This week's cover story is about modern survivalists.

August 23, 1992, was an exceptionally shitty day in America. Hurricane Andrew was gathering strength over the Caribbean, and by nightfall, it would plow over South Florida with category-five winds, ripping whole neighborhoods to pieces, knocking out power, and claiming dozens of lives.

Three thousand miles away, at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, the weather was calm, but the anger and tension were unbearable. Hundreds of federal troops at Ruby Ridge were in the fourth day of a siege on the house of conspiracy theorist Randy Weaver. They had already killed his dog, his son (shot in the back), and his wife (shot while holding their baby).

Media reports portrayed Weaver, who had moved to the woods to escape government and society, as a dangerous white supremacist. The feds wanted him on gun-trafficking charges. Down the road from his blood-soaked mountain cabin, hundreds of people gathered to protest the siege. From this, the modern American militia movement was born. More >>

Theodore Nugent, world-famous nutcase.

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​If you're concerned about the big roadblock on Andrews Avenue near the courthouse on SE Sixth Street, don't be -- it's all under control, according to Fort Lauderdale Police spokesman Det. Travis Mandell.More >>

via National Armory Gun Store & Gun Range

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It's like getting a gold watch, except you can kill stuff with it.

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Flickr user: kevitivity

Your stimulus dollars at work.

​Buying guns and shooting targets in Lake Worth is officially part of the economic recovery effort.

According to data compiled by the nonprofit journalism website ProPublica, the Palm Beach Shooting Center in Lake Worth received a $550,000 loan backed by the Small Business Administration using stimulus funds.

The loan, which was awarded in February 2010, was made possible through a program designed to keep mom-and-pop operations afloat during the recession. Since 2009, federal stimulus funding has helped the government back billions of dollars in loans to small businesses that would not otherwise be able to get credit in the private marketplace.
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imfdb.org

​There's currently a list in the Florida Statutes of 15 places where you can't bring a concealed weapon. A pair of state legislators would like to make that 17.

Last year, the legislature passed a law that would impose fines on counties and municipalities that tried to write up their own gun laws.

Officials in Palm Beach County and West Palm Beach governments have been freaking out over it -- one saying a "catastrophe" could take place -- and they've been taking all sorts of exotic measures to combat the law.

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sandboxworld.com

If this were a bank, this would not be an armed robbery, according to Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal.

​According to a decision last week out of Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach, an armed robbery isn't really an armed robbery if the "weapon" used in the crime can't kill or seriously injure the victims.

The court ruled in its decision to reverse a conviction of armed robbery for a crime committed by Stafford Hamilton that included the use of a toy gun, which will now be remanded to the lower court to enter a judgment for the lesser offense of robbery.

The reasoning -- toy guns are scary if you don't know it's a toy, but no one's going to end up dead if it isn't real.

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gunslot.com

​Do you happen to need an AK-47, as well as a company to process your credit card transactions?

If so, that would make today your lucky day, strangely enough.

MerchantService.com -- a Sarasota-based company that provides the equipment and processing for credit-card transactions in businesses -- announced its "Free AK-47 Giveaway" yesterday, offering an AK-47 worth up to $750 for new accounts based on how much credit-card processing volume businesses put through the company.

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