Every year, something becomes illegal or plain unavailable. Last year, it was laser kits over 5mW. Previously, chemistry learning sets lost many of the chemical materials previously supplied. Next year, it will be something else. And once a few years pass, the next generation won’t even know that they are missing something.

On this day, the one after we celebrate our independence, it's instructive to listen to those who came before us, and those who came from other places, to try and understand what freedom means.  I remember walking into a pharmacy in the late '60s and asking for saltpeter.  The pharmacist simply smiled and asked if I was making black powder.  I told him "Yeah" and he cautioned me to not blow myself up.   But, he sold me a vial of saltpeter and asked if I had a recipe.

I doubt that would be possible today.

I also bought my first shotgun, at age 12, for cash across the counter without filling out any paperwork at all.  In 1965 that was perfectly legal.  Nowadays, not so much.  But we were freer then.

As we reflected on our freedom yesterday, let's reflect today on the freedoms we've lost, and resolve to regain them.  That's an honorable, admirable task for freedom-loving people everywhere.

Let Freedom Ring!