Not to poke fun at a good bar-room brawl (or I'll get poked, myself), but I have forgotten what the gist of the dispute was all about, about battle rifle verses lever gun verses hopeless romantics verses shadows. Or something.
Also, about squib loads, by all means, go outdoors, set up sight-in targets and dial in your new load. Take your time. Shoot five-shot groups. The sound of gunfire in the streets will do wonders to keep the bad guys away. Really.
Back to the "bad times" themselves: A lot of us have considerable plans for defending the homestead, whether rural or in town. And a number of us plan to move out to more remote places to get away from the unprepared hordes. And quite a few Members have given very insightful comments, some evidently having read of Fernando Aguirre's (FerFAL) real-life experience of urban breakdown in Argentina (here's a whole list of FerFAL posts - I don't know which one we started with:
http://www.reddit.com/domain/ferfal.blogspot.com). Some of our Members' ideas were excellent and I will try to highlight them later.
Of the Argentine experience, the most disturbing aspect was, as one of us said:
AMDJ429 said:
I think it is more likely we'll have the 'gradual' erosion of social order, as the government mismanages the economy, drives small businesses out of business with taxes and regulations...
The HELL of that in Argentina was, A) the police and courts would do nothing to protect you, the law-abiding homeowner and B) the police and courts would do nothing to apprehend or jail the criminals who attacked you or your family, BUT C) the police and courts would come after you to apprehend and jail you, the homeowner, if you did anything "wrong", apparently simply because they knew where to come and find you.
My position on a bad times/breakdown event is this:
I am not going anywhere. I am going to stay in my suburb that stretches miles in each direction. With no plan whatsoever, I have enough drygoods in the house to eat for two weeks, 2 creeks and 2 ponds within 100 yards to drink from and plenty of weapons and ammo to uhhh at least not be a push over. I am going to organize my neighbors, arm them if necessary and we together are going to guard and defend our home space.
Look, my dad didn't risk his neck in the South Pacific in WWII and all the US soldiers before and after him didn't risk/lose theirs so that I could bug out for the hills and live like a hermit while the bulk of America decended into the equivalent of a war-torn, two-bit third-world country!
We built this country and it is ours. We are going to take care of it, government or no government. In fact, most of the time I suspect that this nation plows on as well as it does in spite of government, not because of government or even with the help of government. It is just a plain fact that, day in and day out, the government
does nothing to preserve order on the streets and in the neighborhoods. All it does is respond after the fact.
At the same time, there will be those elements in society who will assume that, because the government is not operational, they can run roughshod over the population and landscape. These people do not understand America and Americans. Yes, they can start running roughshod, and for a time they may do serious damage to our people and property, because we have been at peace for so long that our living arrangements are not well defended against disorderly conduct. BUT those elements will find out that they will not succeed in the neighborhoods and parts of cities inhabited by productive, land-owning, responsible citizens, except here and there, by chance or early surprise. Soon enough, the good citizens, the regular Americans will band together to defend their homes, businesses and people.
I am sure it will not be perfect. Some of my neighbors will choose not to cooperate. The remants of civil authority may object. I plan to sit the Police Chief and the Sheriff down in my living room (or, more likely there's a developer who knows them all over on the next street, in his living room) and explain to them that if they don't want to or can't defend our neighborhood, then we'll do it for ourselves. There is a theory of law that says, if the law can't be enforced by appointed authorities, then citizens have the right of self-defense of their towns and public lands, and the Constitution is still in force. Our country is us people, not the government.
For neighborhood defense, I will give you just two of many things I would implement. Physical barriers would be set up along backyards, side yards and outlying cross-streets, so that the only way people, welcome or unwelcome, can come in is through the main drags, with potentially armed houses on all sides. This creates (optional) cross-fire kill zones. Another twin point: No hostile car leaves but rather gets blocked in a shot up to the point of undrivability AND no attacker leaves on foot without a dozen armed men, armed boys and dogs giving chase, well into the next neighborhood, the next beyond that and any woods and parks as well. (In situations of chasing a fleeing attacker, I will shoot a person in the back, no problem, just as retreating armies get shot at. This is NOT about personal honor - it's about crushing the enemy and instilling absolute fear.)
I hope it never comes to that, but, if it does, the American people are not just going to lay down and "take it". We will rise up and take back our streets. At least I am sure I and my neighbors will. And we will not live for years like FerFAL did in Argentina, either. We will clean out the root of the problem, no matter where in our town/county it resides. You know, I happened to hear the Army recruit's motto again yesterday: "
I pledge to defend the US Constitution and the American way of life". Can we do any less?
P.S. - I am running for the US Senate next year - I'll post my campaign web site soon (
- not really
)
