How about something a little less deep and contentious, although any post about guns seems to get people riled up.
Most dystopian/prepper stories are centered in the aftermath when the shit has hit the fan for real. It makes for better drama than people having trouble getting gas and deodorant.
Somewhere between Sunday afternoon BBQ in the suburbs and becoming a sex slave to The Humungus there is a whole lot of territory. That is sort of the idea behind this video from Garand Thumb, What Should a Normal Person Carry When Things Get Bad?, the progression of carrying that might accompany not necessarily a full blown collapse but something somewhere in-between.
I assume most people reading this are carrying a pistol most of the time. Even if you aren’t actually carrying, you should have something available to you because the thing about unexpected situations is that they are….unexpected. I try to have at a minimum a pistol, extra mags and some basic survival gear like a small first aid kit, a knife of some sort, etc whenever I am more than a couple of miles from home.
Whether it is legal or not, walking around with a slung rifle is just going to draw attention to you and likely will quickly lead to panicked people calling 911. That is why right now the vast majority of us are carrying something reasonably small and concealable, especially since it is winter where I live. I could probably carry an Uzi under a trench coat right now and get away with it but sadly I don’t have an Uzi.
Let’s say things aren’t completely tits up but at least one wheel has fallen off. Rule of law is sort of still in place but cops are overwhelmed, many have just walked off the job and we are in a frontier justice kind of situation. You probably are thinking you want more firepower than a pistol because if shit goes sideways, you aren’t going to have to hold out until the cops show up. The fight ends when you are dead or they are dead, or someone gets away. This is when you break out your dope Daniel Defense M4V7 SPRIII rifle with all of the cool optics and lights and stuff. Right?
Maybe not.
I recalled something from Selco Begovic, a survivor of the Bosnian war in the 1990s, in his essay One Year In Hell, emphasis mine.
At first, the weak perish. Then, the rest fight.
During the day, the streets were practically empty due to sniper fire. Defenses were oriented toward short-range combat alone. Many died if they went out to gather information, for example. It’s important to remember we had no information, no radio, no TV — only rumors and nothing else.
There was no organized army; every man fought. We had no choice. Everybody was armed, ready to defend themselves.
You should not wear quality items in the city; someone will murder you and take them. Don’t even carry a “pretty” long arm, it will attract attention.
Let me tell you something: If SHTF starts tomorrow, I’ll be humble. I’ll look like everyone else. Desperate, fearful. Maybe I’ll even shout and cry a little bit.
Pretty clothing is excluded altogether. I will not go out in my new tactical outfit to shout “I have come! You’re doomed, bad guys!” No, I’ll stay aside, well-armed, well-prepared, waiting and evaluating my possibilities, with my best friend or brother.
Super-defenses, super-guns are meaningless. If people think they should steal your things, that you’re profitable, they will. It’s only a question of time and the amount of guns and hands.
Where he was it was a lot of neighbor versus neighbor violence, not the army shooting people. This is in keeping with something else he said earlier in the essay….
Maybe this would seem strange, but the most protected houses were looted and destroyed first. In my area of the city, there were beautiful houses with walls, dogs, alarms and barred windows. People attacked them first. Some held out; others didn’t. It all depended how many hands and guns they had inside.
I think defense is very important, but it must be carried out unobtrusively. If you are in a city and SHTF comes, you need a simple, non-flashy place, with lots of guns and ammo.
How much ammo? As much as possible.
Make your house as unattractive as you can.
The lesson he is trying to teach is that if you look like someone worth stealing from, someone will kill you and take your stuff. If you go strutting around like Captain Tacticool you are likely to just become a loot drop for someone else. This is especially true in cities where snipers were everywhere.
That is where personal defense weapons or PDWs come into play. A handgun is great for concealment and for up close and personal range shooting but there is a lot to be said for something you can carry unobtrusively that amps up your firepower. My preference is for something in 9mm with a “brace” so you can get four points of contact on your firearm (cheek, shoulder, shooting hand, off hand). There is an enormous difference between a concealed carry pistol with a 3” barrel and 13-15 rounds versus a PDW with a brace that has a 6-8 inch barrel and 30 round magazines.
Something like that can fit in a backpack as long as you get the right kind. What is killer for a lot of AR pistols is that buffer tube that makes the overall firearm a lot longer and therefore harder to conceal. For me, a PDW without a buffer tube is the way to go. These are some options, from left to right: B&T APC9K, Heckler & Koch SP5K-PDW and Grand Power Stribog SP9.
There are others of course, CMMG makes the Dissent in 9mm and Palmetto State has a 9mm JAKL. Or Sig Sauer MPX, CZ Scorpion, etc. These all tend to be pricey, the Stribog is around a grand as is the PSA JAKL. The B&T is over two grand, the H&K is over $3,000 because of the Die Hard factor. If cost doesn’t matter then get the H&K but for most of us I assume cost is a factor.
You can make a case for a rifle caliber like 5.56 or .300 Blackout but then generally you are back to a firearm that is much harder to conceal. You could get ghetto with it and go Draco but I have to assume the ballistics for 7.62×39 out of a 6” barrel are crap. I prefer 9mm because that is what my carry pistol is chambered in and it is likely the easiest caliber to pick up from a corpse.
The question of what optics and lights etc. is one for a different day. My basic concern is something with a more stable shooting platform that has enough firepower to get the job done while still being something I can carry in a backpack.
One thing GT mentioned early on is the I.W.A. thermobaric device, basically a flash bang. I.W.A. also makes smoke and distraction devices that I am eyeing up. In general I don’t want to get into a gunfight with a 9mm PDW at distance if the other guy has a 5.56mm rifle. Being able to pop smoke and get away is appealing. Of course Garand Thumb has 4.5 million subscribers on Youtube and I suspect he gets some free flash bangs for mentioning the product during the video but even though they are expensive it is something to consider.
Of course this depends a lot on where you find yourself. If you follow the advice of Ol’ Remus and avoid crowds, in other words staying away from cities, then this is a little different. You can probably skip the PDW in a backpack thing and just go right to your rifle. Still if you need to go into an urban or suburban area for whatever reason, supplies or to exfiltrate a family member, it would be smart to have a way to carry something with more oomph than a pistol without being terribly obvious about it.
Even under the current situation it would be smart to have something you can take with you when travelling. An innocuous backpack is less likely to draw attention from law enforcement in a traffic stop than an obvious rifle case. You have to be smart, while you can drive around with just about anything short of a belt fed machine gun in Indiana, crossing the western border into Illinois means the rules change. According to the USCCA:
Non-residents may transport a loaded concealed handgun in a vehicle if they are in possession of a valid CCW permit from their home state.
That also applies to constitutional carry states but as I have a lifetime Indiana concealed carry license I always have it with me. It’s just easier than trying to explain to some local yokel cop that my state doesn’t require a permit. So while a H&K SP5K-PDW has a 30 round magazine, it is also a handgun. You can probably get away with that but the smarter move is to not make it obvious that you have one.
It isn’t like we need more to think about but I just found that video interesting. It seems more plausible to me in a nation as big as the U.S. that the rule of law would gradually become more degraded over time rather than a massive, all-at-once collapse. Just some things to ponder.
As always, keep your head on a swivel, keep your powder try and your preps prepped, avoid crowds and never relax in certain situations.
Situational awareness is a sine qua non. You can have a locked and loaded high-capacity semi-automatic pistol on your person with all of the add-ons and accoutrements, but if your head is in the clouds, you are asking for trouble. And if you look like food, you will be eaten. -H/T to Clint Smith. If you have not taken any kind of basic pistol shooting class, then take one at your local range. Keep in mind if, God forbid, you have to employ deadly force to save your life or someone else’s, when the Orcs and Orcettes with badges and guns arrive to investigate, they will take your firearm as evidence. And if that handgun is a tricked-out super expensive piece, good luck getting it back, especially if you are dealing with city cops.
I am speaking from my experience as a 30-year Peace Officer who worked in SoCal and spent many months investigating officer-involved and citizen self-defense shootings. The key takeaway which I saw is these things happen very fast, which is why I said to get trained. If you decide you are going to shoot and scoot and your piece is semi-auto, make sure you wipe your cartridges when you load the magazine. CSI is real and efficient. If you must stick around due to the circumstances remember these words: “Officer thank God you’re here! This man tried to murder me, and I had to defend myself. I will be glad to cooperate with you as soon as I contact my attorney.” Then STFU! Every round fired has a lawyer and/or DA attached to it. Bleib ubrig.
Well said Brother…
Yea more people should read and heed Selco and Ferfals advice because if they did they would be doing things a lot different than hiding in the woods and thinking they won’t touched…
A good substitute for flash bangs would be firecrackers, or similar, easily concealable fireworks. It’s always good to have a backup weapon in addition to a handgun, and the knowledge to improvise everyday items into potential weapons should you not have access to a firearm.
It’s also very prudent to war game all possible everyday scenarios you might come across, and develop your own ROE for dealing with said scenarios.
Even in these relatively “safe” times I still carry a full size pistol and 2 spare magazines if the wife and I go to the mall. A compact pistol and spare magazine is good for day to day. If it comes down to needing a PDW I think I’ll just avoid crowds all together.
The Ruger takedown version of the PCC fits medium size backpacks and takes Glock mags, including Magpul drums.
Barrel on/off takes seconds.
When the S H’s the F I’m going to put on my tiger stripe camo bdu pants and my tactical boots, paint vertical red and white stripes on my chest and abdomen and a field of blue with white stars on my back, don my “from my cold dead hands” ball cap and sit on the porch playing bagpipe music full volume,with a SCAR heavy across my knees while ‘the boys’ work the fenceline around our acreage. Unbothered. Happy. Moisturized. In my lane. Focused. Flourishing.
Just kidding. Sometimes its just better to be lucky than good. Also, the better one is the luckier one gets. So, yeah…
Also, gold is currently trading at a tick under $4600 and silver is up over $82 again.
I just heard that there is new regs going into place monday am that banks holding gold/silver must hold phyical, not paper. If this is true i don’t know how this info flew under the radar as it has until now, excepting that they were keeping it quiet to keep speculators from adding even more fuel to the fire.
We’ll see what the next week holds while the leftist actors on the national stage openly call for the murder of ICE agents.
No one said anarcho-tyranny would be easy on the Long March to hoist the hammer and sickle.
The Long Marchers finally found a generation stupid enough to fall for rainbow stew bubble up powering the New Man workers utopia with equality of results for all.
I feel like we have a little community here so I’m going to overshare a little bit. First, this information is not mine but one step removed from legit SME. Grade A1. I’m not going to get more specific than that for opsec reasons but understand this isn’t something that came off of YouTube or from a wannabe training class.
What we are talking about is called a Gray Man kit. Forget your personal definition or thoughts of “Gray Man” the definition here is maintaining 95%+ of the capability of an operator while passing at least a cursory visual scan i.e. not standing out.
Basics: “slick” plate carrier with elastic cummerbund that has pockets and the capability of sticking on a shingle (Esstac or GTFO). Black so you can put it on over a black T shirt and the top edge doesn’t stand out. Oversized cover garment, preferably with snaps not buttons for quick access. Check LAPG website.
Firearm: there is nothing you can do with a PDW that you can’t do with a pistol in a carbine frame unless the PDW is select fire. Read that again. Basic line one load out is a semi compact pistol that’s a bit easier to conceal, and then the line 2 is full size pistol that takes the same magazines in the frame (MCK recommended). Your shingle is going to hold extended magazines. The best 30 round magazines for this are Glock so the best choice for this is a G19 and G17 compatible platform. I am NOT a glock fanboy so this pains me personally to relay but it is what it is. Now your platforms are not only the same caliber but they share mags.
The step up (and it’s not OR it’s AND) is IMO 300BLK. 5.56 is crap in short barrels, full stop. I have over 1k rounds through my PSA JAKL 8.5″ with zero malfunctions or issues, and it doesn’t have a buffer tube so it goes into a medium size backpack when folded and it can be fired folded for vehicle operations. Also has quick adjust gas for suppressor use, just saying.
Accessories: TQ on the body somewhere (line one) then another on the PC. Mini IFAK in one of the cummerbund mag loops (Tactical Tailor makes a pouch just for this). Secondary IFAK with an Israeli and more supplies in a “dangler” pouch (this and the shingle stays in the backpack until things go overt).
Hear through hearing protection. Being able to hear amplified in a gunfight is a superpower, you should have it. Push in earbuds fall out, needs to be something that hooks over your ear and looks like it’s for music. Axil makes a model that’s not amazing but works and checks all the boxes.
Eye protection that doesn’t look like ballistic eyewear. Wiley X and some others make rated frames you can have zero power ballistic lenses put in. Not cheap but they look enough like the ridiculous glasses that liberals wear like a badge these days to pass. When bullets start flying lots of fragments go flying too and if you get stuff in your eyes you are done.
Ball cap to shade your face from visual observation.
Absolutely yes, crashes and smoke. Get the multibangs unless you have a specific purpose for a single. You can buy the good ones with a professional pyrotechnics cert, not hard to get. Ditto on M18 style smoke, white or maybe black. Enola Gay also makes some good products you can buy with no special credentials. The Twin Vent in particular is a good fit for this purpose. One crash one smoke in the cummerbund for fast access one spare of each in the backpack.
Blue Force Gear makes a nice little compact dump pouch you can put on a CCW belt.
Good knife and a multi tool.
And on the subject of camo: no MOLLE. No camo patterns. No ballistic nylon. No firearm or hunting or fishing company labels anywhere. Go for hipster through hiker outdoors chic. Think Patagonia, not 5.11.
Use any of this or none as the situation demands, but it’s important capability.
Time is getting closer.