Category: Retreat Security

Letter Re: Advice on Driveway Alarms for Retreat Security

Mr. Rawles, Thanks for the perimeter defense blog today. Can you please give me your opinion on driveway alarms? There are some cool units I found at drivewayalarmdepot.com. They have units that are wireless and reach out to 3,000 feet. I think they also have a unit that reaches out a mile. Are these infrared units suitable to serious perimeter defense? Thanks, – RP JWR Replies: By all means do comparison pricing, but you should beware of the driveway alarms that are made in China. From most reports they are shoddy and unreliable. (Most of them are not truly weatherproof.) …


Preparing for Survival Retreat Perimeter Defense, by O.F.

There may come a time when a survival retreat will need to be defended, and a properly prepared perimeter will be key to the success of the defense. While many survival-minded individuals and retreat groups have likely considered the possibility of a defense scenario, many are at a loss as to how to plan for such an situation. If the time comes, a well-thought, methodically planned perimeter defense will hold up better than simply having “a bunch guns and ammo.” Fighting positions offer several advantages during perimeter defense. Proper positions allow the defenders to observe possible threats with reduced risk …


Letter Re: Buying Just One Gun?

Mr. Rawles: I’m a survivalist newbie. I’m thinking about purchasing a gun. I don’t know anything about guns, but I have had a negative opinion about them for a long time. But [now] I’m thinking I might need to get one. What would you recommend for a total novice who would prefer to not have to own more than one? JWR Replies: Owning one gun is like owning one carpenter’s tool, and expecting it to handle all of your construction and repair needs. What single tool would you choose? A hammer, a pair of pliers, a saw, or a screwdriver? …


From Our Correspondent in Argentina: What to Expect

SurvivalBlog’s correspondent in Argentina received the following e-mail: FerFAL: I greatly value your experience in Argentina. Since you have traveled in the U.S., I would like to know what you think will be the impact of our relative lack of corruption, at least at local levels, to what we may face in our coming economic crisis. Perhaps a separate post on the subject, if you have time? Here was his reply: This is where things get more into the “guesstimating” territory. Nothing is for sure and all we have is certain situations being more probable than others. Inflation That is …


Our Changing Times: The Advent of Rule 157 and Perhaps Rule 308

We are living in unprecedented times. The global economy is being asphyxiated for lack of credit, and we face the prospect of an economic depression that could be worse than the Great Depression of the1930s. The Advent of Rule 157 One of the contributing factors in the unfolding banking debacle was the advent of Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Rule 157, that went partially into effect on November 15, 2007. This was a financial accounting rule change that yanked the bankers back from the Fantasyland games that they had been playing with Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), Credit Default Swaps (CDSs), …


Letter Re: Finding a Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft

JWR I think that your “Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft” article was especially true and timely. However, there are some problems [with living in a community]. Even given how imminent I personally fear financial Armageddon is, there is still time that it might be a nuclear event or a disease pandemic, etc., all of which demand slightly different responses. There is no possible way one or even five individuals can be totally self-sufficient. Even the hermits come out once a year or so to trade for things like salt or ammo, or whatever. Personally, I think a small community of up …


Finding a Mineshaft or a Gemeinschaft

I’ve observed that survivalists tend to fall into two schools of thought: those that are loners and those that are community-minded. The loners would prefer to disappear into the wilds and essentially find a mineshaft to crawl into–somewhere they can lay low, whilst things sort themselves out, back in civilization. That is both a naive and selfish starting point for preparedness. Short of moving to the roadless interior of Alaska, it is not realistic to expect that you can find a remote rural property where you’d have no contact with outsiders for an extended period of time. We live in …


Three Letters Re: Tropical Storm Ike’s Devastation Works its Way North to Ohio

Hello Jim, This note is in reference to the letter from Melanie and Rick in Columbus about the woman who never thought of using the grill to cook. I had a similar experience with my mother-in-law. While we had power and water, she had lost hers. I offered to bring buckets of water to her house so she could manually refill the toilet tank to flush with(she has septic). Not only did she not think of that, she couldn’t understand the concept. She ended up going to a hotel for a couple of days. People like this will not last …


Letter Re: A Recent Gasoline Shortage Underscores the Need to Be Low Profile

Sir: I’ve been a reader of your site for only about a year and consider myself a beginner-level survivalist. I’ve got the mindset and start of some basic short-term survival gear and knowledge, but haven’t been able to convince the wife to go all out yet. A few months ago, you had posted an article about keeping your level of preparedness secret from neighbors and I wasn’t sure why until recently. I live in Middle Tennessee, and although we are hundreds of miles away from Hurricane Ike, we experienced a short run on gas and spike in prices. Probably close …


Letter Re: Tropical Storm Ike’s Devastation Works its Way North to Ohio

Hi Jim, We live in Columbus, Ohio and had 76 m.p.h. winds on Sunday. We have been without power until late today. Our neighborhood looks like a war zone. Many trees on homes and in yards. There is some good news in that we shared our generator with neighbors. Others in the neighborhood were doing the same. Some of the kids set up a barbeque stand and were selling hot dogs and hamburgers for cost. This helped many to have meals. Everyone helped to clear trees and limbs from the roads and yards. Schools are still closed for Wednesday and …


Letter Re: West Virginia as a Retreat Locale

Sir, I just wanted to get your thoughts on West Virginia. I live in Huntington which is at the conjunction of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. My family lives in a valley where we are related to nearly everyone there [by blood or by marriage]. We have industrial equipment in our business in the valley. Also a US Corps of Engineers lake covers one end of our road. This leaves just one roadway in or out. The only other approaches are to cross the heavily wooded hills. – Doug in West Virginia JWR: Replies: As I’ve often written in my …


Four Letters Re: Pistol Holster Recommendations for Women

Jim, Bill from Ohio has a number of great observations about carry issues for females. Among the issues he mentions about hip holsters built for men: 1) Because of a woman’s hips they tend to cause the butt of the weapon to dig-in to a woman’s waist 2) Because women have hips, upon which they wear their belt they have less room to lift the weapon before it impinges into their armpit. 3) Because of factors 1 and 2 the FBI cant further complicates a natural draw for women. I’d like to mention a holster made by Blade-Tech that addresses …


Letter Re: Airsoft and Paintball Groups for Small Unit Tactics Training?

Gidday Mr Rawles, I was just wondering whether or not it would be wise for me to join a tactical Airsoft club in the future. Due to the current political climate in New Zealand training with live firearms, and so forth is frowned upon and could get you labelled as a “terrorist”. However there are a lot of Tactical Airsoft/Paintball groups throughout the country and I was wondering whether it would be a wise move for me to join one of these clubs to gain some tactical skills/experience? Or is it better to avoid groups all together? – S.S. in …


Letter Re: How Much Ammo to Carry?

Hello Mr. Rawles, You are a great man for what you do! You have shaped my life in many ways and most certainly opened my eyes to many things, and for that thank you. I have recently started my own small TEOTWAWKI preparedness group of like-minded Christians. We have standardized our gear but I have no idea how much ammo we should carry on our web gear, and if we should have a combo of rifle and pistol ammo. We have a lot of ammo stockpiled but we are wondering about patrols and other times when we would need to …


Letter Re: Night Operations

James: Regarding Pete C.’s article on night operations: The great (but now sadly defunct) magazine “Coevolution Quarterly” had a great article about night vision development sometime in the 1980s (I’ve got a copy of it hanging around here somewhere, if only I was organized enough to lay my hands on it) that gave a brilliant method for training night sight via peripheral vision. The technique involved taking something like a lightweight brazing rod and attaching it [off-center] to the bill of a baseball cap. On the end of the rod, you attached a small white ball or disc, which you …