During these very strange and trying times, now seemed to be a good time to do a quick industry update. A lot of items are still hard to come by and are only being distributed to larger accounts. Ammo is starting to come back, but prices are a lot higher than they were before, amidst newly increased demand from news of a Russian importation ban.
One thing that the supply chain really wasn’t counting on was the 2021 hurricane season. As of this writing, tens of of thousands in Louisiana are without power thanks to Hurricane Ida tearing through the state this past weekend.
Two of the largest sporting goods wholesalers in the nation are located in Louisiana. Both of them supply a large number of firearm retailers around the nation. Baton Rouge is badly flooded, Shreveport much less so.
Throughout a storm-ravaged Orleans Parish, interstates are open to first responders only, and electrical linemen are working from New Orleans to Baton Rouge to get power restored and life back to normal for these folks. Verizon is rolling in their portable COW’s – Cells on Wheels – while many folks are dealing with the fact that that their house no longer has a roof.
I placed some orders for products last week with Lipsey’s, a Baton Rouge institution, since they had a few things my customers needed. I was told the storm may delay a few things. Without actually talking to someone in the industry, it would be difficult to know how a storm of this size hitting this area could impact things, but here are a few truths about guns.
We’re not really sure when things will get back to normal in the bayou.
A firearm distribution warehouse has a lot of moving parts. They need salespeople, compliance staff, IT folks and warehouse staff.
With the storm incoming, Lipsey’s sent an email blast to all customers announcing that orders would be delayed and they were closed Monday and until they can get back up and running. Form 3’s won’t be sent out or looked at, orders won’t be pulled and packed for shipment, and families will be fixing any storm damage.
If your local firearm retailer ordered something for you, it’ll take a little while for any order at Lipsey’s to work its way through.
Even if the power gets turned back on, there also has to be working internet, there have to be people in the warehouse, they need passable non-flooded roads, and Fedex has to have the staff to get trucks and trailers to and from their facility.
Based on the news and the photos of flooding in the area, it’s not entirely clear when things will be back to normal. The Shreveport area where Sports South is located looks much more clear, but that’s not to say delivery issues with Fedex or UPS won’t have ripple effects throughout the network.
One customer of mine is waiting for some SilencerCo products that is pending shipment from Lipsey’s. He had a very interesting question today. He asked me if the hurricane knocks things out for a few weeks, will he be able to get all of his promotional free goods paperwork submitted in time?
I had no idea what a category 4 storm plus ATF Form 3 delays would mean, so I called SilencerCo and asked. They basically said just call them if there’s a significant delay and they’ll work with the customer to get the free merchandise out as promised.
In short: Proper Communication can lead to only Minor Aggravation.
There are a lot of folks who work for Lipsey’s in the Baton Rouge area who are no doubt impacted by the storm and eager to get back to work and normal life. Please consider them in your thoughts and prayers before you call your firearm retailer and wonder why your order isn’t in.
Silencers are the least of peoples problems in Louisiana. Just getting basic materials to rebuild will be nearly impossible at any cost. I buy for an electrical company and Transformers to get the grid back up are running 4-6 months lead time right now. Certain pole hardware to restring wire cannot be found anywhere at any price as it most all comes from China. Simple building materials are not much better. It will not return to normal for this area for months. This could not have happened at a worse time.
Treedodger,
I have a friend who buys cable (communication fiber-optic cable in his particular case) and he just told me a week ago that lead time for that type of cable is around 15 months now.
I wonder if the electric utilities have enough cable on-hand to repair their cabling which was damaged, let alone replace it? If not, I wonder what the lead time would be on simple electrical distribution cabling?
Imagine if a CME, localized low-yield EMP, or a robust cyber attack fried wiring across hundreds of square miles…by the very country that patiently encouraged us over the course of the past three decades to become dependent upon it for such wiring for repairs…
Wiring and maybe the large one of a kind huge transformers out there. Built to order and unique.
A lot of differences between fiberoptic cable and what the power company fiberoptic is used in telephone and internet systems and is run underground mostly in the south while power lines can be repaired and restrung on new poles except where really bad damage
@Treedodger
The manager at one of the national big box stores told me recently that the lumber / plywood supply chain was just getting back to some semblance of normal from the Dallas winter storm and reconstruction. Ida will cripple construction material supplies nationwide for the next couple of years.
Another wood mill is closing near me soon…stupid environmentalist idiots keep hammering on the wood industry. Wood is in unprecedented demand and these clowns want to shut down more mills. Forests / lumber, properly managed, are sustainable forever.
Some are loopy some are watermelons and very deliberate in what industries they target and it has been that way since the 60’s
“Some are loopy some are watermelons…”
They are *all* watermelons to some degree, now.
(Watermelons – ‘Green’ on the outside, Fascist Scum Red on the inside…) 🙁
The up side of concentrating capacity to a few locations is huge efficiencies and economies of scale. The down side is that a catastrophic event (such as a hurricane) at one of the few locations has a HUGE impact (reduction) on capacity.
Sad to think that we were more prepared and more capable 10 (or even 20) years ago than today. Now, even on a good day we are on the edge of failure for every public service. Most municipalities can barely collect the trash, let alone respond to disasters with adequate resources.
Self sufficiency (including self defense) is more important now than any previous point in our lives.
This event also reveals the GIANT downside facing our nation in our race to get to all electric cars.
I do not believe that our electrical grid has enough capacity to handle recharging cars every evening/night in addition to current demand. Regardless, imagine how useless that electric car will be in disaster zones where electricity is out for days or even weeks. As it stands with gasoline powered cars, at least you can drive out of a disaster zone if your location will be without electricity for several days or weeks. If you had an electric car, though, you would be totally isolated and stranded.
That also means that critical workers who have electric cars would not be able to drive out and begin recovery.
It will mean living in a disaster area while re-building is going on will be nearly impossible. You simply won’t be able to get around.
I bet the Leftist Scum are *salivating* at the prospect of huge numbers of people being completely helpless and “needing the government’s ‘help’.”
Well, whole-house generator systems can be had for about 10-15 grand on the low side, the wise people will start getting them and big-assed tanks of diesel to power them…
I wonder if we’ll be hearing stories a few months from now describing confiscation incidents similar to what happened in the days following Katrina sixteen years ago. LEOs setting up checkpoints and interrogations, rolling up on private boats with weapons drawn while demanding that personal firearms be surrendered…under threat of death because non-compliance may result in being shot. Or maybe more unarmed people being sniped on bridges while simply walking across them. Complete WROL for a week, and such.
I support local law enforcement in my own area because I personally know many of them, but after the way NOLA LE went full crapshow in 2005, I don’t trust them and will never travel through Louisiana for any reason.
Their governor vetoed Constitutional Carry legislation a month or so ago at the end of the legislative session and a couple of legislators changed their “in support of” votes to prevent the veto override.
I’m tired of my tax money being appropriated to rebuild NOLA every decade or two…it’s a flippin’ 6 foot deep hole in the Gulf of Mexico with very expensive dykes [sic].
“LEOs setting up checkpoints and interrogations, rolling up on private boats with weapons drawn while demanding that personal firearms be surrendered…”
I have guns ready to be ‘turned in’ if the knock on the door comes. They can even search if they like… 🙂
At this point if you can’t take care of or haven’t the preps for you and yours in a grid down situation ( nutrition hydration fuel ammunition etc)for at least a month or two what the f*** have you been doing with your time and money?
Klaus,
Being able to take care of a family for a month or two without inexpensive fresh water and inexpensive primary grid electricity is a daunting task.
Note that apartment and most condominium dwellers have ZERO ability to prepare for such a scenario.
In order to be truly prepared for such a scenario, you would need a home with a substantial lot (ideally at least 1/2 acre) and a sizable outbuilding that is reasonably secured/hardened. Remember that you have to be able to heat a home in winter which takes a LOT of firewood in more northerly climates. Of course firewood is no good if it is wet or outside for desperate neighbors to steal–hence the need for a sizable outbuilding that is reasonably secured/hardened.
And imagine how much fresh water you would have to keep in reserve to last through two months of drinking, cooking, cleaning, bathing, and flushing toilets. You could easily go through ten gallons a day which means you would have to store at least 600 gallons of water in your outbuilding. (Alternatively, you would need enough generator capacity and fuel to run a well. Note that your generator could easily fail which requires a backup generator if you do not keep 600 gallons of water in storage. Or you would need a hand-pump well.)
Of course if your home is on a municipal sewer system rather than a septic system, you won’t be able to flush your toilets anyway when the municipal sewer system fails due to the prolonged electricity outage. Thus almost everyone in suburban or urban settings also needs an alternate provision for sewage.
I am not saying that these hurdles are insurmountable. They are extremely daunting to say the least–and (for all intents and purposes) require a home outside of urban and suburban enclaves. That means about 75% of our population is pretty-much screwed if a two-month electricity outage comes to pass.
One month is grim enough 2 months would be catastrophic and would likely change the population and age demographics for a generation to come.
“Note that apartment and most condominium dwellers have ZERO ability to prepare for such a scenario.”
There are *some* steps they can take. There are water bags that fit in bathtubs that will give you a week’s supply of drinking water for a small family for maybe a week.
After that, relocation will likely be necessary…
2.5 acres plus 18 more at my disposal. 1,500 gallons rain water storage with ability to use for cooking, drinking, etc. heat with wood, have so much I give away tons of it each year so it does not go to waste (give as in totally free). generator, fuel, well, food and arms. game abundant too. hope we are are more prepared than the average joe.
I’ve been working long hours and investing my money so I can escape this suburban hell and retire to the boonies. I feel like I’m on a sinking ship and I’m not going to make it to the lifeboats.
Get your ‘boonies’ land now, you can park an RV on it if necessary…
Goeff PR,
I have thought about the idea of a modest piece of land in the boonies. In my mind the ideal scenario is to build a small-ish, simple, rectangular building with concrete cinder block walls, a steel roof, and impact resistant windows/doors.
Such a building should be fairly easy to construct and surprisingly inexpensive–with the possible exception of a concrete slab to build it on. And keep only the absolute bare necessities inside the building to deter anyone from breaking-in during the long months that you are likely not there. (Note that it has to be easy to look inside for prospective criminals to see that there is nothing inside worth breaking into to steal.)
On the inside, all I would have is bare counter space, mostly bare shelves in-lieu of cupboards, folded cots, several empty and stacked 5-gallon buckets, and a wood stove. The real trick would be how to hide a substantial non-perishable food cache inside–maybe behind a false back wall (which obviously cannot have any windows) with a storage space that is only 12-inches deep. And you would still need a way to get fresh water. A hand well (e.g. pitcher pump) in a corner and just out of view of the windows would be ideal.
Then again, what is the point of such a basic shelter in the boonies? Barely surviving? For how long? If our infrastructure/society has crumbled to that point, perhaps that is THE most important time to roll up our sleeves and get to work restoring infrastructure/society rather than fleeing it. This is analogous to the saying, “If it is time to bury your firearms, it is time to use them.” If it is time to flee society, it is time to restore it.
It seems to me it would be prudent to have a place you can go, at least temporarily. A few days or weeks may be all you need.
And the kind of structure you described seems ideal for such use.
If anything, it would be a nice place go on a long weekend…
I’ve a perspective from my work of what is going on with international shipping. Without talking specifics, there are delays of four to six weeks above the norm for anything coming out of western Pacific rim nations. That includes China and Malaysia, where very large factories serve many industries. Same deal out of Europe. So whether goods are crossing the Atlantic from EU ports or Mediterranean ports, or out the Pacific/Indian ocean regions via the Suez Canal to the American east cost ports, or directly to West coast American ports, it all faces delays. I am even seeing delays and high price increases for air freight of industrial equipment. There are shortages of ships, of containers for both ships and air freight.
Yesterday alone there were 44 massive container ships anchored off the port of Los Angeles waiting for a berth to come in and unload. Normally there is a real small number of ships or none at all waiting on that massive port. So this is unprecedented. Similar deal with the port of New York-New Jersey on the east coast.
It’s a goddamned shit-show for global shipping right now.
This future is why the push for banning gunms.
Out in the streets there was violence
And lots of work to be done,
Working so hard like a soldier,
Still cant feed everyone,
oh no
‘Electric Avenue’… 🙂
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