Add: CERTOriginally Posted by Drang
Add: CERT
Recovering Gun Store Commando. My Blog: The Clue Meter
“It doesn’t matter what the problem is, the solution is always for us to give the government more money and power, while we eat less meat.”
Glenn Reynolds
Great stuff.
I've lived and worked in relatively affluent suburbs for the last 30 years. I don't avoid cities, but don't spend much time there either. I stay out of bars. In the early '80's, I had a couple of armed encounters (in "bad" areas of cities); since then, nothing. I would say the biggest danger of this kind of lifestyle is complacency. Even in a low-threat environment, it's important to routinely work on basic stuff. Re-read Cooper's "Principles of Personal Defense". Work on situational awareness daily. When I drive to work, I memorize license plates, note details of cars and drivers. It's like PT, exercise for my ability to see my environment. My wife used to kid me about this: We'd leave a nice restaurant and I'd be scanning parked cars, eyeballing other people or choosing a seat that allows me to see the door; now she does it. This needs to be a habit; if you live in a low-threat environment, you need to create threats in your mind in order to exercise the ability to manage the real thing. Besides Cooper's PPD, Southnarc's "Managing Unknown Contacts" is a must-have experience. Think about the home-invasion scenario, work out the angles in your house, spend some time moving around the house with a pistol, with a long gun. Do you carry a knife? Better learn how to use it; same with unarmed combat. I'm not saying you need to be a black belt, but learn some simple combinations and practice them routinely so that you can call on them, without thinking, in an emergency. Bottom line, though, is to resist complacency by making awareness a habit.
Lots of good input to help me broaden my view of sources of potential threats.
What prompted me to question what is a realistic threat continuum is that I do NOT want to (ultimately) excel only in gun handling without having any significant skills in addressing unwanted encounters that are equally or more likely to occur. In other words, I want my toolbox to be as well stocked as possible for likely threats, and I want to attain a decent skill level in utilizing/deploying each tool well.
Absolutely. It's not just about the gun. I could write a pretty long article about getting into martial arts, avoiding bad situations, and getting medical training, but you seem to get it.
Defensive Training: I think John Murphy would be a great place to start. I really wish I would have dragged my wife down to train with him when we lived in NoVA. Tom Givens, Craig Douglas, Cecil Burch, Greg Ellifritz, and William April, for instance, all do very practical training in your area. Craig and Cecil can probably help you select a BJJ school that focuses on what you're looking for.
Medical: I just took my first medical class last weekend with Caleb Causey and thought it was great. I'll definitely be going back for more. I see that Dark Angel running a NoVA 2 day class in June.
Diet and Exercise. They're controversial, but I'm a believer in the paleo/primal/slow-carb type diets. Get in the gym. Cardio is cardio: There's a million ways to do it. I like Starting Strength for a beginners weight lifting program. Regular rolling (BJJ) or boxing may satisfy your exercise requirement.
Hardening your home. Upgrade locks, reinforced doors and jams, lighting cameras, window films, alarm system just buy you a little bit of time during an invasion. If you own you home, develop this over time.
Food and water preparedness. The Survival Podcast has a very practical guide to food storage in this episode. Skip ahead to the 9 minute mark to bypass the advertising and housekeeping stuff. Basic water prep is pretty inexpensive and easy. Containers make out of milk jug plastic are flimsly and not meant for long term storage, so consider better plastic. We choose to keep a water cooler in the house with a couple 5 gallon bottles. You can take things up a notch with water filters. If "prepping" interests you, I can't recommend The Survival Podcast highly enough for keeping your "prepping" realistic and sane. Here's a more general episode on basic, practical prepping. Skip to the 13 minute mark.
Financial. Get out of debt, live well below your means, and save, save, save. Our process is kind of a cross between the Dave Ramsey baby step program and the program laid out in our budgeting software.
Cheers,
D
ETA: I have no affiliation with any of the above listed resources. Just a satisfied customer.
Last edited by David S.; 04-07-2016 at 10:47 AM.
I would add an advanced driving course to this list. I sent my college age son to MSR in WV a couple of years ago. This training has saved him on multiple occasions.
Some sort of training for Managing Unknown Contacts will get you a massive return on investment. It's a super valuable skill that you can pass on yo the family with just some maintenance exercises.
Craig isn't the only guy that does it, just one of the best. Tarani teaches a great class on this stuff and has a book out about it called PreFense. There are other smaller guys teaching it too, mostly built around what they have learned from folks like Craig, Tarani, etc.
Everybody in the house needs to know basic first aid stuff. How to clear an airway, arrest bleeding, immobilize and stabilize a limb are at the top of my list of need to know.
Everyone in the family having that as a baseline will get you 95% ready, imo. Fight/conflict skills can come after, because with decent MUC and not going stupid places with stupid people to do stupid things, you get to avoid trouble. Most of the trouble that comes to people can be solved with that basic medical.
I also heartily second the advice on some basic prepping. Just a few weeks of food, heating and a good source of water puts you in a much better spot than most when that unexpected disaster comes knocking. You want to be keeping your people on track and happy if a freak storm wrecks the power grid for a week, not fighting idiots at the local megamart.
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