Our modern society is highly dependent upon we’ll call the “system.” Not only do we rely upon utility services to bring us electricity, water and natural gas, but also on an incredibly complex supply chain which provides us with everything from food to computers. Without that supply chain, most of us wouldn’t know what to do.
This situation is actually becoming worse, rather than better. When I compare my generation (I’m in my 50s) to that of my children, I see some striking differences. In my generation it was normal for a boy to grow up learning how to do a wide variety of trade skills from his father, and seemingly everyone knew how to do basic carpentry and mechanic work. But that’s no longer normal.
If we extrapolate it back, we can see that my father’s generation knew even more – and my grandparent’s generation even more. Those older generations were much more closely tied to the roots of an agricultural society, where people were self-reliant. There are multiple survival skills they had which modern society no longer considers necessary.
But if we were to have a breakdown in society, those survival skills which we never bothered to learn would become essential. Those who don’t know these survival skills would either have to learn or die trying.
Here are 10 skills our grandparents knew that most of us have long forgotten:
1. Gardening for Food
During World War II, there was a campaign for people to plant “Victory Gardens” at their homes. These vegetable gardens were needed to alleviate food shortages, because so much of the nation’s produce was being sent overseas to keep our troops and those of our allies fighting. With fewer men available to work the farms, there was less produce available.
This custom of having a vegetable garden in one’s backyard survived for many years after the war was over, but it gradually died out. Today, when many people think of gardening, they are thinking of a flower garden. While those are nice to look at, they don’t give you much to eat.
Starting and growing a vegetable garden can be harder than most people think. When I started gardening, it took me three years to get more than just herbs and a smattering of produce out of it. I’m glad I didn’t wait until I needed that garden for survival.
2. Animal Husbandry
Although the industrial revolution took place more than 100 years ago, many people continued to raise at least a small amount of their own livestock at home. This led to cities enacting ordinances limiting what animals people could keep within city limits.
Raising dogs and cats is much different than raising chickens, rabbits and goats for the table. A large part of being able to raise these animals is recognizing their needs and being able to diagnose their sicknesses. Farmers don’t depend upon the vet for most illnesses; they take care of it themselves.
3. Food Preservation
It’s rare to find people who preserve their own foods, but in our grandparent’s generation, it was common. Canning food, smoking meats and even making one’s own sausage were all common home tasks, which ensured that people had enough food to get through the winter. Today, it’s rare to find people who know these methods of food preservation, let alone having the equipment needed.
If we go back very far in American live, pretty much every middle class home had a smokehouse for preserving meats. I’ve seen some homes where the smokehouse was actually in the kitchen chimney. Instead of building a normal chimney, they had a very wide one, with enough room to hang sides of beef in it for smoking.
You might think that blacksmithing goes all the way back to the Old West, but in actuality it is a skill that stayed around much longer than that. My dad was a blacksmith in his later years, although most of the work he did was ornamental.
I remember traveling in Mexico about 20 years ago and having a spring on my car’s suspension break. A local blacksmith fashioned me a new spring, tempered and shaped exactly right for my vehicle. Blacksmiths can make or repair just about anything out of metal. Yet few today know this valuable skill.
Maybe we don’t need blacksmiths today, but if an EMP hit the country and we were without electrical power, the skills of a blacksmith would allow people to have their tools repaired — and new ones fashioned. Since the manufacturing plants presumably would be shut down, that ability would be essential for rebuilding America.
5. Basic Carpentry
Everyone should know how to make basic repairs to their home. Without the ability to repair damage from a natural disaster, it might not be possible to use the home as a survival shelter. Woodworking skills also allow one to make furniture and other items to help survive.
6. Basic Mechanical Repair
Depending upon the type of disaster that hits, the family car may just end up being a large paperweight. But there are many survival scenarios where it would be useful to be able to fix your car, keeping it running for general use. As long as there is gasoline, that car would be useful.
The ability to diagnose and repair an engine is useful not only for keeping a car on the road, but also for fixing lawn mowers, chain saws and other power tools.
7. Herbal Medicine
The roots of medicine were herbal medicine. While doctors have existed for millennia, it hasn’t been until recent times that those doctors had such a wide range of pharmaceuticals to work with. Before that, doctors made their own medicines.
Many women also learned to use what nature provided for medicine. It was not uncommon a few generations back for mom to take care of her family’s medical needs, using recipes that she had learned from her mother. Today, that sort of medicine is called “old wives’ tales” but it works just as well as it always did.
8. Horseback Riding
This may not seem like much of a survival skill, but in the Old West, stealing a man’s horse was a hanging offense. That’s because being stranded without a horse was generally a death sentence. While horseback riding today is only done for sport, if the automobile becomes no longer usable, people will be looking for horses once again.
Riding a horse is actually more complicated than the movies make it appear. Breaking a horse is a skill that few know. Likewise, there are few today, outside of the drivers for the Budweiser Clydesdales, who know how to hitch and drive a team of horses. But in America’s past, our ancestors drove teams with as many as 40 horse or mules in them.
9. Hunting
Now, I know there are a lot of hunters out there, maybe even some who are reading this. But I have to say that a lot of what we call hunting today and what I learned as a kid are nothing alike. I have a hard time calling it hunting when corn is put out as bait and the hunter hides in a blind, waiting for their choice deer to come to eat.
Real hunting, at least what they did in the past, involved knowing the animal’s habits and staking out a place where the animals were likely to come. It required patience, understanding of the animals being hunted — and a pretty good shot with the rifle.
10. Butchering an Animal
Raising an animal is one thing, butchering it is another. Few hunters even know how to properly butcher an animal, as most take them to a butcher for cutting up and packaging. Yet, an animal which is not properly cleaned and butchered can cause disease. You can also waste a lot of good meat by not doing it correctly.
Today I’d like to share with you a “3-second survival hack” you can use to skyrocket your chances of protecting your loved ones during ANY crisis.
What will it take to rescue the global economy in the wake of COVID-19? Are adjustments, improvements or amendments enough? Haven’t we done this before? Maybe it’s time to rethink this with a mindset, not of ‘starting again’ which would tend to invite ‘again’ thinking, but instead to begin with a completely blank slate – no preconceptions – just goals.
I suggested a new paradigm, a total reset.
Change most often happens incrementally, over decades, if not centuries and many historical truths define the present long past their relevance. For one, the fundamental principles of our global economy still rest on the agrarian and industrial revolutions. Tilling the soil and staffing factories remain the foundations of today’s economic planning – despite the fact that we have well entered the digital, automated world.
Another of these historical, yet increasingly outdated conventionsis the pervasiveness of male leadership.
The position of women has evolved incrementally and at best- unevenly – throughout the world. Although women comprise half the population, the world’s political, economic and social systems continue to be based on designs stemming from and reflecting men’s nature.
All things being equal, it is very costly to knock down the entirety of something and start from scratch. Perhaps fortunately, the devastation caused by COVID-19 is happening at a time of acute and increasing awareness of the imbalance in society. This offers a rare, first-ever opportunity to revisit the definition of effective.
That is whyit make sense to re-architect these systems now, imbuing governance with a mix of qualities of success that are peculiar to women as well as those of men.An op-ed in the British Medical Journal recently noted that to avoid ‘groupthink’ and blind spots, policy decisions must include representatives with diverse backgrounds. But during the outbreak of covid-19 the male-led governments of the UK and Sweden relied mainly on epidemiological modeling by internal advisors. Few channels were open for dissenting views. By contrast, Merkel looked to outside sources, beyond epidemiology to medical providers, and as far as South Korea’s successful testing and isolation procedures.
Two notable characteristics of leadership of women leaders during Covid-19 were inclusiveness and compassion: embracing diversity in political institutions and empowering society. In the battle against corona this meant transparency, clarity of responsibility with everything visible – not behind the scenes. It meant swiftly finding ways to allow the populace to become stakeholders in the solution. It included appealing to the citizenry with an executive demeanor that conveyed commitment and a sense that there was a consistent plan of action that demanded civic responsibility while at the same time, leaving the people with a great deal of discretion and personal influence over their own experience.
Compassion informed a compelling vision presented with warmth.
Some like Peter Huang of the University of Colorado Law School, have already noted the most important leadership lesson of COVID-19:put more women in charge. But is that enough when the system itself is informed by and imbued with male characteristics, language, energy?
Societal norms are defined and shaped by millennia of men at the helm. Thus most women remain compelled to conform to the existing framework, created by and for men, to attain and hold their positions. In most cases, that means; act like a man. Adapt to systems where leaders are expected to be aggressive, domineering and cut-throat.
The devastation wreaked by COVID-19 shows that the existing framework is no longer relevant, opening an opportunity to invent something totally new. The virus has created a moment where we can begin to see the possibilities devoid of the limitations of our old ways. The time has come to expand the definition of what is effective and reimagine measures for governance based on entirely new systems that emerge from a cooperative process of creation. For the first time in the history of humanity, society can be built on foundations rising from a fully cooperative process between men and women. With a clean slate and a balanced – male and female, yin and yang -defined approach, we have the opportunity to do it right.
f we step back from the details of daily headlines around the world and try to make sense of larger patterns, the dominant dynamic defining world geopolitics in the past three years or more is the appearance of a genuine irregular conflict between the two most formidable powers on the planet—The Peoples’ Republic of China and the United States of America. Increasingly it’s beginning to look as if some very dark global networks are orchestrating what looks to be an updated rerun of their 1939-1945 World War. Only this time the stakes are total, and aim at creation a universal global totalitarian system, what David Rockefeller once called a “one world government.” The powers that be periodically use war to gain major policy shifts.
On behalf of the Powers That Be (PTB), World War II was orchestrated by the circles of the City of London and of Wall Street to maneuver two great obstacles—Russia and Germany—to wage a war to the death against each other, in order that those Anglo-Saxon PTB could reorganize the world geopolitical chess board to their advantage. It largely succeeded, but for the small detail that after 1945, Wall Street and the Rockefeller brothers were determined that England play the junior partner to Washington. London and Washington then entered the period of their global domination known as the Cold War.
That Anglo-American global condominium ended, by design, in 1989 with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union by 1991.
Around this time, with the onset of the Bill Clinton presidency in 1992, the next phase– financial and industrial globalization– was inaugurated. With that, began the hollowing out of the industrial base of not only the United States, but also of Germany and the EU. The cheap labor outsourcing enabled by the new WTO drove wages down and destroyed one industry after the next in the industrial West after the 1990s. It was a necessary step on the path to what G.H.W. Bush in 1990 called the New World Order. The next step would be destruction of national sovereignty everywhere. Here the USA was the major obstacle.
“A little help from our friends…”
For the PTB, who owe no allegiance to nations, only to their power which is across borders, the birth of the World Trade Organization and their bringing China in as a full member in 2001 was intended as the key next step. At that point the PTB facilitated in China the greatest industrial growth by any nation in history, possibly excepting Germany from 1871-1914 and USA after 1866. WTO membership allowed Western multinationals from Apple to Nike to KFC to Ford and VW to pour billions into China to make their products at dirt-cheap wage levels for re-export to the West.
One of the great mysteries of that China growth is the fact that China was allowed to become the “workshop of the world” after 2001, first in lower-skill industries such as textiles or toys, later in pharmaceuticals and most recently in electronics assembly and production. The mystery clears up when we look at the idea that the PTB and their financial houses, using China, want to weaken strong industrial powers, especially the United States, to push their global agenda. Brzezinski often wrote that the nation state was to be eliminated, as did his patron, David Rockefeller. By allowing China to become a rival to Washington in economy and increasingly in technology, they created the means to destroy the superpower hegemony of the US.
By the onset of the Presidency of Xi Jinping in 2012, China was an economic colossus second in weight only to the United States. Clearly this could never have happened–not under the eye of the same Anglo-American old families who launched the Opium Wars after 1840 to bring China to heel and open their economy to Western financial looting–unless the Anglo-Americans had wanted it.
The same British-owned bank involved in the China opium trade, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC), founded by a Scotsman, Thomas Sutherland in 1865 in the then-British colony of Hong Kong, today is the largest non-Chinese bank in Hong Kong. HSBC has become so well-connected to China in recent years that it has since 2011 had as Board member and Deputy HSBC Chairman, Laura Cha. Cha was formerly Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, being the first person outside mainland China to join the Beijing Central Government of the People’s Republic of China at vice-ministerial rank. In other words the largest bank in the UK has a board member who was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and a China government official. China needed access to Western money and HSBC and other select banks such as JP MorganChase, Barclays, Goldman Sachs were clearly more than happy to assist.
“Socialism with Xi Jinping Characteristics…”
All told until 2012 when Xi took charge of the CCP in Beijing, China seemed to be willing to be a globalist “team player,” though with “Chinese characteristics.” However, in 2015 after little more than two years in office, Xi Jinping endorsed a comprehensive national industrial strategy, Made in China: 2025. China 2025 replaced an earlier Western globalist document that had been formulated with the World Bank and the USA, the China 2030 report under Robert Zoellick. That shift to a China strategy for global tech domination might well have triggered a decision by the globalist PTB that China could no longer be relied on to play by the rules of the globalists, but rather that the CCP under Xi were determined to make China the global leader in advanced industrial, AI and bio-technologies. A resurgent China nationalist global hegemony was not the idea of the New World Order gang.
China:2025 combined with Xi’s strong advocacy of the Belt Road Initiative for global infrastructure linking China by land and sea to all Eurasia and beyond, likely suggested to the globalists that the only solution to the prospect of their losing their power to a China global hegemon would ultimately be war, a war that would destroy both nationalist powers, USA AND China. This is my conclusion and there is much to suggest this is now taking place.
Tit for Tat
If so, it will most likely be far different from the military contest of World War II. The USA and most of the Western industrial economies have “conveniently” imposed the worst economic depression since the 1930’s as a bizarre response to an alleged virus originating in Wuhan and spreading to the world. Despite the fact that the death toll, even with vastly inflated statistics, is at the level of a severe annual influenza, the insistence of politicians and the corrupt WHO to impose draconian lockdown and economic disruption has crippled the remaining industrial base in the US and most of the EU.
The eruption of well-organized riots and vandalism under the banner of racial protests across the USA has brought America’s cities to a state in many cases of war zones resembling the cities of the 2013 Matt Damon and Jodie Foster film, Elysium. In this context, anti-Washington rhetoric from Beijing has taken on a sharp tone in their use of so-called “Wolf Diplomacy.”
Now after Washington closed the China Consulate in Houston and China the US Consulate in Chengdu, both sides have stepped up rhetoric. High tech companies are being banned in the US, military displays of force from the US in the South China Sea and waters near Taiwan are increasing tensions and rhetoric on both sides. The White House accuses the WHO of being an agent of Beijing, while China accuses the US of deliberately creating a deadly virus and bringing it to Wuhan. Chinese state media supports the explosion of violent protests across America under the banner of Black Lives Matter. Step-wise events are escalating dramatically. Many of the US self-styled Marxists leading the protests across US cities have ties to Beijing such as the Maoist-origin Revolutionary Communist Party, USA of Bob Avakian.
“Unrestricted Warfare”
Under these conditions, what kind of escalation is likely? In 1999 two colonels in the China PLA, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, published a book with the PLA Press titled Unrestricted Warfare. Qiao Liang was promoted to Major General in the PLA Air Force and became deputy secretary-general of the Council for National Security Policy Studies. The two updated their work in 2016. It gives a window on high-level China military strategy.
Reviewing published US military doctrine in the aftermath of the 1991 US Operation Desert Storm war against Iraq, the Chinese authors point out what they see as US over-dependence on brute military force and conventional military doctrine. They claim, “Observing, considering, and resolving problems from the point of view of technology is typical American thinking. Its advantages and disadvantages are both very apparent, just like the characters of Americans.” They add, “military threats are already often no longer the major factors affecting national security…these traditional factors are increasingly becoming more intertwined with grabbing resources, contending for markets, controlling capital, trade sanctions, and other economic factors, to the extent that they are even becoming secondary to these factors. They comprise a new pattern which threatens the political, economic and military security of a nation or nations… The two authors define the new form of warfare as, “encompassing the political, economic, diplomatic, cultural, and psychological spheres, in addition to the land, sea, air, space, and electronics spheres.”
They suggest China could use hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, using the media, and conducting urban warfare among the methods proposed. Recent revelations that Chinese entities pay millions in ad revenues to the New York Times and other mainstream USA media to voice China-positive views is one example. Similarly, maneuvering a Chinese national to head the US’ largest public pension fund, CalPERS, which poured billions into risky China stocks, or persuading the New York Stock Exchange to list dozens of China companies without requiring adherence to US accounting transparency increase US financial vulnerability are others.
This all suggests the form that a war between China and the US could take. It can be termed asymmetrical warfare or unrestricted war, where nothing that disrupts the enemy is off limits. Qiao has that, “the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.” There are no Geneva Conventions.
The two Beijing authors add this irregular warfare could include assaults on the political security, economic security, cultural security, and information security of the nation. The dependence of the US economy on China supply chains for everything from basic antibiotics to militarily-vital rare earth minerals is but one domain of vulnerability.
On its side, China is vulnerable to trade sanctions, financial disruption, bioterror attacks and oil embargoes to name a few. Some have suggested the recent locust plague and African Swine Fever devastation to China’s core food supplies, was not merely an act of nature. If not, then we are likely deep into an undeclared form of US-China unrestricted warfare. Could it be that the recent extreme floods along the China Yangtze River that threaten the giant Three Gorges Dam and have flooded Wuhan and other major China cities and devastated millions of acres of key cropland was not entirely seasonal?
A full unrestricted war of China and the USA would be more than a tragedy. It could be the end of civilization as we know it. Is this what characters such as Bill Gates and his superiors are trying to bring about? Do they plan to introduce their draconian dystopian “Reset” on the ashes of such a conflict?
With much of the U.S. finding itself in increasing lockdowns due to the Coronavirus and COVID-19, and many countries in a complete lockdown, we thought this article from 2014 would be worth re-publishing.
We’re still seeing a lot of people who are ignoring basic self-distancing protocols and espousing a “government can’t tell me what to do.” I agree that government overreach has the real potential for getting bad, but voluntarily choosing to stay home or isolate is a much different scenario than the government imposing martial law.
The first is OK, the second abhorrent. With food availability possibly becoming an issue, what we don’t want is the government to be another obstacle in our wish to survive.
Be safe. Wash your hands. — Pat
The news has been almost completely focused on Ebola for the last couple of weeks and information outlets are pouring out details by the minute. This type of event is what the 24-Hour news cycle was created for and pundits on every side are breathlessly announcing news, interviewing witnesses and experts and showing hour after hour of footage of hospitals, people in yellow gowns, nitrile gloves and face-masks. It is enough to make a sane person crazy and it is a sober reminder to preppers everywhere that precautions for events like this are valid, prudent and perhaps in some of our cases, just in the nick of time.
Well, the Prepper Journal audience is full of sane people. I believe that most people who call themselves preppers are focused on taking simple logical steps to ensure the safety of their closest loved ones. It makes sense to pay attention to the news and shore up any supply needs that you might have. I believe it is very wise to keep an eye on the events in Dallas and elsewhere in the world in the event that this virus does grow outside of the limited scope that we have seen so far in the US at least.
When it is all said and done, this “outbreak” which isn’t really an outbreak at all here thankfully could end up disappearing from the news just as quickly as it came. Of course, it could also grow more serious. We aren’t clear exactly how Ebola is transmitted although very smart people are saying that it is hard to catch. So far, I am inclined to believe them only for the primary reason that we only have 3 cases at this time. Should that change I will be prepared to act and I am not going to relax simply because experts tell me not to be alarmed. I am not alarmed, but I am watching events closely as I am sure the rest of you are as well.
Self-Quarantine to reduce exposure risk
If Ebola does start to become a larger problem; if we begin to see a spike in cases, one possible option for limiting your exposure could be as simple as staying home. Self-Quarantine is the practice of taking yourself out of the world so to speak to avoid contact with others completely. This is pretty much bugging in by definition. The NBC News crew that returned from reporting on Ebola had their cameraman test positive for Ebola so they agreed to Self Quarantine themselves to eliminate exposure to the public for the recommended incubation period of up to 21 days. In the case of Dr. Nancy Snyderman, this proved too long and soon they were caught out at a local restaurant which led to a huge public outcry and a weak apology from the doctor.
I won’t argue that staying in quarantine for up to 21 days would be very difficult, especially if you were alone, but if things do turn worse we might all be better off staying indoors. If Ebola cases increase substantially, we might not have a choice if Executive Order 13295 is put into action. 13295 allows for the “apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of suspected communicable diseases.” Would you rather stay in your home and ride out the Ebola event or wherever the government wants to stick you? If you were faced with voluntary or involuntary quarantine to protect your family from Ebola, what would you need to consider?
Corona virus illustration
Infrastructure for Self Quarantine
Not surprisingly, the CDC website has a lot of information about quarantine mostly from the viewpoint of the SARS epidemic back in 2003, but I believe the concepts and topics are still just as relevant if your goal is to reduce or eliminate possible exposure to infected individuals. Major infrastructure considerations for self-quarantine are:
Communication Options – Telephone, cell phones, Ham Radio to keep in touch with others outside of your home. Shortwave radio is another good option assuming the regular lines of communication are down.
Electricity – In a grid up scenario this should be fine, but if the grid goes down, do you have enough electricity for up to 21 days of isolation?
Heat Source – Winter is approaching so a plan to keep warm is important. I have Kerosene Heaters and plenty of stored fuel but I would personally need to augment my supply for very cold conditions. Right now, cold isn’t a factor, but 21 days without power in January would be tougher.
Potable Water – A core element of any prepper supply list is to have water on hand. Enough water for one gallon per person per day. If you have a family of 4 and are forced into quarantine from Ebola for 21 days that would be 84 gallons of water at a minimum. In addition to plastic water containers, keep in mind there are water containers on the market that are naturally anti-viral like a copper water bottle.
Waste and Sanitation – As long as the utilities are functioning this shouldn’t be a problem, but if the crisis explodes (no pun intended) you may not have city water to fill the toilets so alternate accommodations would need to be made. Grid down sanitation options are one possibility but would require you to go outside if the water and sewer lines were out of commission.
Food – Do you have enough food to last for 21 days for your entire family? Again, with society still functioning I guess you could have neighbors bring food over but you wouldn’t want to be going to the grocery store.
Entertainment – 21 days in your home is a long time. 21 days cooped up with your family is an eternity in the most easy going and loving homes. You should have a plan to counter boredom if you want to preserve your sanity along with your health.
Accommodations for Self Quarantine
If you are limiting your exposure as a family unit and by that I mean if everyone in your family is together in this then you can go on living (with certain exceptions) as you were although you wouldn’t be going outside. Would you stop your mail or risk exposure by touching something that another individual had contacted?
I am sure that it depends somewhat on the nature of any potential Ebola outbreak. It could be that the current convention that you must come in contact with bodily fluids from infected people in order to contract the disease holds. If that were the case, you could probably safely move about your yard, but quarantine does mean your trips to the malls, movie theaters, school events, plays, sporting events, hospital visits to sick friends would all be out of the question.
Could you work from home? – In today’s environment there are many of us who could work from home full time. As long as I had internet, power and a cell phone I could work anywhere in the world. Online meetings will probably be more common if travel is restricted during any outbreak. Actually, that would be fine with me too as the last place I would want to be during any kind of disease outbreak is at an airport or any place away from home really.
Could your children do schoolwork at home? – This would be tough for some but I imagine that a lot of schools would have to offer concessions in the case of quarantine. Certainly if the government locked everything down schools would either forgive homework or lean on online systems that are largely in place already. We still have one child that is home-schooled so she wouldn’t get out of anything, but another already gets her assignments online so staying out wouldn’t be a huge burden.
How would you pay your bills? – As long as we have money in the accounts, almost all of our bills except my weekly tithe are done electronically. If that goes down we have bigger problems.
Provided you had running water, power and a job that would allow you to stay home you should only need food to survive outside of climatic extremes. Take all of that away though and your self-imposed quarantine could still save your life, but it would be much harder. Again this assumes that Ebola will always and only be passed from bodily fluids. In this case self-quarantine to reduce exposure should be doable for most people with even basic preparations. Let’s hope we don’t see anything worse.
One of the scariest things that we can have happen to us, as a society, is a breakdown in social order. More than anything, that means a breakdown in law and order; essentially a time of anarchy, even if there is still a government in place.
The rioting following George Floyd’s death has put a number of municipalities, or parts of municipalities, in just this place. Police departments are being held back from doing their jobs to avoid confrontation, leaving the streets to those who are inciting the riots and destroying their cities.
Before I go any further, let me say that it has become increasingly clear that those who are initiating those riots are not the peaceful demonstrators, who are exercising their First Amendment rights. Rather, a number of mayors, governors and police chiefs have come forth, stating that they have clear evidence that the riots have been started by imported muscle, not by local demonstrators.
Nevertheless, these cities are in danger from the riots. There are those who are calling to move those riots out into the suburbs, because “that’s where the problem lives.” Whether they are calling for a racial civil war or not, it seems clear that those voices are pushing to further the violence, expanding it out into areas where their perceived “enemies” live and work.
At the same time, there have been a number of calls to “defund the police;” to the point where protesters in Washington, DC painted that on the street in front of the White House. It would be interesting to follow the money trail on that and see who is behind that movement, but that’s not my purpose here. My purpose is that you and I are ready to defend ourselves, our homes and our families, if those riots move into our neighborhoods.
Let’s Think it Through
Before discussing specific firearms that you might want to have on hand to deal with rioters, let’s talk a minute about the defensive strategy that we need to have in place, even if that is just in our own minds.
We must remember that people in that mob are essentially invisible to the law, in that it is hard to identify them and get a conviction; but you are someone they can identify, putting you at risk. On top of that, your actions will be held under public scrutiny, which is a much harsher judge than the law.
For our purposes, the best defense is one in which you never have to fire a shot. We must remember that the law only allows us to use deadly force in self-defense. That means that the courts have to agree, after the fact, that what we did was reasonable and necessary. If you shoot in today’s political and social atmosphere, you have to realize that you might be convicted, just to appease the mob, even if it was in self-defense.
With that in mind, one thing you want to do is to intimidate the mob, if you can, rather than shooting them. We’ve seen that happen recently, as store owners have stood guard at their places of business, well armed and ready to defend their livelihood. In most cases, the riots have passed those places by, and gone on to ravage other places of business.
If you are forced to fire a shot in order to defend home and family, you’re better off if you are able to merely wound the attackers, rather than killing them. This is a risky strategy, as a wounded assailant could still cause you great harm. But on the hand, it lessens the chances of ending up in jail.
You also want to consider ballistic body armor and even a helmet, to go with whatever gun you use. The mob can kill and often does. Even if they are unarmed, there is always the possibility of them beating someone to death. That ballistic armor can even be a help against that, spreading the force of blows and lessening the chance of them causing harm.
OK, Let’s Look at Some Specific Guns
Whenever it comes to “best” guns, everyone has their own opinion. That’s a given. What I’m after here is more to get you thinking about particular types of guns, rather than specific models. While all of the guns I’m going to mention are excellent firearms, I’m presenting them more as categories, rather than specific makes and models, even though I’m listing the makes and models too. I’m also going to talk a little about specific ammo loads, in cases where I feel it is applicable.
Kel-Tek KSG
If there was ever a gun that was designed for close-range firepower, I’d have to say it is the Kel-Tek KSG.
While there are other excellent shotguns on the market, which follow the design of the KSG, this is the original. It is a bullpup shotgun, with dual switchable magazines, giving it a total capacity of 14 + 1 rounds. Seven round of each of two types of rounds, plus whatever is carried in the chamber.
A typical load for the KSG would be 00 buckshot in one magazine and slugs in the other. That’s great for CQB, especially where breaching is necessary. But breaching is unlikely to be necessary in this case. Rather, you need the ability to defend yourself, perhaps without even killing anyone.
I would load that second barrel with a less-lethal round, like beanbags, rather than slugs. I’d also put something a bit smaller to replace 00 buckshot, such as #4 buckshot. That provides the option of starting out with something that can drive the crowd off, and then escalate firepower if needed. Even escalated, #4 buckshot is less deadly than 00 buckshot.
Mossberg 590M Shockwave
While the KSG is a great shotgun, it is a bit pricey. For those that can’t afford that, some other sort of a tactical shotgun would be great to have; something like the Mossberg 590M.
Mossberg has long been recognized as the standard for tactical shotguns. The 590M is a removable magazine-fed version of the very popular shockwave shotgun.
This removable magazine overcomes one of the biggest limitations for most shotguns, reload time. Rather than being forced to take the time to hand feed rounds into the loading chute to fill the internal magazine, you can slap a new magazine and keep going, just as you can with an AR-15 or semi-automatic pistol.
One modification I would make, to either this or the KSG, is to add a red dot sight. Most people consider shotguns to be a “point and shoot” weapon; but at the range you’ll probably be shooting, it would be good to have the ability to aim, allowing you to pick your target. You’re not going to have much shot spread and you want to make sure you can hit the right trouble maker.
Glock 21
After considerably ballistic testing, I’ve come to some definite conclusions about what pistol calibers are the best for certain circumstances. For most people, this argument comes down to 9mm vs. .45 ACP. Personally, I’m a fan of both, even though I see them as being useful for different things.
The .45 ACP round was originally developed for the US Army, who was having trouble with Moro tribesmen attacking them high on drugs. They needed a round that would have high energy transfer, increasing the chances of knocking down these tribesmen, even if they didn’t feel the hit. The .45 ACP gave them that and there really hasn’t been another round developed which matches this ability.
If we assume that any rioters will be high on at least adrenaline, if not more serious drugs, then we need this knockdown ability. The Glock 21 holds 10 rounds, three more than the 1911, which is why I’ve selected it. Glocks are also highly customizable, with lots of after-market parts available.
Springfield XDS
Such a time, when there is a chance of riots, coupled with reduced police protection, gives justification for concealed carry, if any were needed. There is always the possibility of being caught by that mob, away from home.
While I personally wouldn’t want to take on a mob with nothing more than a pistol, I’d much rather take them on with a pistol than with my bare hands.
My favorite concealed carry gun is the Springfield XDS, chambered in .45 caliber. I’ve carried other guns in the past and then settled on the XDS. Not only does it give me the knockdown power of the .45, but it does so in an easy to shoot, very reliable handgun, that’s fairly small for a .45. Mine is modified to have both tritium night sights and a laser sight, allowing me to use it any time anywhere.
The problem with this gun, as with any concealed carry gun, is magazine capacity. That’s especially true for a .45 caliber. Those fat bullets take up a lot of room, which translates to a small magazine capacity. I compensate for this by carrying two 7-round magazines, in addition to the 5 round magazine that’s in the pistol. Twenty rounds still isn’t enough to take on a mob, but hopefully it’s enough to scare them away, if nothing else.
AR-15
No matter what else you have, you should have an AR-15 as your backup gun. While I would not want to start shooting with that, due to the lethality of a rifle slug, I would want to have it leaning against the wall, loaded and ready, in case I needed a lot of firepower quickly. There are few civilian guns on the market, which can match the firepower that an AR-15 can offer us.
As for what particular AR-15 you should buy, I won’t even attempt to pick one. There are so many on the market, that it’s hard to pick out just one. Besides, my personal AR-15 is one that I’ve built myself, picking out the parts that I wanted. So I can’t tell you a brand.
More than anything, I’d say your optics are important. I’d be sure to have a red dot sight, as well as a powerful tactical light mounted on the rifle. That should take care of most circumstances. While infrared or night vision devices might be nice, you’ll lose important details in the image, so I’d probably avoid them.
This article is not for the faint of heart, but there is an important point to it that needs to be the central focus. The focus is simple: We are a nation founded by citizen-soldiers who did not win freedom or liberty playing Yahtzee. They won it by fighting. When the time comes, the citizens of this country will need to fight again. If you don’t believe that, then you don’t believe that there is nothing new under the sun…and you don’t believe that what happened before will happen again.
I have written many articles on a wide variety of subjects from woodcutting to weightlifting, from herbal remedies to first aid. Many times, I wished to go into greater detail regarding subjects of a military nature or pertinent to combat, but I am limited by the amount I can write: books can be written on the subjects, and we’re trying to introduce readers to concepts. These will get you started…if you do something with them after reading them.
It is what you do with these concepts and articles that will determine how successful they will be in your employ.
That being said, there will be a time to fight. I want to emphasize a concept known in the Army as “Violence of Action.” This covers precise, measured action…not a berserk, uncontrolled frenzy…but a purposed delivering of the most hurtful response you can muster in a home defense.
Your culture…our culture…is based on authoritarian rules of conformity that (at times) instigate complacency during an emergency. “Wait on the authorities,” or “call the police,” or that ambiguous “someone will take care of it.” No. That “someone,” when the SHTF, will be you. Successful actions depend on a good follow-through.
All of the articles I have written on physical conditioning, weight training and basics on combat both with a weapon and unarmed…. all of these are your “basics” to build off. I have suggested different works to read to learn about the warrior mentality and ethos. Why? Why all of this preparation and development of the warrior mentality?
Because it is the warrior mentality that you will need to make it through, and protect you and yours.
Let’s cover a few concepts that can further your preparations…thoughts to consider.
You are going to be faced with a deliberate decision: to act or not to act when it hits the fan. This may take several forms: escape from a large city or suburb and fleeing to somewhere out of a target zone…with dangers along the way.
In a SHTF situation, the resultant frenzy that begins 24-48 hours later (or even sooner) may force you to fight…and “Marquis of Queensbury Rules” will not be honored by those storming your house and front lawn.
Fight or Flight: you must weigh the threats and see which are viable…that you will have to confront immediately, or that it is best to withdraw from. Discretion is the better part of valor.
Are you “finger-drilling it,” or is it for real? Are you ready…really prepared physically, mentally, and yes, spiritually…to act? On behalf of you and your family? There: it’s the next door neighbor trying to jimmy your back door open with a crowbar, and his two sons with rifles behind him. Are you ready for them? Or are you going to “offer some of them your canned jellies, preserves, and fruity treats” from your larder?
“Finger Drilling” is a term we had in the Special Forces Medical Course. One of the instructors was a skinny black guy who had served in Vietnam named Mr. R.V. Johnson. He was a stickler for taking real pulses and really assessing the patient in a primary survey…not just playing the scenario with taking a “fake” pulse or seeing clear breathing when the patient was told to simulate sonorous breath sounds. “Finger Drilling” was just going through the motions.
Are you going through the motions, or are you really preparing for what you’ll have to do…fight to protect your home and family?
Take action on your training program…of marksmanship, of hand-to-hand combat, of physical conditioning. Take the action now. Train with the heavy bag, train with family members. Resolve yourself to carry out the defense of your family…in a controlled, purposed manner…with the violence of action and follow-through. No finger drilling. Resolve yourself to prepare.
Resolve yourself to fight, and when you do? Resolve yourself to win. Mentally preparing yourself to face the challenge is just as big a part of it as the actual engagement is. Review all of your materials, find a good instructor or training partner and get to work. We’re getting “long in the tooth,” and winter is getting ready to arrive in a short time. Utilize every task of physical labor to prepare you physically and mentally. We have a fight coming in the United States. It won’t be in a foreign land on CNN. It will be in our backyards and at our front doors. Now is the time to prepare…so that you can fight that good fight well…and win.
The death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 triggered massive protests across the country. Though the protests are unified in calling for widespread changes in how policing works in America, there is disagreement on what those changes should be. Some protestors are calling for aggressive police reforms. Others, like Black Lives Matter as an organization, demand complete defunding and disbanding of police departments.
Among conservatives, this disagreement manifests differently. The question plaguing conservatives is whether the whole policing system is broken or whether there are a few “bad apples” among police departments who are exploiting a basically functional system.
In the wake of Floyd’s death, this distinction is pointless. It no longer matters if statistics or studies parse out to reveal racism in policing, because society is more than statistics. The nationwide agony and anger of millions of black Americans—agony that knows no class or geographic barriers—is evidence enough. The fact that millions of American citizens do not trust their law enforcement system to represent them, to respect them, to protect them, and to grant them the assumption of innocence is, in itself, a systemic problem. Conservatives must do better at acknowledging this as a prerequisite to proposals for police reform. In fact, one of the basic principles of conservatism—skepticism about the perfectibility of human society—requires us to be open to the possibility of systemic injustice and creative about addressing it.
♦♦♦
Some of conservatives’ reluctance to acknowledge systemic problems with our nation’s law enforcement structures is temperamental. Conservatives are, by nature, reluctant to enact widespread change without plenty of evidence that such change is necessary. We tend to see revolutionary change, like something as dramatic as reforming our entire police system, as inviting disaster, and we prefer incremental changes whenever possible.
On top of this, conservatives have a deep respect for law and order—a respect that comes from our implicit belief that without civilizing structures in place, human beings and human societies incline towards chaos. Christianity refers to this inclination as original sin. Conservatives, religious or not, see this inclination towards chaos as the most basic political reality, one that requires civilization and civilizing institutions like law enforcement to counterbalance it.
So for conservatives, calls for radical change to our nation’s police system are uncomfortable on multiple levels. We are temperamentally skeptical of quick, dramatic change, and we are aware of the human capacity for chaos in the absence of civilizing structures. Hence the tenacity of the “bad apples” theory: if there are just a few corrupting individuals within a relatively sound system, conservatives want to deal with those individuals and not burn down the whole system.
Heather MacDonald is perhaps the most prominent advocate of the “bad apples” theory. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on June 2, she pushes for punishing officers who use excessive force but says that there is “no evidence of widespread racial bias” among police departments. MacDonald relies heavily on statistics to demonstrate that “white officers are no more likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot black civilians”. She references a study by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published in July 2019, whose authors “find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers.” From this, MacDonald goes on to argue that the system of American policing is not itself broken, and isolated reforms to identify and deal with occasional “bad apples” should be enough to solve the problem.
MacDonald is not new to this conversation; she has been writing about racism and the police for years. The main thrust of her argument is that black civilians are shot more often by police officers than white civilians because, as she said at a forum, “Police go where people are being victimized and that means, unfortunately, police spend more time in black neighborhoods,” since the crime rate is higher in those neighborhoods.
MacDonald references many statistics in her writings to support her arguments. Some of these statistics point to a systemic problem in themselves. For example, the study includes this section:
…26% of civilians killed by police shootings in 2015 were Black…even though Black civilians comprise only 12% of the US population. According to this 12% benchmark, more Black civilians are fatally shot than we would expect, indicating disparity. News organizations and researchers using this method find robust evidence of anti-Black disparity in fatal shootings.
However, using population as a benchmark makes the strong assumption that White and Black civilians have equal exposure to situations that result in [fatal officer-involved shootings].
The first paragraph of this quote contains some of the statistics that Black Lives Matter and other advocates of defunding the police point to for support: the percentage of black civilians killed by police officers is more than double the percentage of black Americans in the population. That indicates that black Americans are much more likely than white Americans to be shot by police. But the study continues, saying that comparing the percentages like this is misleading because this comparison assumes that white and black Americans are equally likely to be in situations where the police become involved. In reality, the study continues, black Americans are much more likely to be involved in situations where they could be shot by a cop.
In other words, when we control for violent situations, the statistics indicate that cops are no more likely to shoot black Americans than white Americans. But society is more than statistics. The reality that crime rates are so consistently higher in black neighborhoods that it statistically doubles black Americans’ odds of being shot by police is itself a systemic problem, one that needs more than small reforms in police departments to address.
This leads to another pertinent statistic: according to Dr. Roland Fryer, a professor of economics at Harvard, black Americans are more than fifty times as likely as white Americans to experience non-lethal force at the hands of police. Non-lethal force includes things like a police officer forcing someone against a wall, using handcuffs, drawing a weapon, pushing someone to the ground, using pepper spray, or striking with a baton. Fryer found that during the use of the highly controversial stop-and-frisk policy in New York City, nearly 59 percent of individuals stopped were black—even though blacks comprised only 25.5 percent of New Yorkers at the time.
And, perhaps most telling of Fryer’s findings is that even in incidents when officers report that civilians were compliant and no one is arrested, black Americans are over 20 percent more likely to experience force. In other words, even when black Americans do everything right in a police encounter, the statistics show that they are considerably more likely to be handcuffed, threatened with a weapon, or even pepper sprayed or struck with a baton.
Senator Tim Scott, a black Republican, gave a speech in June 2020 in which he recounted some of his own frightening experiences with police officers. He shared that during one year as an elected official, he had been pulled over seven times while driving—and in some of those instances he was doing nothing wrong. In one instance, he was pulled over at four in the afternoon simply because a police officer thought that the car he was driving may have been stolen. He shares the story of a former staffer, a black man who drove a Chrysler 300 and was pulled over so many times for no reason that he eventually sold the car and bought something more innocuous.
Within in the justice system, black and white Americans again have radically different experiences. Black men convicted of a crime face prison sentences approximately twenty percent longer than the sentences of white men with similar records. While white and black Americans have similar drug usage rates, black Americans are imprisoned nearly six times more often than whites for drug usage. The NAACP reports that one-third of black men can expect to spent time in jail, in comparison to just one in seventeen white men.
Children who experience parental imprisonment are nine percentage points more likely to struggle in school and to have emotional difficulties—and black children are twice as likely to experience having a parent in prison than white children. Adults who experienced parental imprisonment as children are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, to not seek medical care until the situation becomes an emergency, to have more than ten sexual partners and higher risk of sexually transmitted infections, to be obese, or to exchange sex for money. Some of these behaviors are themselves crimes, leading to a cycle of incarceration that disproportionally affects black children.
In schools, black students face far higher rates of ticketing and arrests than white students. In Denver public schools during the 2018-19 school year, 29 percent of referrals to law enforcement involved black students, even though only 13 percent of students in the district are black. From 2014 to 2019, black students experienced 87 percent of tickets and arrests in Denver schools.
♦♦♦
The story of black Americans and police brutality is far more complex than a single statistic. There is a decades—perhaps centuries—long narrative of blacks encountering unjust treatment at the hands of law enforcement, treatment that has contributed to a cycle of trauma, arrest, and incarceration.
With this being the case, the truth is that just one brutal murder of a black American by a cop can reveal a whole side of our society that statistics may not. For many black Americans, from high school students to a United States senator, there is already plenty of day-to-day evidence that police do not view them as equals. So when a video like the one of George Floyd’s murder emerges, it only confirms what they already suspect.
That video of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck is terrible to watch, both because of its brutality and because of the horrific casualness in Chauvin’s posture and his expression. It is as if Chauvin does not believe he is dealing with a human being.
And Chauvin is not alone. After the murder of Elijah McClain by a cop’s chokehold in Aurora, Colorado, the same cop took photos with several fellow police officers, reenacting and mocking his death. When the photos were circulated, one officer responded with the word “HaHa”.
These are only two examples of police officers treating black lives as trivial. In both of these instances, it took police departments far too long to punish these cops for their behavior. The “bad apple” theory says that these incidents are too isolated to demonstrate a systemic problem. But even a few occurrences like these are enough to create a systemic problem, because they communicate to an entire community that police are allowed to behave as if some lives are less valuable than others.
Police brutality exists in part because for decades, our society has tacitly accepted violence and lawlessness from law enforcement. This lawlessness affects white Americans, too; look, for example, at the shooting of Duncan Lemp, a white American who was shot while lying in his bed at home. Police used a three-month-old anonymous tip that Lemp was in possession of firearms to get a no-knock warrant (the same kind of warrant that led to the shooting of Breonna Taylor in Louisville). His pregnant girlfriend, who was in the bed as well, reports that the police never communicated with her or with Lemp before opening fire.
There are multiple reasons behind police brutality. The role of unions in police brutality cannot be understated. Unions make it very difficult for brutal cops to be charged, fired, or even held accountable for their actions. This perpetuates a cycle of violence, as aggressive cops find that they can do whatever they want without consequences. NPR reported that in communities where officers form unions and gain collective bargaining rights, there is usually a substantial increase in civilian killings.
There is also the idea of qualified immunity permits public officials—including police officers—who violate another American’s civil rights to go unpunished unless their exact behavior has been previously condemned by a court. A grotesque application of qualified immunity allowed police officers in California steal over $225,000 worth of cash and goods while executing a search warrant. As Jason Sullum writes in Reason, “Courts in other cases have approved qualified immunity for cops who allegedly shot people without cause, sicced a dog on a man who was surrendering, tased a driver who was stopped for failing to buckle his seat belt, and ordered a 17-year-old boy to disrobe and masturbate so they could take pictures of his erect penis.”
The power of unions and broken legal principles like qualified immunity protect brutal cops, who abuse their power disproportionately against black Americans and communities. Conservatives and liberals should be in complete agreement that a system that routinely permits this kind of behavior without punishment is in need of immediate, drastic reform.
♦♦♦
But despite all this, many conservatives remain reluctant make the kinds of changes needed. Dr. Anthony Bradley writes about this in a piece for the Acton Institute, where he warns that “many of the reform proposals as they currently read will not heal decades of immediate pain, trauma, and violence, not to mention centuries of social, economic, and educational failures in governmental policy.” He reminds conservatives that any effective police reforms will have to take into account the reality that black Americans have long been treated as if their lives are less valuable. Hence the instant rallying behind the cry, “Black Lives Matter.” The name would not have stuck had it not resonated with many people who have long felt that their lives do not matter—and do not matter specifically to law enforcement.
Dr. Bradley’s article is worth reading in its entirety to see his proposals for reform, which are based on “the seven guiding principles as delineated in the 2007 report titled, “The Chicago Principles of Post-Conflict Justice.” These principles require deep, transformative change—change that would be disruptive, uncomfortable, and probably messy. For example, Principle 5 says, “Cities should support official programs and initiatives to remember past victims of injustice, educate communities about past problems, and allow local families to properly grieve past tragedies.” This principle would require civic leaders to admit failures, publicly ask for forgiveness, and work for atonement, all of which is hard. But it is necessary.
These principles call for reform to begin on a local level because, as Bradley writes, “All policing is local policing.” He says:
Rebuilding trust between law enforcement and citizens will arrive only when local leaders enter a formal process of transitioning – one that transforms community distrust to community solidarity in order to serve the common good and reestablish the rule of law. Rebuilding trust is especially needed in those places where police have abused their power.
Rebuilding trust in the way Bradley calls for will require deep, painful changes. Principle 1 is simple in theory: “Cities should prosecute alleged perpetrators of police violence and brutality.” But in practice, putting this principle into action may often be arduous because of unions and legal structures protecting police brutality. The wounds are very deep, and the process of cleaning them out will not be easy. Surface reforms and a few new rules will not cut it. Entrenched systems of corruption like police unions and qualified immunity have to go, but the battle to remove those systems will be hard.
In many communities, these systems may be integrally bound up with law enforcement, and getting rid of these systems may mean starting over altogether. Only after this painful process can we go on to later principles like Principle 4, which lays out guidelines for creating just systems, and Principle 7, which articulates what communities with reformed law enforcement system will be able to do: “support the rule of law, restore public trust in policing, promote constitutional rights, and support good governance.”
♦♦♦
This belief that some lives are less valuable than others haunts American society in many guises. The most obvious is the pervasiveness of abortion, which says that the life of an unborn child does not matter. In order to uproot the evils of racist police violence, Americans must be willing to uproot the evil at its root.
Saying that there are just a few “bad apples” in a basically functioning system is not a path to healing and restoration. The reality is that becomes of past demonstrations of racism by law enforcement, many Americans can no longer trust this institution to treat them with justice. Conservatives should be on the front lines of demanding the changes that will give all Americans confidence that they are equal under the law.
Here’s the situation: some people want your stuff, or they just plain out want to kill you. Whatever the cause of the escalation might be, all you’ve got is a gun lying on the ground next to you. What shooting techniques and tactics would you use and how would you survive a gun fight?
So first, you’ve picked up the gun, pulled out the magazine and checked how many rounds you’ve got spare. This is all while rounds are flying over your head and bouncing off things around you. But they’re not hitting you because you’ve already ducked behind cover to figure out your tactics right?
Let’s just say that if there were a group of people firing at me, my first thought would be to get out of there as quickly as possible, regroup with some gun-savvy would-be John Wick volunteers and come back. One big tip that might help, in a gunfight, 3 on 1 is better than 1 on 3. So work with those odds and round up some friends who would be worthy of a gun fight and are up to scratch with these 14 things to remember to survive a shootout.
1. Have yourself a merry little sidearm pistol
Weapon fires weapon stops. This is a thing they teach to soldiers in initial weapons training. They teach this because guns are not like a weapon in Call of Duty, in a real gun battle they stop. You could fire one shot and the weapon might not automatically reload because you have a chunky piece of metal 5.56 jacket jammed in your ejection port.
Now while any good shooter might pull out the magazine, cock the weapon and give the gun a right old nudge and shake just to free up the jam, you’re not going to do that. In an immediate jam, you are going to sling that weapon (everyone should have a good adjustable sling) and whip out your pistol to keep firing.
You might have seen John Wick make his way through a soiree of larger weapons before working his way down to his pistol range, that’s because when you’re in the heat of a shootout, using your next loaded weapon is quicker than fixing a jammed gun, or doing a magazine change.
That pistol is your merry little backup present when the first one wasn’t good enough. It is loaded and ready to dump out the 15-30 rounds you might be carrying in your glock magazine.
In this case, you’d probably use this secondary weapon to work your way through a pistol fight while you find cover and get your boomstick back into the game.
For a demonstration on the quick sling of the primary to secondary weapon, we can look no further than to the training given to Keanu Reaves to become John Wick by Taran Tactical for this one:
2. Know where your ejection port is
While we all love the John Wick films and other great shooting movies, those films aren’t always that accurate. Especially when it comes to bullet casings. Every weapon has an ejection port. Out of that comes the bit of bullet that never leaves the barrel of a gun. It’s called a casing and it is damn hot.
The first reason you should know where your ejection port is would be in the case above where your weapon jams up. Most of the time it’s going to be a bullet that hasn’t been struck properly and has not fed into the gun correctly, you will see this stuff up in the ejection port. It is about this time that if you are only carrying one gun, you should know how to fix a weapon jam pretty quick.
The second reason, and one quickly learned by shooting beginners, is that some weapons have ejection ports that can fire hot bullet casings onto your skin causing a nice little bullet tattoo to be burnt into your skin. Generally, the ejection port is on the right side of the weapon, so when your would-be volunteer buddies in the gun fight are on your left you are going to get sprayed with burning hot bullet casings.
What should you do about this? Suck it up. They’re on your side and you’ve got bullets coming at you. But if you’re like this lady with a bullet casing down the top, you’re probably going to be burning.
3. I shoot, you run
If you are not shooting you should be running. Tell your buddies in the gun fight the same thing. Try to synchronize it. If you are retreating, one person shoots while the other runs, repeat this until you are in your abandoned building, bunker hideout.
This works the other way, in the attack. If you have sized the enemy as being reasonable for your capacity and you decide to attack, shoot in their direction while your buddy runs. Let’s hope he is smart enough to figure out he should do the same.
The process of your buddy shooting while you run is called ‘covering’. This is why you hear that great term, covering fire.
This gunfighting technique also referred to as ‘fire and movement’ and if you’ve been in the military you’d cringe just hearing these words as that is a lot of the combat practice in the field which turns to elements in urban training.
When you are making those shots, sure, rounds placed near an enemy’s position is going to keep them pinned behind cover, but make sure you control your breathing, which in turn helps with your aim. The military uses a method called Box Breathing for this. Learn it and use it as it is a great way to de-stress and take control of any given situation.
4. Keep your eyes on three things at the same time
While you are ducking, diving, and firing well-aimed shoots in your gunfight survival, there are three other things (I know, it’s a lot) that you should be paying attention to: the guys shooting at you, your buddy, and possible cover. These three things are the only things you should be looking at. You should be watching where your enemy is, where you last saw them or where they sound like they are shooting from. You should be watching this because when your buddy is moving, this is where you are shooting.
You should be watching your buddy and listening out for his gun. If he is shooting, you move, if you don’t hear any shots from him, that probably means his weapon is jammed or he is just plain useless. In some cases that uselessness can also cause a jam – be warned.
On top of this, you should always be looking for the next place you are going to move to. If you are in a retreat, this is basically putting solid things behind you, if you are attacking, this is stuff in front of you. Always be looking for covering spots. Why? Because the next point is why.
5. I’m up, he sees me, I’m down
This is what you say when you run. As soon as you take your first step you should say to yourself: “I’m up, he sees me, I’m down”. This is enough time to move, and not allow your enemy to take a steady aim and kill you. If you run longer than this, anyone with a sense of aim can take a quick sighting and put some metal your way and possibly land a hit. So don’t let it happen.
When the phrase says ‘down’ this doesn’t just refer to dropping to the ground, it is whatever you deem a safe place to fire from. If it is a wall or over the front of a car, use it as cover and shoot while your buddy moves.
You can see how these guys from Polenar Tactical work in unison to provide covering fire for their buddy running. Eventually, this would get you close enough to the enemy to grenade them, or get closer to get your buddy in a flank.
This phrase is something that is regularly repeated in initial combat training for a lot of the world’s forces. It is taught for the reason which is to keep you alive. But this will fail you if you don’t adhere to the next part, which is once you are down, move for an extra few meters. Why? Next point.
6. Don’t be a rabbit
Ever seen a rabbit in the grass? It bends down to eat, pops its head back up and bends down again. You give your friend a nudge in the arm and say “check out two meters left of that tree, there’s a rabbit”. And before you know it, the rabbit has popped his little head up in the exact same spot. Boom, if you were the rabbit you would be dead. The same will happen in a real gun fight.
In a shootout, if you see someone running you are going to aim at their last seen place and wait until they pop out to shoot them. So with the principle mentioned before, once you leave the visibility of your enemy whether it be behind a car, wall… or whatever, move and crawl a few meters before popping up to shoot. Make sure that movement is lateral to the enemy. Think of it as getting out of the X.
In an urban environment, this can only work so well as you might be behind a car or a single-spaced object with very little crawl distance. Make do with what you can but remember the idea of the rabbit popping up in the same place.
7. Be aggressive and quick
Let’s think about some animals at the top of the food chain. All of the ones that I can think of are aggressive and quick in their attack and you should be too despite whether you are attacking or retreating. Why? When you are covering fire you only have a certain amount of bullets to do so (You are hoping that we picked up a gun with a full mag when we found it at the start).
Taking a gun fight slow and steady will result in getting shot. Bullets move fast and you need to as well. If you are ever unfortuante enough to find yourself in the midst of a real gun fight the number one rule is to be aggressive, confident and quick.
Part of being aggressive is also being on the offensive. When it comes to surviving a gun fight, when you maintain the offensive with your buddy (hopefully more than one) you are overwhelming your enemy with so much precise force that they cannot handle the pressure and start making mistakes and panic. This puts you in control and control is the key to winning.
8. Plan like it’s the last thing you ever do
Yes, it could be the last thing you ever do. Getting shot is no field trip and it can result in a massive loss of blood and death. So what are you going to do? Well, you should already have your answer for that. Plan, plan, plan.
It could be anything from attacking with your buddy up until you can run a flank, or it could be to sit and fire a few shots in the enemy’s direction to probe and find out what sort of guns they have (let’s hope for your sake they don’t have mounted heavy belt-fed weapons). Whatever you do, have a plan and a backup one if that fails.
When it comes to gun fights, there are a huge amount of tactics that can be employed, they all depend largely on the area where you are fighting, such as urban gun fights in buildings, apartments and tight streets, or in the wilderness in forests, jungles or wide open planes. All of these have their setbacks, exposure points, and weaknesses. The only way to win a fight is to think logically and exploit those weaknesses against the other team.
I recently wrote a post about a tactical way of thinking using situational awareness. The theory of the OODA loop was developed by a military tactician and is something you should use to diagnose, dissect and win your gun fight. The OODA loop is explained in-depth in the post on situational awareness but for an overview, it stands for:
Observe your enemy
Orientate how they are acting and what you can do to counter and win that action
Make a Decision on the best course of action to take
Carry out the Action.
The loop then continues back into the observation phase.
9. Be fit for a gunfight
By this, we don’t mean you should start doing pushups in the middle of a two-way range. This is a preparatory thing and is a big part of prepping for when the sh-t hits the fan. Fitness is important in a gun fight for three main reasons:
It keeps you confident with a level-head and tactical thinking mindset
It gets you from point A to B quickly and efficiently
It allows you to make a steady aim after just sprinting for your life
If you are not fit, get started by working with high-impact interval training.
10. Get creative when looking for cover
Cover isn’t just a place to hide, it’s also a place to shoot rounds from to try and land a hit on your enemy as well as to suppress the enemy for your buddy to gain some ground. Part of this involves the flexibility and creativity that many special forces soldiers use in their field office. Chances are your gun fight is going to be in an urban environment which means you are going to have vehicles, houses, fences, garden hedges, windows and anything else at your disposal. Whatever you have got, use it.
Navy SEAL Rich Graham teaches various methods like this at his Tactical Carbine course. While this video was intentionally about muzzle awareness from a concealed position, you can see how he uses the tray of a truck as a covered firing position.
Remember that whichever position you find to fire from, make sure you can build a solid firing position to aim, control your breath and control your weapon so that you can make more accurate shots. These are simple military marksmanship principles and greatly improve your aim ability to end a firefight with a well-placed shot when coupled with breathing exercises taught to soldiers. For those that find they need to take time to line a good shot on the range, there are courses developed online such as the Spec Ops Shooting Course that teaches you how to shoot faster while still maintaining the same accuracy. When it comes down to it, shooting quick, and accurate is the most important shooting technique you can ever master.
You have probably heard something along the lines of “don’t bring a knife to a gunfight”, but that is completely wrong. A knife is a piece of equipment every tactical gun fighter should have on their kit for a number of reasons. One of them is that a knife something you can grab in close combat when everything else fails.
Remember how we said you should have a merry little sidearm? What if you have spent all of that ammunition getting to the enemy and it comes down to a test of strength between the two of you? No, that’s not going to happen. You’ve got a fixed-blade knife ready to use in combat.
What type of knife should you be using? That’s up to you, but as far as cool gear goes, you can’t go past the legendary US Marine Ka-Bar knife.
12. If you are entering a gunfight in a car, shoot, then get out and shoot some more
Cars are bullet magnets, and you are pretty well exposed if you are sitting in it (unless of course, you are in the US President’s Beast), so you are going to need to get out of that thing quickly. But while you are getting out, you could be sprayed with metal.
To leave a car in a gun fight (assuming it has stopped) you should:
Fire some shots at whoever is shooting at you (this will divert their attention from shooting you to ducking)
Open the door and hold it open with your foot (some doors have a kickback)
Lead with your gun out the door aiming at the enemy and fire shots while leaving the car
Position yourself so that the vehicle is in between yourself and the enemy
Here is a demonstration on executing a quick departure from a car under fire from Tactical Rifleman:
13. Don’t forget your chest rig
Okay, so if you are in a gun fight, chances are you were probably looking for one and did not run away at the first sign of a shot. This means you are a hardened individual ready to eat lead, shoot with precision, advance towards an enemy and make them quiver with fear from your dominant fighting skills.
All of this means you probably already have something like a Condor Recon Chest Rig and the sweet sidearm carrier the Condor Tornado Tactical Leg Holster. You are a dangerous gunfighter by the looks of it. And with this gear you can carry more magazines, have the smaller working space between the quick draw of your magazines to the loading port of your rifle and handgun and you can also fasten the previously mentioned US Marine Ka-Bar knife to the molle on the rig.
If you are are anything of a military buff, you have probably heard of the film Lone Survivor, the film adaptation of the amazing story of war hero Marcus Luttrel. The film’s immensely real adaptation of military tactics, weapons drills, and equipment was very real. In saying that, the specialist Rhodesian Recon Vest (RRV) chest rig the character wore in that film is also a very popular option for many military professionals and security workers.
14. Don’t get in one, but if you have to, win.
Remember how we mentioned the OODA loop in Number 8? Well if you can see an opportunity to de-escalate an issue then take it. Peace is a much better approach for all parties than exchanging fast and hot bullets.
If there is a peaceful option to take, then take it. But if there isn’t then god speed.
In writing this article, I also encourage anyone who is interested in weapons, in general, to promote gun safety to anyone you know who is about to touch a weapon otherwise you might end up being injured by one of these unsafe people. While this post might sound light, guns are no joke and are meant to be taken very serious when working with and around them.
I hope you enjoyed this post. Give it a share with the buddies you would expect to back you up in a fight!
A lot of the popularity of firearms is due to the fact that anyone can use them effectively, not only the strong and agile. The young, the old, men, women and child can take up firearms in defense of home and family and do so effectively.
Gun Control is a favorite tactic for many politicians on the left. It allows them to shift the blame from the person, whose worldviews and political party often aligns with theirs, to a simple tool they can ban. With an all Republican everything, you’d think we wouldn’t have to worry, but that’s far from true. These people seemingly always find a way to infiltrate politics and attempt to strip us of our God-given rights. So what do we do? How do we fight back if gun control legislation is proposed or passed?
#1. Learn How To Make Your Own
California is the beacon of cruddy gun control laws in the United States. They’ve gone above and beyond to reclassify your standard semi-automatic rifle into what they call an assault rifle. What we’ve seen is people and companies outsmarting the legislature at every turn. One of the most famous means was building your own gun. Specifically AR 15s. AR 15s are always on the chopping block, but even California couldn’t stop the signal.
With the advent of 80% lowers Californians were able to again build their own rifles within the law. The AR 15 is hardly the only weapon you can build. In fact, an enterprising patriot build can manufacture their own semi-auto Sten gun, Glocks, MAC 10/11s, AK rifles and more. The main issue is going to be acquiring the skills and tools needed to make these weapons. It takes a little mechanical skill and a lot of different tools.
It would be wise to start learning the insides and outsides of guns now. Learn to build them, acquire the tools, and fire up the Youtube machine. Here you’ll find as hard as they try they can’t stop the signal. You can build your own with a little practice, and it’s perfectly legal to do so. You aren’t just building guns, you are learning valuable skills regarding the construction and design of firearms that could be invaluable if things got really bad.
#2. Recognize the Gun Ban Matrix
One fact we’ve seen over and over again with anti-gunners is that they know absolutely nothing about guns. If the power these people had wasn’t so terrifying it would be hilarious. Every time they open their mouths about guns they say something incredibly stupid. They simply target guns that look scary and that’s it. That’s why the gun ban matrix exists. The gun ban matrix is a list of features and guns unlikely to be banned because anti-gunners are idiots and don’t understand firearms.
These are the guns you should consider investing in should sweeping legislation occur. In case the situations getting drastic and confiscation begins things may move too fast for people to react. In that event a neutered gun is better than no gun.
The first guns to go are going to be the traditional targets for anti-gunners, the AK 47s, the AR 15s, the Tavors, and the usual suspects. They may be banned by name, or by the features they share. A good alternative to these semi-auto rifles is the Ruger Mini 14 and Mini 30 series. They can be purchased in not so scary configurations.
Past the Mini 14 and Mini 30, there is the fixed magazine SKS rifle. It’s often left off ban lists, and it’s affordable and common. It’s limited to ten rounds, but with stripper clips, you can reload quite fast with practice.
Past this level we get into manually operated firearms, this includes pump-action shotguns, and lever and bolt action rifles. A good lever action rifle is a rapid firing gun and in the right caliber can hold up to 14 rounds. These guns are highly unlikely to be banned without a full constitutional amendment.
#3. Don’t Give A Single Inch
With the recent Las Vegas shooting there has been an increased interest in banning a firearm accessory known as a bump fire stock. These accessories are rather dumb and useless, and in no way did it make the shooter more lethal. Regardless of how dumb and useless they are there is no reason the firearms community should let them be banned without a fight. With the NRA even saying the ATF should reevaluate bump fire stocks.
This is how gun control starts, with tiny little cuts. We let them take one dumb accessory and next time they’ll push for something else, and they’ll keep pushing. Give them nothing, not a single inch. As gun rights advocates we have to defend what we have and go on the offensive. Fight back and take our God Given rights back.
#4. Push Back and Push Back Hard
If legislation gets passed regarding gun control, and I mean any legislation at all, we have to push back. The vast majority of gun owners are law abiding, tax paying, job having citizens who want nothing more than to live in peace. We all know actual gun control will do absolutely nothing to strip criminals of firearms, just good people who already obey the law.
If gun control happens as law abiding gun owners we have to flood the legislator’s offices with our demands. We have to protest, we have to write letters, we need to march on the capitals. In 2012 the gun community did an amazing job of coming together to resist any form of gun control. We need that same response to every law that passes, heck we need that reaction every gun control law that is even proposed.
We need to push at the local, state and federal level. Work every angle possible. We have to keep supporting companies that agree with our God-given rights, we have to join gun rights organizations of every kind. We literally have to put our money where our mouth is.
#5. Focus on the Small Politics as Much as the Large
It’s easy to forget the importance of local politics when it comes to federal gun control. Local and state politics can make all the difference. We saw Sheriff’s in states across the union step forward and say they would refuse to enforce federal gun control laws in their counties. We saw states and municipalities adopt laws that would act to nullify federal gun control laws.
If we can’t toss the anti-freedom and anti-gun bastards out of federal offices we can at least elect the right people at the local and state level to ensure the laws are useless.
Resist
As American citizens, we owe it to future generations to resist. Resist with every fiber we have. Resist gun control measures with everything we can. We need to prepare for the worst and always ready to resist.
Gun Control is a favorite tactic for many politicians on the left. It allows them to shift the blame from the person, whose worldviews and political party often aligns with theirs, to a simple tool they can ban. With an all Republican everything, you’d think we wouldn’t have to worry, but that’s far from true. These people seemingly always find a way to infiltrate politics and attempt to strip us of our God-given rights. So what do we do? How do we fight back if gun control legislation is proposed or passed?
#1. Learn How To Make Your Own
California is the beacon of cruddy gun control laws in the United States. They’ve gone above and beyond to reclassify your standard semi-automatic rifle into what they call an assault rifle. What we’ve seen is people and companies outsmarting the legislature at every turn. One of the most famous means was building your own gun. Specifically AR 15s. AR 15s are always on the chopping block, but even California couldn’t stop the signal.
With the advent of 80% lowers Californians were able to again build their own rifles within the law. The AR 15 is hardly the only weapon you can build. In fact, an enterprising patriot build can manufacture their own semi-auto Sten gun, Glocks, MAC 10/11s, AK rifles and more. The main issue is going to be acquiring the skills and tools needed to make these weapons. It takes a little mechanical skill and a lot of different tools.
It would be wise to start learning the insides and outsides of guns now. Learn to build them, acquire the tools, and fire up the Youtube machine. Here you’ll find as hard as they try they can’t stop the signal. You can build your own with a little practice, and it’s perfectly legal to do so. You aren’t just building guns, you are learning valuable skills regarding the construction and design of firearms that could be invaluable if things got really bad.
#2. Recognize the Gun Ban Matrix
One fact we’ve seen over and over again with anti-gunners is that they know absolutely nothing about guns. If the power these people had wasn’t so terrifying it would be hilarious. Every time they open their mouths about guns they say something incredibly stupid. They simply target guns that look scary and that’s it. That’s why the gun ban matrix exists. The gun ban matrix is a list of features and guns unlikely to be banned because anti-gunners are idiots and don’t understand firearms.
These are the guns you should consider investing in should sweeping legislation occur. In case the situations getting drastic and confiscation begins things may move too fast for people to react. In that event a neutered gun is better than no gun.
The first guns to go are going to be the traditional targets for anti-gunners, the AK 47s, the AR 15s, the Tavors, and the usual suspects. They may be banned by name, or by the features they share. A good alternative to these semi-auto rifles is the Ruger Mini 14 and Mini 30 series. They can be purchased in not so scary configurations.
Past the Mini 14 and Mini 30, there is the fixed magazine SKS rifle. It’s often left off ban lists, and it’s affordable and common. It’s limited to ten rounds, but with stripper clips, you can reload quite fast with practice.
Past this level we get into manually operated firearms, this includes pump-action shotguns, and lever and bolt action rifles. A good lever action rifle is a rapid firing gun and in the right caliber can hold up to 14 rounds. These guns are highly unlikely to be banned without a full constitutional amendment.
#3. Don’t Give A Single Inch
With the recent Las Vegas shooting there has been an increased interest in banning a firearm accessory known as a bump fire stock. These accessories are rather dumb and useless, and in no way did it make the shooter more lethal. Regardless of how dumb and useless they are there is no reason the firearms community should let them be banned without a fight. With the NRA even saying the ATF should reevaluate bump fire stocks.
This is how gun control starts, with tiny little cuts. We let them take one dumb accessory and next time they’ll push for something else, and they’ll keep pushing. Give them nothing, not a single inch. As gun rights advocates we have to defend what we have and go on the offensive. Fight back and take our God Given rights back.
#4. Push Back and Push Back Hard
If legislation gets passed regarding gun control, and I mean any legislation at all, we have to push back. The vast majority of gun owners are law abiding, tax paying, job having citizens who want nothing more than to live in peace. We all know actual gun control will do absolutely nothing to strip criminals of firearms, just good people who already obey the law.
If gun control happens as law abiding gun owners we have to flood the legislator’s offices with our demands. We have to protest, we have to write letters, we need to march on the capitals. In 2012 the gun community did an amazing job of coming together to resist any form of gun control. We need that same response to every law that passes, heck we need that reaction every gun control law that is even proposed.
We need to push at the local, state and federal level. Work every angle possible. We have to keep supporting companies that agree with our God-given rights, we have to join gun rights organizations of every kind. We literally have to put our money where our mouth is.
#5. Focus on the Small Politics as Much as the Large
It’s easy to forget the importance of local politics when it comes to federal gun control. Local and state politics can make all the difference. We saw Sheriff’s in states across the union step forward and say they would refuse to enforce federal gun control laws in their counties. We saw states and municipalities adopt laws that would act to nullify federal gun control laws.
If we can’t toss the anti-freedom and anti-gun bastards out of federal offices we can at least elect the right people at the local and state level to ensure the laws are useless.
Resist
As American citizens, we owe it to future generations to resist. Resist with every fiber we have. Resist gun control measures with everything we can. We need to prepare for the worst and always ready to resist.
Ultimate-Survival 