Use of Social Media for Investigations

Investigators are increasingly turning to electronic media of all types during investigations. A 2011 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police revealed that 71% of the police agencies surveyed used social media during investigations.  There are organizations dedicated to researching and conducting social media forensics, and for as little as $80 you can buy software designed to scan a suspect’s computer “for evidence of social network activity and [to] identify social networking web pages visited by the suspect.”  Social media has been used as evidence of wrong doing, fraud, intent, motive, and mental state.  Pictures of suspects drinking, websites visited, online arguments or threats, and forum posts are readily available and are routinely used to build a picture of the suspect for investigators and juries.

If you are involved in a self defense shooting, you should expect to have your computers, cell phones, diaries, and even your library seized for evidence.  The court may even order you to turn over all user names and passwords for your social media accounts.  This may seem like an invasion of your privacy, but recent court decisions (see Largent v. Reed) clearly state that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in information shared on social media sites.

Protecting Yourself

The golden rule for social media is “Think before you post”.  Signature lines such as “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” or a simple comment that a criminal shot during a home invasion “got what he deserved” may very well be used to show a propensity or desire to use violence.  Prosecuting attorneys are not required to explain the context of your statements and if they can slap down 20, 50, or 100 such comments in front of the jury it is going to hurt your defense.  How much worse will it look if they can show you have anti-government tendencies, routinely make racist comments, or that you have a “shoot first and ask questions later” attitude?  I see all of these and more on forums all the time.

Spend some time on your favorite forum and pretend you are a prosecuting attorney looking for evidence against one of the forum members.  You’ll be surprised how easy it is to twist even seemingly innocent comments.  Now look at your own comments and see how they might use them against you.

The internet is a wonderful place to connect with like minded individuals, to share lessons learned, and educate yourself and others.  However, the impression of anonymity is an illusion.  Remember, anything you say or post can and will be used against you in a court of law.

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Ration Bars

Ration bars are the simplest type of emergency food available — think energy bars on steroids.  They pack a lot of calories and nutrition into a compact package with a long shelf life.  You can buy them or make your own (Logan Bread is a good example), although the commercial products will likely last longer.  The down side is that they aren’t really exciting for the palate and it won’t take long before you are sick of eating even the tastiest of them.  Depending on the recipe, you may also need to increase your water consumption to aid in digestion.  Ration bars are an excellent choice for survival kits, car kits, 72-hour bags, and evacuation supplies.  You can buy around 70,000 calories worth of bars for about $100.  If you are just starting out then ration bars are a good choice, just don’t overdo it!

Meal Ready to Eat (MRE)

I’ll admit it, I kind of like MREs.  The military has come a long way in their combat rations, and MREs, while not fantastic, are not bad.  I will warn you that authentic miltary MREs are hard to come by and many of the commercial copy cats don’t measure up.  Buyer beware applies.  Try one or two before you stockpile the commercial variants!  MREs are designed to last for ten or more years and to provide the caloric requirements for soldiers performing vigorous activities in extreme environments.  In theory, these same traits make them ideal for civilian emergency use.  In practice, they are very expensive, bulky, and, yes, you will get tired of eating even the tastiest menus.  At $7-10 per MRE and two MREs per day, a year’s supply will set you back in the neighborhood of $6,000 per person, making this one of the most expensive options.  On the positive side, MRE’s are, well, ready to eat.  There is no preparation and no need to add water; the pouch even includes a spoon and napkin.  MRE’s are a great choice for evacuation bags, shelter food, and for those who have no means to prepare food when the lights go out.

Freeze Dried and Dehydrated Foods

I realize that freeze dried and dehydrated foods are not the same, but their use in a survival situation is pretty much identical, so I’ll lump them together for this discussion.  Both types of food have had most of the water removed to reduce weight and increase shelf life.  You can buy complete meals (beef stroganoff, chicken soup, and such) or individual foods (dried fruit, powdered cheese, etc).  Freeze dried foods have a very long shelf life (ten years or more), while the shelf life of dehydrated foods depends on the water content and packaging.  (You can extend the life of your dehydrated foods by vacuum packing them with oxygen absorbers.)  Many of these foods can be eaten as is and others are prepared by adding water, making them ideal foods for shelters and utility outages.  The problem is that they will significantly increase your daily water requirement.  If water storage is a problem for you, then these foods are not the best choice.  The most common complaints for the “emergency food supply” packages are poor taste and small serving sizes.  In my experience, two manufacturer servings equals one real world serving, so don’t be surprised if your one year supply runs out in six months.  For the best taste and quality, I recommend established brands, like Mountain House, that have been catering to the hiking and camping crowd for decades.  This option will cost even more than MREs, however it is a good way to add fruits, milks, cheeses, and the like to your diet without taking up a lot of shelf space.

Normal Food

Everyday foods should make up the bulk of your emergency food storage.  You can easily build your stockpile over time, you can make meals your family already likes, you will have a better variety, and it is less wasteful because you can rotate the food into your day to day cooking as it approaches its shelf life.  It is more time intensive, in terms of planning, stockpiling, and preparing, but once you get into the habit, it is well worth it.  The biggest obstacle is that you need some way to cook these foods without utilities.  Apartment dwellers can’t exactly store a cord of firewood and a year’s supply of propane for the camp stove is a bit of a fire hazard.  One solution is the solar oven.  For about $300, a good solar oven will reach temperatures in excess of 350 F and can cook anything that fits inside.  Emergency food preparation requires a bit of prior planning and practice.  Don’t expect your soufflé to come out perfectly the first time you set up the solar oven.

Recommendations

All of these foods have a place in the emergency pantry.  One approach is to add a little of each to enhance your flexibility.  My goal is to keep a one month supply of foods that need little or no preparation.  For emergency and survival kits, I prefer ration bars and MREs because they are light weight and require no additional water or cooking.  Once the kits are built, store a week’s worth of ration bars and a three week’s supply of MREs and freeze dried/dehydrated foods.  Round out your stockpile with everyday foods (and some means to cook them).  This system insures that you can still eat if you evacuate, yet doesn’t require you to force down freeze dried chili mac month after month.  Take some time to experiment, try different brands of ration bars and freeze dried foods, and practice cooking without gas or electricity — as always, a little planning goes a long way.

Bonus Links

One interesting and innovative approach is to make your own MREs by prepacking a selection of your favorite, ready to each foods with your vacuum sealer.  You can do this much, much cheaper than buying MRE’s, but will have to manage the shelf life.  Here are a couple of links to get you thinking:

DIY MRE #1
DIY MRE #2
DIY MRE #3

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Speedloaders versus Speedstrips

• Speedloaders are bulkier and hard to conceal in a pocket.  Speedstrips are flat, easy to conceal, and less noisy in the pocket.
• Speedloaders are faster and load all five (or six) rounds at one time.  Speedstrips only permit two rounds to be loaded at one time.  On average, I can load a full five rounds with a speedloader three to four secounds faster than I can load just four rounds with a speedstrip.
• Speedstrips let you load one or two rounds if you need to top off.  With a speedloader you must load the whole cylinder.
• Speedstrips are available in 5, 6, or 8 round versions, so you can carry extra rounds without much extra bulk.

I strongly recommend that you buy a couple of each and practice with them to see which you prefer.  Two of each will only set you back about $40.  It is well worth the investment.

Speedloaders

I have both the HKS and the Safariland Comp 1 speedloaders.  Of the two, I prefer the Safariland Comp 1.  The HKS is bulkier and takes up more pocket space.  Additionally, it tends to catch on my pistol stocks making it hard to seat the bullets in the cylinder.  Using the HKS is actually a two stage process.  First, the shooter must align the bullets with the cylinder and press down to insert the bullets.  This is easier to do by grasping the housing holding the bullets rather than the release knob.  Second, the shooter much adjust his grip to grasp and twist the release knob.  Most of the time, one or more bullets hang up and I have to give it a shake to release them.  The Safariland Comp 1 is much easier to operate.  Grasp the housing, align the bullets, and press the bullets into the cylinder.  Pressing down triggers the release and cleanly drops the bullets in place.  This may not seem like much difference, but in practice the Comp 1 is measurably faster than the HKS.  The Safariland Comp 1 is the clear winner.

Speedstrips

Speedstrips come in two flavors, Bianchi Speedstrips and Tuff Product Quickstrips.  I have both and find them to be virtually identical.  The Bianchis are made of a softer rubber that is a touch easier to load, while the Tuff Products are slightly cheaper.  Really you can’t go wrong either way.  I prefer to carry strips that hold one or two more rounds than my revolver.  This gives me a couple of extra shots and still lets me load a full cylinder if I fumble and drop a round while loading.

Speedloaders and speedstrips are essential accessories for your revolver.  I generally carry both, a Safariland Speedloader (or two) in my left pocket and a speedstrip in my right.  I find this gives me the best of both worlds — a faster reload with the speedloader and the ability to top off my weapon with the strip — while also facilitating one handed reloads if I am injured.  Which you choose and where you carry them is up to you, but my advice is to buy both, experiment, and have fun.

As always, shoot safe and I’ll see you on the firing line.

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Self reliance is best thought of as a lifestyle.  A lifestyle centered on mastering ourselves and our lives, reducing dependency on external players and forces, and taking responsibility for the good times and bad.  One could argue that complete self reliance is impossible.  Even the vaunted mountain men of American history, the epitome of self reliance, were very much dependent on supplies, livestock, and materials sent west out of St Louis and other frontier cities.  So in a sense, self reliance is a journey, not a destination.  Through self reliance we prepare ourselves to face whatever life has to offer — crime, natural and manmade disasters, accidents, and so on — and, we can choose to prepare out of fear or confidence.  This is an important choice because the one gives away control while the other strengthens it.  For instance, I carry a gun not because I fear violent crime, rather I carry a gun because I acknowledge that violent crime is a very real part of modern life and I refuse to play the part of the helpless victim.  Popular media likes to play on fear and often portrays self reliance as a negative or fringe activity.  In reality, it is positive and empowering.  The beauty of self reliance is that the confidence, strength, and resilience you develop in learning to face a crisis will carry over into the rest of your life, improving your relationships, your business, and reducing your stress.

Self reliance includes a wide range of activities such as emergency and financial planning, self defense training, food storage, first aid training, survival training, and even physical fitness.  How much time and effort you give to a particular activity will depend upon your unique circumstances and lifestyle.  During your planning you will identify certain threats that have a high likelihood of occurring and that will have a high impact on your life.  Naturally, these will receive the lion’s share of your attention.  Regardless of the particular activities you conduct, self reliance has seven facets that should be addressed.

Mental

Preparing and training your mind is the central goal of self reliance.  No matter how well you prepare for an emergency, a business venture, or even a vacation, life will throw you a few curve balls and things will play out in unexpected ways.  The mental aspect of self reliance starts with accepting that it can happen to you.  Denial is easy and comfortable.  It is also dangerous!  After acceptance comes learning.  Knowledge is power and the more you know the better you can adapt and improvise to your evolving circumstances.

Shelter

Shelter is one of your essential survival priorities.  The human body is susceptible to any number of environmental injuries and shelter encompasses all of those things we use to protect our bodies and keep them cruising along at 98.6 degrees.  Obvious examples are our clothes and homes.  Less obvious are things like fire, sunscreen, or a pile of leaves to insulate you from the cold ground.  Shelter is so important that it is the first thing I address in any emergency kit.

Food and Water

This is a no-brainer.  We can live a few days without water and a few weeks without food.  If your plans extend beyond that then you’ll want to address food and water preps.  For shorter duration emergencies, food and water have a powerful impact on morale, energy, and concentration, which has a direct impact on your ability to survive.  As an added benefit, long term food storage is a great form of insurance.  Imagine losing your job.  Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you can still eat and feed your family for a few months or even a year?  Don’t underestimate the value of food and water storage!

Health

Your ability to handle any form of stress is directly related to your health.  Something as simple as an abscessed tooth will have a dramatic impact on your ability to deal with an emergency.  There weren’t any dentists operating in New Orleans after Katrina hit!  Deal with your health issues now and stock up on your medications!  Physical fitness is another important consideration.  If you are exhausted after walking up a flight of stairs, how will you be able to fight off an attacker or walk to help when you car breaks down on a remote road?  We don’t need to professional athletes but we do need regular, vigorous exercise.  Finally, we should all know the basics of first aid.  Learning how to save a life is easy if we are just willing to put in the effort.

Security

Like it or not, we live in a violent world and counting on the police to protect you is the fool’s way out.  No amount of laws and legislation will eliminate crime. You can either accept the role of the helpless victim or you can learn to protect yourself and your loved ones.  Remember, when seconds count, help is only minutes away.  Take a look at the stampedes that happen every year on Black Friday.  How violent do you think people will become in a real emergency?

Financial

Self reliance focuses on controlling our lives, reducing dependency, and accepting responsibility.  How is this playing out in your financial life?  Excessive debt and uncontrolled spending are crippling many Americans.  If you truly want to be independent, confident, and ready, then start by getting your financial house in order.  What is more important, the new iPad or feeding your children?

Community

In any crisis, a team or family or community is always stronger than an individual.  It’s called synergy.  This is holds true if you are recovering from the loss of a loved one, a bankruptcy, or a natural disaster.  The lone wolf, isolated survivalist is setting himself up for failure.  No one person can be cook, farmer, security guard, doctor, janitor, and carpenter, to name just a few, everyday all the time.  Self reliance and prepping are much more effective when practiced as a community.  The community may be your family or your neighborhood, and each individual adds knowledge and skills that make the group stronger than the sum of its parts.

Whether you are new to self reliance or an old pro, these seven aspects are the foundation of your preparations.  Use them to evaluate your current plans and to guide your future activities.  I’ll address each of them in more detail in future articles.  In the meantime, keep learning, keep preparing and enjoy your journey to self reliance!

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Water Storage Challenges

The main challenges you face are that water is heavy and bulky.  Food can be dehydrated and compressed, emergency gear can be kept in unused nooks and crannies, but water weighs eight pounds per gallon and takes up the same space no matter how you store it.  It is easiest to store water in large containers of 50 gallons or more, but this may not be practical for apartment dwellers and the like.  In this case, five gallon containers are a stackable and portable solution.

How Much Water Do You Need?

There is no easy answer to how much water you need.  You will need water for drinking, food preparation, and hygiene.  How much for each depends on a host of different factors such as your age, activity level, environment, type of food stored, bathroom facilities available, and even how long you can stand your own body odor.  As an absolute minimum, plan for one gallon per person per day, however, for planning purposes I recommend at least two gallons per person per day.  That’s still not much for the Tucson environment.

Conserve Your Water

Americans don’t appreciate the scarcity of clean, drinkable water, and our wasteful habits won’t go away overnight just because the city water was cut off.  Take some time to think about how to reduce your water usage in an emergency.  The sooner you learn to live on less, the longer your supplies will last.  Some things to consider are:

• Store hand sanitizers to reduce hand washing
• Minimize the use of freeze dried and dehydrated foods
• Minimize activity during the hottest parts of the day
• Use disposable plates and utensils
• Reduce laundry by using the sun to disinfect and freshen up your clothes
• Practice the art of sponge bathing
• Harvest rainwater (start now so you have it when you need it)

Alternate Household Water Sources

Depending on your home, you may already have as much as 100 gallons of emergency water.  This water is in your water heater, water pipes, and toilet tanks.  In a home with two bathrooms and a 40 gallon water heater this will add at least 50 gallons of drinkable water to your supply, which is about a week’s worth of water for a family of four.  Accessing this water is easy.

• Close the main supply valve feeding your house as soon as the public water system is compromised.  This is important to prevent contamination.
• Close the water supply to your toilets and scoop the water out of the tank (not the bowl).  If you use in-tank toilet cleaners then don’t use this water.
• Locate and open the highest faucet in your home to let air into your pipes.
• Locate the lowest faucet.  This may be outside.  Using a suitable container, open the faucet and collect the water from the pipes.
• On your water heater, close the cold water supply valve.  Turn on the hot water at a sink.  Locate the water heater drain on the bottom of the heater.  Using a suitable container, open the drain and collect the water from the heater.

In our time of plentiful and cheap drinking water available at every faucet, it is easy to forget how precious this simple liquid is in our lives.  Water is crucial to your survival, so spend some time thinking about how to store and conserve your emergency supply.  Every little bit helps!

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Granted, women’s bodies are different than men’s, and thank God for that!  On average, a woman’s hands are smaller and may have less grip strength.  OK, I got it!  So what?  It doesn’t take that much strength to operate a slide — it’s a matter of angles and technique rather than brute strength — and, it doesn’t take an iron grip to control a 9 mm, .40, or .45 — I demonstrate bulls-eye shooting with just my trigger finger and thumb in every class.  In my experience, the problem isn’t the gun or the woman, it is the teacher (or salesman).

A woman’s needs are exactly the same as a man’s.  She needs a gun that fits well in her hand, that she can control while shooting, and that she can conceal effectively.

Fitting the gun is important and that doesn’t mean going small.  Start with a good grip:  hand high up on the backstrap; adjust the weapon so the front sight and rear sight are aligned with the forearm; and, trigger finger indexed along the frame.  How does it feel?  Can you compress the trigger and work the safety and slide release without changing your grip?  If not, then ask to look at another pistol.  Feel free to politely decline when the gun clerk suggests the pink Lady Smith.  Glocks, Springfield XDs, and others have large, blocky grips that may be uncomfortable in small and medium sized hands.  If this is the case, take a look at Smith & Wesson M&P, Sig Sauer, or other pistols known for their ergonomic fit.  Many weapons also come with adjustable backstraps to better fit various hand sizes.  Don’t worry about caliber at this point, just find a gun that you can operate without adjusting your grip and that is comfortable in your hands.

Controlling a pistol has very little to do with caliber and much to do with the weapon’s size and the shooter’s grip.  Most shooters will find that bigger, heavier pistols are easier to control and shoot accurately than smaller guns in the same caliber.  For many, small guns just plain hurt to shoot.  Snub nose revolvers and pocket autos (such as the Ruger LCP), which everyone seems to think are perfect for women, are actually very difficult and “uncomfortable” to shoot.  If it hurts to shoot, then it is the wrong gun for you!  Shooting takes a lot of practice and you won’t practice if you don’t enjoy the experience.  (Just for the record, women can learn to shoot snubbies and pocket autos, but I don’t recommend anyone buy one as their first gun.)  My advice is to try before you buy and to buy the biggest gun that you can control and conceal.

Concealment is the one area where women should get special consideration.  Women’s fashion is not exactly conducive to on-body concealment.  A man can belt carry in anything from shorts and a t-shirt, to business casual, to full formal attire.  A woman, not so much.  On top of that, the shape of a woman’s hips can make it even harder to find a comfortable holster.  I’m not a fan of off-body carry (in purses, day planners, etc), but many women find this to be the best alternative, which is certainly an argument in favor of smaller, lighter guns.  I recommend you talk to other female shooters and spend some time on the web browsing woman-oriented shooting sites.  A good place to start is The Cornered Cat.

Ladies, there are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to choosing a gun.  Sex is not one of them!  If we are going to steer you into certain types of “ladies” guns, then we might as well just say you shouldn’t carry a gun because the big, bad rapist will use it against you.  Let’s forget that nonsense for once and for all!  If a .45 caliber semi-automatic is good enough for the guys, then it’s good enough for the girls, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

No pistol of any caliber is a “one shot stop” weapon.  The projectiles are too small and muzzle velocities too low.  You might stop the bad guy with one shot, but even with the vaunted .45 it’s no guarantee.  (There are lots of articles and real world examples on the subject.  You can start with Steven A. Camps’ excellent article, Have no Faith in Your Defensive Handgun Caliber or Load)  To reward shot placement, this drill uses a target that shows the internal organs and scores highest for brain, heart, and spine shots.  (I use a TQ-15 Target with Anatomy Scoring)  Luck counts in a gunfight, so all spine shots, even those outside of the primary scoring zone, get maximum points.

This is a short range drill.  A self defense shooting is likely to be a close in, bloody affair, so this course of fire is shot from between 3 and 10 yards.  If you are consistently scoring 500, then feel free to extend the distances.  Better yet shoot it from unusual positions, such as on your back, or with an elevated heart rate to simulate the stress of a real confrontation.  You can also add a time limit to each stage.

To stress reloads, most of the stages are shot with four rounds in the weapon and a four round reload.

Use dummy rounds to practice the one handed reloads and support hand draw before going hot.  The one handed stage is intended to be shot and reloaded with the weapon and reloads where you normally carry them.

The course of fire requires 50 rounds and has a maximum score of 500.

Heart, Spine, and Brain shots score 10 points

Primary Scoring Zone (small square at center of mass) scores 8 points

Other Body Shots score 5 points

Misses deduct 10 points each.  Yes, you can have a negative score.  Your misses can kill innocent bystanders in the real world, so you get penalized for missing here.

All shots are to center of mass unless indicated.

Scored Drill Stages:

- Precision shooting, from the high ready position, requires 4 rounds in weapon and two 4 round reloads

• 4 shots each at 3, 5, and 10 yards (no time limit)

- Double Tap, start from the holster, requires 4 rounds in weapon, one 4 round reload and one 2 round reload

• Draw, fire 2 rounds, scan, and reholster.  Shoot this three times at 3 yards and two times at 5 yards (may be timed)

- Failure Drill, start from the holster, requires 3 rounds in weapon and two 3 round reloads

• Draw, fire 2 rounds center of mass and 1 round to the head, reload, scan, and reholster.  Shoot at 3, 5, and 7 yards. (may be timed)

- One Handed, start from the holster, requires 4 rounds in weapon and three 4 round reloads

• Draw, fire 4 rounds strong hand only, scan, reload strong hand only, and reholster.  Shoot at 5 yards (may be timed)
• Draw, fire 2 rounds strong hand only, scan, and reholster.  Shoot at 5 yards a total of two times (may be timed)
• Reload and then repeat with the support hand only.

- Precision shooting, from the high ready position, requires 3 rounds in weapon

• Fire 3 shots at the head from 5 yards

This is a good 50 round workout without being overly difficult.  The one handed drills, in particular, will force you to think about gear placement and weapon manipulation, so take it slow at first.  As always, have fun, shoot safe, and I’ll see you on the firing line.

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Getting a Grip:  There are three primary techniques to gripping a snubbie.  I’ll discuss them further when I’ve had a chance to take some pictures.  In the meantime here are a couple of tips.

• Grip as high up on the backstrap as possible.  The small stocks (grips) and light weight of the snub nose revolver result in more of the recoil being transmitted to your hand and many shooters find muzzle flip to be a problem.  By gripping high on the backstrap, the shooter gains more leverage and better weapon control during recoil.
• Adjust your finger on the trigger.  The snubbie has a much shorter distance between the trigger and backstrap than larger pistols.  I’ve found I need to put more finger on the trigger to accommodate this.  This also makes it easier to control the long, double action trigger pull.
• Grip hard.  With a Glock, my grip is firm but relaxed.  The snubbie wants to jump around and demands a solid grip.

Sights?  What Sights?:  Many snub nose revolvers have horrible sights.  To be diplomatic, let’s just call them primitive.  The shallow channel along the top frame and stubby front sight provide very little contrast and are difficult to acquire even under good conditions.  If you can replace your front sight with a high contrast post then do so.  If not then get some day-glo model paint and have some fun.  (See Claude Werner’s article, Improving Your Snub’s Sights)

Buddy, Can You Spare a Reload?:  Ammo capacity is touted as one of the main disadvantages of the revolver, more so for the five shot snubbie.  Personally, my preferred tactics are avoiding contact, breaking contact, and running, however there may come a time when five rounds just won’t cut it.  It is pretty easy to throw a couple of speed loaders or speed strips in the pocket.

Is that a Mouse in Your Pocket?:  Speaking of throwing reloads in the pocket, you may want to think about what else is in there!  If your pockets look like little thrift shops, then you may want to carry your reloads on your belt.  I intentionally left all of the normal clutter in my pockets, and, yes, it does slow down the reload.  Do you really want to untangle your keys (or drop them) from your speeds loader during a gunfight?

Tactical Reloads:  Time is of the essence in a gunfight and when you are empty you want to get back in the fight as quickly as possible.  When using speed strips, Michael de Bethencourt recommends only reloading four rounds during a fight.  His logic is that this gives you 80% of the guns capacity in 2/3 of the time.  I agree and my timed drills bear this out.  I still load the speed strip to capacity.  That way if I drop a round, I can still feed four.  Also, I have extra rounds in case I am in a position to top off after firing a round or two.

That’s it for now.  Check back for part two, and if you have a snubbie lesson learn or tip to share, you can do so in the comments below.

See you on the firing line.

Click Here For More Snub Nose Revolver Articles

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

To see which States currently honor Arizona’s CCW permit, you can check the AZ DPS page.  AZ DPS Reciprocity Page

To review the laws and rules of the other States, check out Handgunlaw.us or contact that State’s concealed carry unit.

Remember, it is your legal responsibility to know and follow the laws in each State that you carry concealed!

© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.

Feed Your Family During Shortages

In America, crop failures and famines seem like ancient history, or at worst isolated emergencies.  In reality, our time of plenty is a small blip in the course of history and two factors can quickly land you in one of those isolated emergencies.

The first is our dependency on people across the country (and really the world) to do their job so that food shows up in our stores.  Any number of things can disrupt our food supply; natural disasters, civil disturbances, workers’ strikes, and contamination, to name just a few.  To show how events hundreds of miles away can affect your family, here is a personal story.  In February 2010, the American Southwest experienced a record cold spell and hundreds of thousands of Texas households turned up the heat.  This spike in demand overwhelmed the natural gas pipelines heading west, resulting in outages in Tucson.  My neighborhood, at the very end of Tucson’s delivery system, had no natural gas for heating or cooking during one of the coldest weeks on record.  It is not hard to imagine a similar scenario with our food or water supply.

The second factor is the “just in time” delivery system used by supermarkets.  Supermarkets have limited shelf and warehouse space, perishable goods have a limited shelf life, and maintaining high inventories both increases waste and ties up huge amounts of cash.  To combat these problems, supermarkets arrange deliveries just before their supplies run out, or just in time.  As a result, the average supermarket has about three days food supplies on hand.  That is three days of normal demand.  We’ve all seen runs on necessities before forecasted weather emergencies.  How long do you think the supplies will last if the city is expecting an extended food shortage?  Have you seen the videos of the Black Friday chaos when Christmas season opens?  It will be worse than that when food is at stake.

Free Unemployment Insurance

Between 10% and 25% of all Americans were unemployed or underemployed during the recent financial meltdown.  Some were eligible for government unemployment insurance, had savings, or had families to help them out.  Some were not so fortunate.  If you lost your job or were injured and unable to work for six months, how would you feed yourself and your children?  Even if you have savings, wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to drain them each time you went food shopping?  Your emergency food supply is unemployment insurance.  Insurance that you control without worrying about the whims of State and Federal bureaucrats.  ”But it isn’t free,” you say!  ”I still have to buy it.”  Yes, that is true, but you are going to buy food anyway, so it isn’t going to cost you extra over time.  A good emergency food storage plan is made up of the foods you normally eat (or mostly so).  Expensive freeze dried foods and $10 MREs are nice, but the cost adds up and, believe me, you don’t want to eat them every day.  So buy a little more of the foods you already buy and get yourself some free insurance.

Food Storage Saves You Money

Remember we said you are storing the same foods you normally eat?  When you store food you have two money saving advantages; you can buy in bulk and take advantage of sales.  This is especially powerful if you learn how to can and bottle food.  Blueberries, for instance, run $3 or $4 a pint in our local stores, but can found for as little as $1 a pint when they go on sale.  You will regularly rotate your stock, so when you see a great sale, buy what you need and move the old stuff to the pantry.  Additionally, food prices aren’t getting any lower, so your food storage acts as a buffer against inflation.  You’ll still pay more when you rotate, but since you are buying in bulk and on sale you won’t pay as much.

These are just three of the many benefits of food storage.  If it helps, think of it as an investment.  You can put the money in the bank if you prefer, but greenbacks won’t feed the kids when the shelves are empty.  Invest in yourself first and put some food away for a rainy day.  You’re family and wallet will thank you!

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© 2012, mjshozda. All rights reserved.