Visiting Martin Luther King Jr. at the peak of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, journalist William Worthy almost sat on a loaded pistol. “Just for self defense,” King assured him. It was not the only weapon King kept for such a purpose; one of his advisors remembered the reverend’s Montgomery, Alabama home as “an arsenal.”
Like King, many ostensibly “nonviolent” civil rights activists embraced their constitutional right to self-protection—yet this crucial dimension of the Afro-American freedom struggle has been long ignored by history. In This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed, civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb Jr. describes the vital role that armed self-defense played in the survival and liberation of black communities in America during the Southern Freedom Movement of the 1960s.
Then, I do nothing else—because I’m a pretty nice dude who is just
fascinated by this sort of thing. That said, however, the specific
measurements for any common brand of lock can be found online, and, with
a little experience, you can hand-file keys in only a few minutes. Just
search for “Depth & Space” charts. Those will tell you how far
apart to space your cuts and the possible depths you might find cut into
that type of key. Note that, while the space and depth will stay
consistent across a given brand, it’s up to you to figure out the
specific depths for your key.
Seriously guys, stop posting photos of your brand new house key in clear fidelity on multiple social media platforms. People with malicious intentions can easily walk into your no longer secured homes.
This is not a new thing. There was a furor with TSA luggage keys a few years back (last I checked, lockpick and lock enthusiasts have managed to decode and recreate most of the keys except for a couple).
Um..who the FUCK posts pictures of their HOUSE KEYS? Like. Who even does that?
Also, babies, please, your first rule of moving into a new place is “change the locks”. ALWAYS.
You would be fuckin amazed.
I’m married to a locksmith, remember, and he has had to explain this, at length, to so goddamn many people who can’t figure out how people broke into their house after posting pictures of their house keys to social media.
Fuck, I’m just married to a locksmith, and have picked up enough to be able to cut a house key that’ll have at least a 50% chance of unlocking a door off sight alone.
And people think I’m paranoid when I mention that literally the first thing we did when we bought the house was get the locks changed.
Shit when we got our place he went through and put in good locks, deadbolts, replaced the hinge screws with longer ones, replaced all the strike plates, replaced all the weather stripping, and put the code-unlock deadbolt on the back door so that we can leave the door lock unlocked and still get into the house if we lock ourselves out without other people being able to get in.
Oh and re-keyed the garage and installed padlocks (which he also re-keyed) on the doors so no one can break into that either.
He considers this the bare minimum, because “Well, if I was really going all in I’d install high-security locks.”
…how much will he charge to locksmith my place when I move to Iowa? Because I want ALL THE SAFETY
For friends? All he charges is the cost of the materials and some beer and pizza.
On this day, 30 July 1906, Italian anti-fascist and revolutionary Alfonso Failla was born in Sicily. From the age of 19 he took part in the armed resistance to fascism: including the 1925 Battle of Siracusa where local residents and dock workers inflicted heavy losses on an invading force of 1000 armed fascists. He was jailed by the fascists in 1930, until he led a prison revolt and mass breakout after 1943. He then got involved in the wartime resistance movement, and helped free hundreds of Italian prisoners being marched to Nazi death camps. He remained active until the end of his life in 1986. More info in this short biography: https://libcom.org/history/failla-alfonso-1906-1986https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1177568279094987/?type=3
by Charles E. Cobb Jr.
