Preparedness Tested

On By Tom LindsayIn Family, Safety, Training

Sunday evening, my wife and I were watching a movie on TV. I was making my usual observations about gun handling. Kudos to the sound people for not inserting some kind of cocking or safety clicking noise when Gerard Butler drew his Glock, since they don’t have external safeties, and don’t need to be cocked. Gerard Butler’s trigger discipline left a lot to be desired, though, especially since he was supposed to be playing an ex-cop.

Then I decided to check my Twitter feed, and my threat level went from Yellow to Orange about as quickly as it takes you to read this. My timeline was full of people telling me to switch to CNN, because President Obama was going to announce that Osama bin Laden had been killed. You all probably saw the same thing I did, as we waited an hour for the President to confirm.

About five minutes into the wait my daughter texted us from her dorm room. After a couple of exchanges, my wife asked her if she was all right, using a specific series of words, and my daughter responded she was okay, using her affirmative code word.

Each member of my family has a specific question that the others may ask, and we have a positive code word to show that we are okay and not being coerced, and we have a negative code work. The negative code word is actually a positive word that can be used without anyone else being alerted, but it tells the others that they are being help against their will or being forced to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do.

Am I paranoid to do this? I don’t think so. The world is a dangerous place, and our lives take us places where we might not always have family members available for support. If we get the chance to communicate, a call for help might just make things worse.

My wife told me later that as soon as I put down my Blackberry and changed to CNN, she thought from the look on my face that there might be something going on that would require me to drive to my daughter’s dorm and bring her home. Yes, there are scenarios where that is my plan. That’s why I keep my car gassed and my things ready. I pray I won’t ever have to do it.

But we have a plan, and sometimes it gets tested.

Be Prepared, Part 3 – the Black Hawk Down Rule – Movie Rule of Thumb 18

On By Tom LindsayIn Movie Rules1 Comment

Over the years I have developed what I call my Movie Rules of Thumb, insights into how to deal with life’s situations, each one based on some event in a movie I’ve seen. The most recent addition is what I call the Black Hawk Down Rule:

18. There are NO half hour missions.

Both the book by Mark Bowden and the film by Tony Scott tell the story of the US Army mission to try to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in Mogadishu in 1993. A lot of the soldiers on this mission got in trouble because they assumed the mission, taking place in the middle of the day, surrounded by his cronies, would take a half hour, in and out. Most took no provisions, no canteens, and minimal ammunition, because the plan said the mission would be too short for them to need it, and they would be back soon. Instead, things went terribly wrong, and the mission lasted all day and all night. 19 Americans died.

So what does the Black Hawk Down Rule mean to me? It means there is no ten minute jaunt to the convenience store for milk. There is no half hour walk around the block. There is no quick run through the drive-through for dinner. Because in all those situations, things can and do happen that can turn that quick trip into a long nightmare, and you need to be prepared.

This means dress for the long term mission. When I make a run to the ice cream store, I take off my sandals and tee shirt and put on running shoes and a shirt that can conceal the handgun that I always take with me. When I run or walk at 5 AM, I carry a Glock 19 in my fanny pack along with my ID and Georgia Weapons License, and a tactical flashlight in my left pocket.

It means I fight my wife to get her to bring her ID and cell phone when we go to pick our son up at a friend’s house, since if we ever got into a wreck and she needed to be treated at the hospital, it would be a great thing if they knew who she was and who to call.

If you’re one of those who hops in the car and goes (and believe me, I was that way once) then I hope you will reconsider that, and think about a worst case scenario as part of your planning. Because no one gives the Medal of Honor to crime victims.

Be Prepared, Part 2 – Getting Home

On By Tom LindsayIn Planning, Training3 Comments

I’ve talked here about the need to plan for emergencies. In the course of my planning I ranked possible scenarios, and made plans to deal with the most likely ones.

My Day Job is a great gig, but it means commuting 30 miles one way. My planning showed a number of possible scenarios where I could find myself stranded on the road. And, having lived in the Texas Panhandle, where getting stranded in your car by a snowstorm is almost a certainty, I knew the value of having emergency provisions, and a plan. I decided, though, to extend that to any scenario where I needed to survive on the road without my car, most likely having to walk home.

This leads us to the idea of the Get Home Bag. This bag is meant to support any number of people, for however long it takes to get to the safety of a better location. You keep it in your car, and when you need to, you grab it and go. For me, this means I planned for 2 people for a 3 day walk home.

Here is what I keep in my Get Home Bag. Naturally it contains all the things I used to keep in my cars for getting stranded by Texas winters, along with what we would need on the road. I check the contents at least monthly, and I put the bag on every now and then, and carry it around a while, to be sure it is manageable.

Granola bars
Water
Change of clothes (2 shirts and 2 pairs of socks)
Work gloves
Poncho
Shoelaces
Bandana
Rubber jar opener
Cell phone battery charger
AA Batteries
LED flashlight
Light sticks
Ammo
Lighter
Candles
Purel
Germicidal wipes
Bedroll and fleece blanket
Space blanket
Entrenching tool
Multitool
Trash bags
Map
Compass
Whistle
Pen & paper
Rope
Drugs – Aspirin, Immodium, Sudafed, Antacids

In addition, my plans would be to grab my gun, my cell phone, and the First Aid Kit out of my car. In the winter, I have a couple more blankets in the car any way, so I would grab those, too.

For you, you might find that your most likely scenarios don’t take you as far from home as mine do. If so, you can pare your contents down to a bag in the trunk. And, a simple Google search will find other suggested bag contents. Do some research and come up with what you would need. Then do it, because you never know when these things happen. If you did, you could stay home that day.

Make a Difference Locally

On By Tom LindsayIn Uncategorized

Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the House during the Reagan presidency, once said, “All politics is local,” and nowhere is this truer that with gun rights.

For most people, the gun laws and regulations that are applied by your state and local governments will affect your day to day gun life far more than anything the Congress will do on a national level. That’s why, once you are a member of the NRA, you need to seek out and join your local or state gun rights organization.

In Georgia, that group is GeorgiaCarry.org, or GCO. GCO has been instrumental in changing a lot of things that were wrong with Georgia’s gun laws, including the removal of a 140 year old law tha prohibited the carry of concealed weapons at “public gatherings,” even by license holders. They have also been successful in forcing Probate Judges, who are the ones in Georgia who issue Weapons Licenses, to issue licenses within the time frame mandated by law. Thanks to GCO, I wrote a lot of letters in the last couple of years to my state legislators, letting them know where I stood on the gun issues they faced.

So, I urge you to join your state gun rights organization, and your local organization as well, if you have one. A list can be found here. Then get involved. You’ll be glad you did