Interview: The Utter Lack of Dissent with Craig Hemke aka Turd Ferguson
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Obama’s New Budget Does Stricken Oil And Gas Industries No Favors
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
U.S. Factory Orders Fall Sharply, Decline Broad-Based – “New orders for U.S. factory goods fell for a fifth straight month.”
Gallup CEO: “America’s 5.6% Unempoyment Is One Big Lie”
Negative Yield Bonds: Here’s Who’s Buying
ECB Pulls The Trigger: Blocks Funding To Greece – Full Statement
CJL Enterprize has a new shipment of Tall .50 Ammo Cans and 25mm Hard Plastic Carry Cases.
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SurvivalBlog reader T.P. noted that his local Radio Shack has many goods marked at 75% off and that the shelves looked like a tornado had blown through. Radio Shack stock has apparently been delisted. If you’re looking for simple electronic parts, you may need to stock up now.
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Cop Who Held Wife & Children at Gunpoint in Standoff With Police, Gets to Stay a Cop. Unbelievable! – T.P.
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From the BBC: How to survive a disaster. – P.S.
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“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore. Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me’.” – Philip K. Dick?
Today, we present another entry for Round 57 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 57 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
I have often wondered how much I might have achieved if my personal circumstances had been different. By different, I mean better, in the sense of having the freedom to make better decisions about preparing for the future, whatever it might hold. I imagine myself as a fit, 50-something woman with a knowledge of bush craft, a seasoned firearms expert able to hit targets on the run, and a keen homesteader with full expertise in herbal medicine and food storage. I would be the ‘’head honcho”, leader of the pack, with sound plans for neighborhood defense, communications, and top notch skills in preventing home invasions. I still daydream about holding a sniper position on the roof of my side split mid-century home whilst organizing rear cover positions held by my husband and two daughters. I guess everyone has their fantasy. However, that is not my life.
My life, in a thumbnail sketch, does not in any way resemble the above description. I would like to be healthy; as a matter of fact, I have spent the last five years with a personal trainer at the gym and at home strengthening my core, building stamina, and trying to work out old injuries acquired during my over thirty year stint as an acute care nurse. I would like to say that it was money well spent, but the jury is still out on that one, as the chronic pain is still with me. I could say that the arthritis has been a challenge. During the summer months, it seems as though it has been cured, but when it returns in the dark days of winter, I believe I have been transformed into my father, which leads me to another stumbling block on my road to prepper excellence– looking after an aging parent. I have always been prepared (sorry for the pun) for the future role of caring for my aging parents and, indeed, carried out that duty for my mother until she passed away from cancer some years ago. Then I still had my father living with us, who, for all intents and purposes was still a very active and healthy man of eighty-five, who contributed his time and efforts to the family unit, mowing lawns, sweeping driveways, shoveling snow, and taking our daughters to their various classes. A catastrophic accident seven years ago changed all that, and since his accident he has slowly lost a lot of his vitality and ability. I guess it may have also come with the territory of aging, as he reaches his ninety-sixth birthday next month. I should be delighted that he is still able to go out for daily walks and wash and dress himself, albeit very, very slowly. If circumstances were different, I would have that sweet resignation of having my elderly father at home with us in the heart of his family as his life draws into the twilight years. That is not how it is. I am the full-time care giver who is tied to the house Monday through Friday with only weekends free to work at my professional job. It might be called going from the frying pan into the fire, but just getting out of the house to mix with the general public is a rest of sorts. I have managed to get a coveted membership with my local gun club, but being stuck in the house during the week and working on the weekends, I have yet to enjoy the privilege of gaining some mastery of my poor rifle and signing off on my 10 required “safe” practices in order to be a full, card-carrying member. So, I turn my thoughts to planning and am still yet to decide upon bugging in or bugging out. Which is better? What are the drawbacks of each? How can I include everyone if everyone doesn’t want to be included? Where would we go? There are many questions. Yet, even still, if it were only a case of looking after an elderly father, I might have found some way of including him in a bug-out plan, visualizing some rudimentary travois cobbled together by my long-suffering husband, but no. It is always so much more than that. After all, we are more than the sum of our parts, and even if we weren’t, at least those of us with 100% of our parts intact would stand a better chance of making lemonade out of the lemons we have been dealt.
My major stumbling block is the euphemistically termed “better half”. I have to admit that he has been my special prepping project for the last seven or eight years, and at times it has seemed as though progress was being made. However, it only takes one moment or one slip of the tongue for that promise to dissipate like the early morning mist rising over the local pond in the summer. I would characterize his progress as a one step forward, three steps backward saga. I remember when I first introduced the possibility of preparing for various scenarios and he rolled his eyes and became almost hostile. Well, okay, he was not almost hostile; he was definitely hostile. A lot of hand gesturing and jerking of the chin and various negative comments were spat out in my general direction. My children looked on with amusement and wisely said nothing, though, to be sure, the snickers were heard coming from their respective bedrooms behind closed doors. With much cajoling and presentation of evidence of people who had suffered through earthquakes and hurricanes and were left unprepared in the winter ice storms, I managed to get him to agree to the purchase of five cases of freeze-dried meals from a nationally-known supplier. They took pride of place in my closet. My husband rolled his eyes a few more times. What I felt was not satisfaction or even relief but a rush of adrenalin as I realized that this was just the beginning, the opening notes of a song I was going to be singing for a long, long time. Needless to say, I didn’t mention this feeling to my husband. He shut the closet door and felt like he had done his part in preparing, in condescending to my paranoia, and to his nurturing paternal side that always seeks to “keep the wife happy”. I was on to his psychology, but I don’t think he was aware of mine, which in hindsight was a good thing. So, over the years I read articles, followed websites dedicated to prepping, joined forums, listened to alternative news programs, scanned youtube for apocalyptic prophecies and doomsday warnings, and began to follow the economic analysts and the gold markets. I was swimming in a sea of information, and it took me a long time to filter out the rubbish and find the good stuff. After a while, I developed a sense of what my family’s needs were and the gaps that needed filling. I learned about canning and long-term storage of food. I learned which things keep best and which need to be rotated. I learned to store short-term, medium-term, and long-term food and the quantity of toilet paper that would keep us happy for three years or more. I stocked bartering items that I thought would be useful in a post-apocalyptic society. I learned how to make candles and stocked supplies of wicks and wax. I learned that multiple redundancies was not about labor shortage or unemployment but was the golden rule for storing water and light and heating supplies. I complied with the golden rule, and again a wave of adrenalin rushed through me as I conquered each. I kept up the incessant information overload in my husband’s ear, hoping to win him over to my side– the side of light and learning. He did a lot of sighing and increased his time at his work bench, but he did not capitulate mentally, though he did help me rotate stock and did put in six rain barrels outside the house with a water collection system off the shed roof and installed a solar light inside the shed. Finally, after about four years, I had a breakthrough. My husband declared that he was going to build raised beds for vegetable gardening. It was easy to slip in the non-GMO, non-hybrid survival seeds into my next order. He seemed impressed and helped me plant them. That first summer we had our own vegetables. Hurray! Victory! I wish I could have said the same for the quality of the vegetables. Apparently, gardening is an art that requires patience and experience. I experienced yet another stumbling block to preparedness. This was going to take time and effort. I had chalked up another challenge just like my husband. Fast forward four years, and we are at a crossroads. My husband has changed jobs and now finds himself in the company of ex-police, ex-service, gun-carrying, deer hunting folk who seem to have taken up my standard and won the battle for me. Where he was once cynical, resistant, and overtly hostile to the preparedness lifestyle, he now is a great proponent of and possibly even a secret follower of the same. He has even declared a desire to get his firearms registration and join the range with me. It is hardly possible to believe, but I thank the men for their quiet example in doing what I could not do through argument and cajoling. Personally, it doesn’t really matter how he came to the conclusion that preparedness was prudent, only that he came to the conclusion. That’s enough said on that subject.
So, what does a family of middle-aged parents with an elderly father in tow and two grown children scattered to the four corners of the province do? Dol we bug-out or bug-in? How? We have neither the economic resources nor the physical ability to do the former. In a nod to preparedness, I did give both my children bob bags and strict instructions not to use the MREs for anything other than emergencies. I did not give my eldest a compass, because I know it would be useless to her; she can’t find her way in a car with gps, let alone hiking through backwoods. It was not a realistic proposition, so I gave her a car kit with an emergency tool, a four-day supply of food and water, and fire and shelter equipment. It is more than she had. The youngest one I instructed to find her way home with some of her friends who live locally and are sharing a house with her at university. I told her to keep off main roads and to travel by night. It was the best advice I could give her, as there is only one main highway corridor between our two cities and I felt it was best to avoid trouble if at all possible.
Along the way in the last ten years, I have learned a few valuable lessons. These are the most important:
So, I have made peace with my limitations, found alternatives to permanent re-location, given my children a foot up on the preparedness ladder, and done what was within my power to achieve. We will make our stand here with what we have in hand. It will be enough to get my children home with us, and come what may, with God’s help, we will survive to live another day. Best of all, I now have a partner who works with me to provide for the family in the event of …well, whatever may come. That is the best preparedness that a tired housewife could ask for!
Good afternoon, Hugh,
Two recent experiences drive me to write– a recent overnight house guest and a link today on Instapundit about surviving disaster (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150128-how-to-survive-a-disaster).
My house guest commented on the number of my night lights and the fact that I have a floor lamp powered by a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply), which is a “battery backup” typically used for computers.
First, the night lights are what I prefer to call “target identification lights”. They’re not used just in the bathrooms; they are positioned to ensure anyone moving through the house must either cast a shadow or be silhouetted. This is convenient for the residents (and guests), because it allows easy navigation as well as aiding in identifying potential threats without requiring hand-held lighting that will tell an intruder where you are. (Note: I keep a high-intensity light– a 500 lumen Surefire– on the nightstand just for that purpose as well as wall-mounted 3 D-cell LED Maglites next to each exterior door, in each bedroom, and at each end of the house. Rule 4 of gun safety is “always be sure of your target”, and gun-mounted lights should not be used for that. Additionally, a bright white light can be a powerful weapon in the dark.)
I use two types of 115-volt receptacle replacement LED night lights– Pass and Seymour and Cooper Wiring. (Leviton also makes similar LED nightlight outlets, but I have no experience with them.) Pass and Seymour make several types. The one I use is a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) double receptacle with a built-in LED nightlight. When I moved into the house I now occupy, I discovered all the bathroom receptacles were on the same circuit and protected by one GFCI breaker in the electrical panel; should an event in one bathroom cause the breaker to trip, it meant all the bathrooms lost power, and it required a trip to the breaker panel in the garage to reset. I replaced all the bathroom receptacles with the P&S night light GFCI receptacles and the GFCI breaker with a standard breaker, making each bathroom outlet electrically independent while still providing GFCI protection (required by electrical and building codes, as well as just common sense).
I also bought a few extra GFCI nightlight receptacles from Home Depot and installed them in several outlets around the house as well as a couple outlets in the kitchen, which also required GFCI protection. While Pass and Seymour have non-GFCI nightlight receptacles, I picked the GFCI for a reason. The other P&S nightlight receptacles have either one non-GFCI outlet and an LED nightlight, a non-GFCI double outlet and nightlight, or a larger nightlight that replaces the entire outlet, or another half-and-half that incorporates a nightlight and a switch to control whatever electrical device one wishes, allowing the incorporation of a nightlight where one now has only a switch, which is a handy option. Unfortunately, none of these configurations allow turning off the night light. Pressing the “test” button on the GFCI nightlight outlet does, affording the ability to “go dark” if one needs to. (Of course, it also turns off power to that entire receptacle as well.)
Some time later I discovered Cooper Wiring manufactured similar outlets with similar configurations and a significant difference– the nightlight portion could be simply programmed for off, low, medium, or bright intensity, and no matter what level one programs to, the nightlight can be turned off and back on by simply pressing the night light lens. (I have not found a non-GFCI double receptacle with LED nightlight from Cooper Wiring that allows turning off the nightlight, but they do have a GFCI version similar to the P&S.)
All the Pass and Seymour and Cooper Wiring lights I have found are controlled by photocells, so they turn on and off automatically in daylight and at night.
Were I fortunate enough to either build a new house or perform a major remodel on this one, I would install some of the Cooper Wiring “full box” (night light only, no outlet or switch) in the ceilings, one in each bathroom, two in the hallway, and one each in the kitchen and family room to provide a wider spread of light than is possible with a wall-mounted light. I’d also put them all on one circuit, so even though they can be turned off and on individually I would have the option of turning all off at once. Since the LEDs draw only one watt each, they would be a “natural” for having a medium-size UPS power them, so one would have minimal light in emergencies if house power were to be lost.
Speaking of UPSes, my UPS-powered floorlamp has a purpose. Some “bad guys” have figured out that modern house construction often puts the main power breaker in the same outside box where the electrical meter is. This allows them to turn the power off to the entire house, then perform a home invasion in the dark while the residents are disoriented.
Having one lamp that is powered by a UPS ensures there will be at least some light should the power be cut. Mine is positioned to cast light down the bedroom hallway and into the family room and part of the kitchen, and it also illuminates all entrance doors through light reflected off walls and the ceiling. It uses a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb that consumes 9 watts and is controlled by a timer plugged into the UPS that turns it on about an hour before dark and off an hour after sunrise. There is also a “Failed Circuit Alarm” ($28 at Amazon) plugged into the same outlet; a FCA is commonly used with freezers so an audible alarm is sounded if power to that receptacle fails, and they are about as loud as a smoke detector; if house power fails, the floor lamp will stay on, so I needed a way to know that power was out.
Side note: One can lock the outside electrical box to prevent tampering with the main breaker, but there needs to be a way to very quickly access the breaker in emergencies. I have equipped my box with the flimsiest luggage lock I could find, and just inside the garage door I keep a medium bolt cutter. The flimsy lock will reduce the possibility of tampering, although it certainly won’t stop a dedicated criminal, and the bolt cutter allows me access it in seconds without having to fumble with even a simple combination. The tools that firefighters routinely carry on their turnout coats will allow them to quickly break the lock as well.
Second side note: Do you have natural gas or propane? Do you need any special tools to shut off those valves in the event of an emergency? Hang those tools adjacent to the electrical panel or the garage door. Also, teach all family members how to use them.
Having a lamp on battery backup also will help should there be an emergency, such as a fire, so that residents and guests can quickly find their way out. The UPS I use will keep that lamp on for about 12 hours, which is way more than I need, but I happened to have that UPS available.
A word about the Maglites: they’re in wall brackets, aimed up at the ceiling, adjacent to all exterior doors, at each end of the house next to the fire extinguishers, and one in each bedroom. They can be removed from the brackets for use, or turned on to reflect light off the ceiling to provide general illumination.
Pro tip: get white or yellow reflective tape and put a couple 2-inch bands around each flashlight. If you set it down in the dark, especially if it’s a black flashlight, the reflective tape makes it easier to find. – N.K.
The Legacy of Debt: Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending. – G.G.
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
Worker Pay in U.S. Rose at a Slower Pace in Fourth Quarter
Why Central Bankers Around The World Have Lost Control
David Stockman: History In the Balance: Why Greece Must Repudiate Its “Banker Bailout” Debts And Exit The Euro – Agree with what David is saying but just don’t see the new government doing anything right other than rejecting the debt. Can’t see them ushering in less government and free markets.
David Stockman: Memo To Yellen: What ‘Escape Velocity’—-The Q4 GDP Report Was Not “Solid”
Spokane Washington’s Spokesman Review newspaper recently ran an interview with JWR: Always Prepared.
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8 Unexpected Uses for a Mountain House Pouch . – J.C.
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SurvivalBlog reader D.S. sent in this link about 4 big retailers accused of selling herbal formulas containing no herbs. This size of the “fraud” is scary and begs the question of who can you trust when buying these items? If you have a “safe” supplier, we would love to hear about it.
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It’s always good to go over the basics. K.W. sent in these two links on generators:
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Big brother moves again in Oregon: Oregon moves forward with total tracking and mile billing of all vehicles. Hard to believe people in this marxist-run state will bend over and accept this. Good likelihood “officials” will start using car’s computer and GPS to track and shut down those who refuse to be fleeced. I could see demand for pre-computerized vehicles soar. – C.T.
“People who have all the toys and piles of preps but who fail to invest in their own spiritual life can still fail, through a failure of will, through a failure of courage and morals, and through a failure to discern the path of God ahead.” – SurvivalBlog Reader ShepherdFarmerGeek
Ready Made Resources has a new shipment of LP powered, 19 Cubic Foot refrigerators that will run for about 13 weeks on just a 100lb propane cylinder.
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Today, we present another entry for Round 57 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The $12,000+ worth of prizes for this round include:
First Prize:
Second Prize:
Third Prize:
Round 57 ends on March 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.
Just as we will need people with blue-collar skills, like farmers, carpenters, mechanics, welders, and so forth, society will also need entrepreneurs who have the inventory and negotiating skills required to open stores and to restart local economies in the event of an economic collapse. In such times, it will be mutually beneficial for a farmer to let the local trading post sell his produce as a middle man while he is working the farm rather than spending precious hours each day trying to sell that produce himself.
Most preparedness articles talk about the importance of having extra items on hand for bartering when our economy collapses, but have you ever actually done any bartering? Have you ever thought about how you’re going to trade those extra goods you’ve stockpiled? There are some specific strategies you must know in order to make bartering profitable; there are strategies that will enable you to not only make a living to feed your family in a post-SHTF setting but may even set you up with a thriving business that endures long after your community recovers.
I have 20 years of experience running a variety of different businesses– two of which involved constant bartering as their primary profit generator. I’m going to show you some of the specific methods and strategies I used to make these businesses profitable, using examples that would be relevant in the event you found yourself playing the role of local merchant as your community starts to rebuild.
I think most people reading this agree that silver coins (pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters, and half dollars) will be the new currency of choice in most of the United States if the dollar collapses, so I will be using that as the medium for my pricing examples. Every item in your store needs to have a separate sale and buy price. These values stay the same in trade deals too. For instance, you might sell a tool for $2 in silver coins but only pay $1.50 to buy it. So then a trade might look like this: your $2 tool for their $1.50 and .50 items, which you could then sell for $2 and $1 respectively, resulting in a profit of at least $1.00, depending on what you paid for the original item. Trading (as opposed to selling) is your real key to thriving, because every time you do a trade similar to the example above, you are growing the value of your inventory exponentially. So, unless you need the coin for something specific, you should always push trading your goods over selling them.
The law of supply and demand is also a factor. If you happen to have a lot of those $2 tools in stock, but it’s something that is always in demand, then you might still take them in, but only at $1 trade-in value. However, your sale price should still stay the same, unless you foresee demand decreasing for that item in the future and should then lower your price or offer quantity discounts accordingly (i.e. $2 each or 2 for $3). On the other hand, there might be times when a particular item is in very high demand and you are the only one who has any. In this case, you can raise your retail price accordingly. If a single item in your inventory is especially rare, you can also demand a higher trade-profit because you are “trading down” a harder to replace item for things that are more common, even though their added value might be equal. An example of this would be trading your spare horse for a pile of silver, seeds, and food.
Even today, there is no exact science to pricing goods and services to achieve maximum success. Supply, cost to produce/replace, demand, demographic, competition, operational costs, and location are all important factors. However, at the end of the day, an item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
The keys to my success were that I had things people wanted and zero emotional attachment to them. This meant I had walk-away power, which is absolutely essential to making a profit in a barter/trade environment. That being said, you must not be greedy! God gives us multiple warnings against greed in His Word, such as Proverbs 1:19, Proverbs 21:6, and Jeremiah 17:11. Expecting a profit for providing desired goods and services is reasonable, but ripping people off will quickly lose you customers (or get you shot), and your business will not last. Your goal should always be a transaction that is mutually-beneficial, where you make a profit and they get the item(s) they desire. Also, do not underestimate the cumulative effect of making small profits! When my dad trained me in business and sales, he always reminded me of the famous saying, “If you watch your pennies closely, the dollars will count themselves.”
From time to time, you may also find yourself in the opposite position where you don’t have large stockpiles of an item for personal use. In fact, you might be trying to trade for enough food to feed your family that day. In this case, you do not have walk-away power and would need to adjust your strategy. If someone has an item that you need/want for your personal use, be prepared to value that item at your retail price for trade-in rather than expecting to make a profit.
An established physical presence is also crucial to having the upper hand during negotiations. The location of your post-collapse trading post will look different depending on your setting. If you live inside a town, you might transform part of your house or garage into a storefront; or maybe you can rent a vacant store nearby. Perhaps your town will host a weekly public market downtown, in which case you will need to be able to transport, set up, and take down your inventory quickly and efficiently. A good location will look completely different in almost every area, depending on regional stability, population density, availability of space, amount of foot/vehicle traffic, and ease of customer access.
With a fixed storefront that is open regular hours, security will be a big concern. There are some great examples in James Wesley Rawles’ book “Survivors” of fixed storefront security, but every unique situation will change the variables and solutions. With a mobile trading post, you will most likely be a one-man show in charge of your own security and will be the most vulnerable traveling to and from the market. In either case, you need to be prepared to protect your life and inventory (since it feeds you and your family), while your business is open and when it is closed.
Advertising would be a tricky aspect of running a business when society starts to recover. In my years of experience, I’ve found that the best advertising is a combination of word of mouth and having a great location. Most marketing experts say that it costs many times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain and grow an existing one. Plus, there is the concern of attracting unwanted attention if you used interstate billboards or similarly “loud” advertising after TEOTWAWKI. The best way you can attract customers to your trading post is by choosing a great location from the start and having lots of essential items that everyone is looking for. That way, you become the go-to source in the community. Also, don’t forget about planting seeds in the minds of your customers for repeat visits by going above and beyond in your customer service, store environment, and product conversation.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but having extra quantities of the following items WTSHTF will most certainly give you a head start in your bartering:
Also, make sure you have a couple of “spare” bigger-sized items in your starting inventory. It’s important to make sure that you always maintain a mix of both smaller and larger items in your inventory to maximize your trading leverage.
Another key to running a successful retail business is having multiple profit centers or services that draw people to your location. I have used this strategy very successfully in my retail businesses. This principle could be applied post-TEOTWAWKI by selling services, such as knife/tool sharpening, water filtering, cigarette rolling, battery charging, and others alongside your goods. People, especially Americans, are by nature impulsive shoppers and often remember they need or want things only after they see them. Diversifying your business also heeds Ecclesiastes 11:2 advice: “Give portions to 7, yes to 8, for you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.” This might necessitate involving the skill sets of family and/or friends in your community. Doing so would accomplish three things:
If you are reading this article, you have the same advantage I have had in my successful businesses– you know the types of items and services that will be in demand if our economy collapses and you can start stockpiling those items and developing those services right now so that you have a head start to generating an income and feeding your family when it does. As a disclaimer: Make sure you research and follow any and all applicable laws and licensing/permitting/insurance rules in effect before engaging in any business activities, especially in regards to regulated substances, such as alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.
HJL,
I want to say thank you to T.S. Your article helped reinforce the attitude I had to re-condition myself and the way I see and think. I completely understand because that is precisely what I had to do when I finally purchased a gun. That was five years ago. Further back in time (I am in my 50’s now), I worked in a retail store that sold pellet handguns. Once, alone in the back stock room I took one out of the box. The feel of the gun, the weight, and that sense of power was kind of exciting. I loaded it. Then, being certain it was safe, I began shooting it at various targets. Within moments I was suffering a headache like nothing I had ever experienced before, nor even imagined a person could suffer. The gun was for killing. A sense of repulsion flooded through me, and the weapon was put away quickly. I knew at that time I would never hold a gun again. A few years later I worked as a security guard. I wasn’t licensed, but my partner was. One evening he pulled it on a kid. There was no need to do that, but he liked the power. That headache returned, and I quit that night.
Come Sept. 2008 when the market crashed, I resolved that I had to get over this mental wall if chaos occurred and my family needed to be protected. All I could afford was a 12-gauge shotgun. Go figure. It wasn’t an easy to use .22 LR but a 12 gauge, and now I had to learn to use it.
It’s simple enough, and thankfully somewhere along my life span I learned to never put my finger on the trigger until it is time to shoot. At the range at last, loaded and ready, all I could do was stand there and stare at the target 50 yards away. All around me men, some women, and teens were shooting away, shooting paper and cheering when one made the “kill shot”, meaning dead center. I stood there alone in my thoughts. I am not like them. I am not here for enjoyment. A nauseousness began to set in. I can’t just shoot. I need a reason, and telling myself I have to learn the “feel” of shooting, I have to learn aiming, I have to learn how to hold a 12-gauge and handle the recoil wasn’t enough for me to pull the trigger. No matter how many times I set it to my shoulder and aimed, I couldn’t pull the trigger. A small headache had begun.
Yet, I was determined not to leave until I had fired at least two rounds. Why did I buy this? It was to defend my family, but all I am shooting is paper. This thing kills. Paper isn’t a threat, and shooting paper isn’t fun. I was alone in my thoughts. I had to realign my thinking. I had to re-think reality. Suddenly the image in my mind wasn’t a piece of paper. The resolve in my heart was to stop “someone” from hurting my family. I forced myself to “see” that paper as a threat– a real person. I HAD to shoot for defense. Off goes the first round. I was not even close, and boy did the kick surprise me. I felt sick, yet again I re-imagined the threat and fired the second round. I missed again. There was a lack of experience, but after six rounds I found my sighting and hit the bull’s eye. Thirty seven rounds were all I could handle. Though the last several rounds were center hits, it wasn’t elation, satisfaction, or excitement that I felt. It was accomplishment. I did what had to be done. The feeling was more somber than any other feeling. That was good enough. Though no face nor blood existed, by forcing myself to re-see and re-think, my resolve was strong enough that I could pull the trigger if necessary. Each and every time I go, I must do the same exercise.
This led to another “reality check”. Almost every post on this site mentions an aspect of knowing your environment. I walk my dog every night at least five miles. I live on Long Island. IF martial law is declared, we here are screwed. Manhattan and Long Island have been closed down/off three times since Sept. 11. Most people aren’t even aware of the ramifications should they do it again. Since that day at the range, my neighborhood no longer is the same. I live in a heavily gang populated area. I am amazed at the number of ambush sites I now see as I walk my dog. I never truly noticed them before.
A vet I know and trust gave me advice. He said under martial law you want to blend in, not stand out. If possible, avoid checkpoints. Having re-learned my neighborhood, I can clearly foresee where two checkpoints would be– both on the route traveled getting home from work.
If they had to be avoided, it is doable, even though it means adding an extra five miles, which would be done all on foot and through the woods.
My main point is, in order to overcome that unconscious mind, forcing myself to “see” and then “do”, I can now put five to eight in the center at 75 yards. I am confident now I can pull the trigger. I no longer walk my dog with my head down. I am more aware of MY environment, and I know more of the danger points and such as well as how to get around on foot through wooded areas.
I can’t leave. My family is here, over 40 of them. Most believe all things balance out. I am the nut. Hopefully, a nut who is now a step or two ahead of the crowd. – F.J.
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HJL,
I am writing to question the information in the above article. I know that any questioning of the article will require some bona fides. I am an Army Warrant Officer with both Counter Intelligence and Signal experience. I am very close friends with a member of the Ranger Hall of Fame and my best friend on this ol’ Earth was a Cav Scout. I have spoken with both these men (and others) at length about Grossman and his work. Now, on to my comments.
The biggest weakness with the article is its reliance on LTC (not COL) Dave Grossman and BG SLA Marshall for its introductory thesis. Marshall has been accused of wholesale fabrication of data; at the very least his scholarship was sloppy and his conclusions cannot be supported by any actual data he collected.
Grossman relies too heavily (at least in “On Combat”) on Marshall’s work, and his (Grossman’s) conclusions have been challenged by many in the Regiment and the Special Forces community. It’s not that all his ideas are worthless, but the results of actual research on how humans react to combat and killing have not been kind to his thesis.
My recommendation, as a professional soldier, is to not over rely on Grossman’s and Marshall’s questionable thesis in making preparations. – E.W.
‘Secret’ Gold Repatriation: The Banksters’ Newest Bullion Scam
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Interview: The Quickening with Jim Willie
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Items from Mr. Econocobas:
Which Central Bank Will Shock Markets Next?
Will Gold Ever Top $1,300 Again? – Just had to include this article.. The entire premise of this article is based around a recovery that is largely an illusion and that the U.S. can sustain interest rate hikes.
How Americans Are Spending Their Windfall From Cheap Gas- Kind of sad..