Articles by Herschel Smith

Kurt Hofman:

NYDN’s Bill Hammond sees fit to lecture gun rights advocates about the need to temper our “blind fury” about the latest infringements on that which shall not be infringed–specifically, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s draconian new gun ban (which Hammond describes as “Gov. Cuomo’s landmark law”). Hammond particularly objects to the notion that the Second Amendment is intended to protect the people’s right to the means of effective resistance against a tyrannical government:

The audience applauded heartily in tribute to the many veterans who were there. But it also loudly cheered the speaker who said, “We need guns to protect us from government.”

Maybe that thinking made sense at the time of the Founding Fathers — who had just succeeded in overthrowing the rule of a monarchy. Back then, ordinary citizens living on the frontier faced the very real threat of violent confrontations with Native Americans or British invaders.

But applying that logic to today — after more than two centuries of stable, democratic and mostly non-tyrannical government — is crazy talk.

Notice the change of subject mid-stream.  From overthrowing the Monarchy to the very next thought, which is “ordinary citizens living on the frontier.”  I’m all for pointing out the utility of firearms, from hunting to self defense to sporting value.  But the doctrine embedded in the second amendment pertains to tyranny, not any of the other utilities associated with being armed.

Kurt responds:

“Mostly non-tyrannical” doesn’t cut it–doesn’t come close, and aspiring “mostly non-tyrants” have no right to be surprised when they find themselves staring down the muzzles of the “mostly non-insurrectionist” people’s guns.

I have no idea whether or not Bill Hammond has daughters of dating age, but if he does, I’m sure he’ll have no objection to them dating “mostly non-rapist” boyfriends.

Right.  Girls don’t get mostly pregnant, a person doesn’t mostly have a job, and I don’t mostly have a dog.  Mostly is a bad descriptor.  If a regime is mostly non-tyrannical, then there is some degree to which it is tyrannical.  That means that the ruler is a tyrant at least some of the time.  It’s as simple as that.  And tyranny is never acceptable.  Not mostly unacceptable – always unacceptable.

I figured this: I write articles for my web site, and I am getting a decent amount of traffic recently (though not as much as I would like), so what more can I do?  I’ll leave it up to everybody else to fill in the gaps.

Until I read David’s web site today.  He shames me, and I’m not sure why I consider him my buddy since he has a way of doing that.  So I tried it with my U.S. Senators.

See how easy that was?  You too can be a five minute gun activist.

Courthouse News Service:

Chicago police terrorized six children in the wrong apartment, demanding at gunpoint that an 11-month-old show his hands, and telling one child, “This is what happens when your grandma sells crack,” the family claims in court.

Lead plaintiffs Charlene and Samuel Holly sued Chicago, police Officer Patrick Kinney and eight John Does in Federal Court, on their own behalves and for their children and children.

The six children were 11 months to 13 years old at the time. Plaintiffs Connie and Michelle Robinson are Charlene Holly’s daughters.

The complaint states: “On November 29, 2012 in the early evening hours Charlene Holly was in the first floor apartment at 10640 S. Prairie in the front room helping minor Child #1, Child #2, Child #4, and Child #5 rehearse songs for their church choir. Charlene was also caring for Child #3, who was 11 months old. Child #6 was in the upstairs apartment alone.

“Charlene and the children heard a loud boom outside and a voice cry out ‘Across the street!’

“Defendant Officers John Doe 1-8 burst through the door to the first floor apartment dressed in army fatigues and pointing guns at Charlene and the children. The officers yelled at Charlene and the children to ‘Get on the ground!’ The officers referred to Charlene and the children as ‘m—f—ers’ numerous times.

“Afraid of the guns being pointed at them, Children #1, 2, 4, and 5 ran to a back bedroom in fear of the officers. In response to the defendants’ order to ‘Get on the ground!,’ Charlene got down on the floor. A defendant Officer told Charlene to ‘Put the baby down’ so Charlene set Child #3 down beside her. The officers yelled at Charlene to get Child #3’s hands where they could see them.

“After attempting to show the officers that the eleven-month-old’s hands were empty, Charlene asked the officers ‘What is this about?’ To which they replied ‘Shut the f— up.'”

Samuel Holly says he asked the police what they were doing, and called the 111th Street police station asking for a “white shirt” to come explain the situation, but no supervisor ever came to the house.

“Charlene continually asked what the purpose of the detention was,” the complaint states. “Finally, an officer produced a warrant and handed it to Charlene. The warrant was for an individual named ‘Sedgwick M. Reavers’ and the premises listed was ‘The second floor apartment located at 10640 S. Prairie Ave. A yellow brick two flat building with the numbers 10640 on the front of the building.’ In other words, the warrant clearly identified the proper location as the second floor apartment. Charlene, Samuel, and the children were in the first floor apartment.

“As the officers were detaining Charlene, Samuel, and Children #1-5 in the first floor apartment, they also proceeded to the second floor apartment, where Child #6 was home alone. Child #6 was 13 years old at the time of the incident.

“The officers approached Child #6 in a bedroom and turned out the lights. They began flashing red lights at the child, calling him ‘m-f—er,’ placing him in plastic handcuffs and telling him ‘I started to Tase your grandmother and cousins’ and ‘This is what happens when your grandma sells crack.’ Child #6 begged the police not to hurt his family in the apartment below and stated that his grandmother did not sell crack.”

The man named in the warrant, Sedgwick Reavers, “was sitting in a squad car outside of 10640 S. Prairie throughout the entire incident,” according to the complaint.

The family claims that “the following day Charlene discovered the family dog, Samson, not in the basement where the family kept him, but in an upstairs laundry room. Samson could not have reached the laundry room without human assistance. On information and belief, defendant Officers dragged and choked Samson from the basement with the dog pole and left him in the upstairs laundry room unattended, where he died.”

Let’s deal with this in two phases.  First, the training and tactics.  As shooters, remember our rules for safety, trigger discipline being among the top rules.  This is true for police and SWAT team members as well.  It’s true because of sympathetic muscle reflexes.  An example of this kind of bumbling stupidity is the death of Mr. Eurie Stamps, where the police officer stumbled over the top of his prone body (Mr. Stamps had done what he had been told to do and gone to the floor), and in so stumbling, the officer – whose finger was on the trigger of his rifle – squeezed the trigger and killed Mr. Stamps.  Mr. Stamps was innocent of all wrong-doing.  The name of the officer is Paul Duncan.  His first thought when he killed Stamps was, Jesus, was that my rifle?”  And it was, and Mr. Stamps is dead.

Now.  Let’s discuss something that most people don’t know about Marine Corps training.  My son was a SAW gunner in the 2/6 infantry, Golf Company, 3rd Platoon, during the 2007 combat tour of Fallujah and the pre-deployment workup.  The senior Marines had experienced a tour of Iraq, and wanted their SAW gunners to have a round in the chamber, bolt open (the SAW is an open bolt weapon anyway), and finger on the trigger.  They had seen combat and they wanted their SAW gunners with zero steps to shooting.  Their lives depended on it.  They also did CQB drills with live rounds, along with squad rushes.

My son had an ID (if I’m not mistaken it was during training at Mohave Viper).  He tripped and had a sympathetic muscle reflex, squeezing the trigger of his SAW.  He spent an extended period of time in the “room of pain.”  They wanted him trained to overcome that sympathetic muscle reflex (which can be done, but it takes hundreds or thousands of hours of drills).  He spent the time learning to overcome that reflex, and performed well during his tour.  He also tried to teach his “boot” Marines the same way he was trained, but the Marines had begun to change and focus more on cultural sensitivity training and other COIN tools.  He got out of the Marine Corps.

Why am I discussing this?  Because no matter who you are, no matter how much time you spend, no matter how earnestly you wish it, no matter how many directives you write, if you are a SWAT team member, you will never be trained in such a manner.  Never.  You will never be trained like a U.S. Marine who has spent every day for a year and a half in pre-deployment workup to do a combat tour of Iraq.  Because you will never be trained in this manner, your tactics are dangerous, all of the time, and in all situations.  I don’t care how many times you have inexperienced Soldiers spend a week with you doing CQB drills.  With the standdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, they oftentimes know as little as you.  These tactics place people in danger when there are better alternatives.

Now for the next step.  Nor should you be trained like my son.  It isn’t within your province to do this.  The militarization of the police and police tactics in America is an effort to sidestep Posse Comitatus.  It’s a way to have a standing army police Americans rather than have the existing standing army do the policing of Americans.  It’s a typical progressive, statist trick.

The tactics used by the Chicago police are thuggish, brutish, and stupid.  These tactics are stupid when we can revert to old school detective work.  These tactics are dangerous for the people upon whom they are perpetrated.  The officers involved do not have the skills necessary to do the job, and never will.  These tactics should be reserved for only the most extreme situations like in situ armed resistance by known criminals such as Mexican drug gangs.  Finally, these tactics comport with a communist ideology, where the state reigns supreme over every aspect of the life of a nation, and the rights of citizens are trampled underfoot.

The officers who perpetrated this raid should be ashamed.  Chicago should be ashamed, and America should be ashamed to have such teams who perpetrate this wickedness on its citizens.  Extreme violations of rights like this call for extreme measures to stop the violations.  These men have even suppressed the God-given sense of duty to protect and defend women and children.  Rather, they point rifles at them and call them motherfucker.

What would John Adams say if he were here today?

UPDATE: Thanks to Mike for the attention.  Also see comments there.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David for the attention.

Washington Times:

After years in the shadows, the administration’s secret drone program burst into very public view Wednesday with lawmakers grilling the attorney general over legal justification for targeted killings and Sen. Rand Paul launching an old-style one-man filibuster to demand answers from President Obama.

The Kentucky Republican held the floor for hours, effectively blocking a vote on the nomination of John O. Brennan, whom Mr. Obama has tapped to be CIA director. He said he would relent only if the administration publicly vowed not to target Americans on U.S. soil.

“This is a long, drawn-out day, but it’s to try to get some answers,” Mr. Paul said after he crossed the eight-hour mark late Wednesday evening. “It’s to try to shame the president into doing the right thing.”

Here’s your answer Senator.  Progressives only fake liberalism.  They are statists and totalitarians, every one.  Scratch a progressive, find a Fascist.  They won’t agree to the illegitimacy of killing U.S. citizens because they believe they have the right to kill U.S. citizens.  It’s as simple as that.

Rand Paul is a hero, and anyone in the Senate who doesn’t support his effort is a friend of totalitarians.

UPDATE: And Mike Lee and Ted Cruz are heroes as well.

CNS News:

In his new book, At the Brink, economist and author John Lott Jr., assesses the presidency of Barack Obama and recalls conversations regarding gun laws they had while working at the University of Chicago.

In Chapter Three, Mr. Lott discusses gun-control and takes the reader back to his time at the University of Chicago, where he and then-professor Barack Obama spoke on numerous occasions about guns in America.

“I don’t believe people should be able to own guns,” Obama told Lott one day at the University of Chicago Law School.

Oh yes he does.

“We should restore the ban on military-style assault weapons and a 10-round limit on magazines,” Obama continued. Both of those proposals “deserve a vote in Congress. Our law enforcement officers should never be outgunned on the streets.”

He just wants the right people to have the guns.  Like I’ve said.  Scratch a progressive, find a Fascist.

USA Today: The TSA is set to allow “knives” on board airplanes.

Then the “knives” are worthless and there is no need to carry one anyway.

Washington Times:

Spurred by the Newtown massacre, Maryland is poised to pass one of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

If Maryland does pass the legislation and Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley does sign the bill, as is expected, one of the largest gun manufacturers in the country Beretta USA is considering a move elsewhere, taking with it approximately 400 jobs. Republican Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has already put out the welcome mat for any gun manufacturers looking to move.

Beretta claims that the law that would forbid 10-bullet magazines would make the manufacture of their 9mm 13-bullet magazine illegal in Maryland. Beretta says it moved one of its factories to Virginia the last time Maryland tightened its laws.

Such talk, however, doesn’t faze the people supporting the new legislation. They see the new law as long overdue. Even before the bill passes, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence had ranked Maryland’s gun laws as the seventh strictest in the nation.

The new law, which will probably be passed this week, would also ban 45 assault-type weapons, set up licensing and fingerprinting of gun buyers, and ban sales to anyone who has been committed to a mental hospital.

I haven’t heard back from my inquiries to Springfield Armory or Rock River Arms, and Kimber and Remington (in New York) are playing coy right now.  But I have a feeling that Beretta will put their money where there mouth is.  Beretta is [rightfully] concerned about public reaction to this outrage.  The American civilian gun market is more powerful and wealthy by a long shot than police or defense contracts, and gun owners rarely forgive and never forget.  Just ask Smith and Wesson about the boycott that just about killed their company.

My message to Maryland?  Bring it.  Bring on the bans, let Beretta move and take 400+ jobs with them, and let gun owners like me work hard the rest of our lives to avoid doing business with Maryland ever again or even driving through Maryland.

Consequences are the best educational tool in the world.  Some people never learn that lesson as children.

Prior:

Letter To Rock River Arms

Firearms Manufacturers Boycott Anti-Gun States

Gun Companies Holding The States Accountable

Remington To S.C.?

It’s Time For The Gun Industry To Move South

Good grief!  Some people just won’t do the world a favor and disappear.  They have to keep bothering us.

Senators on Capitol Hill are telling Gun Owners of America that Harry Reid is twisting arms to get support for one of the most anti-gun judicial nominees in recent memory.

Her name is Caitlin Halligan, and she has a long track record in favor of gun control. In fact, one Senate Republican said that she is the most “anti-Second Amendment nominee Obama has ever put forward.”

As New York’s Solicitor General, Halligan was one of the chief lawyers responsible for New York’s baseless and politically motivated efforts to bankrupt gun manufacturers using frivolous litigation. In so doing, Halligan proved that she places liberal political activism above fealty to the law.

Halligan’s public hatred for firearms was only matched by her zealotry inside the courtroom. In a speech on May 5, 2003, Halligan called for “handgun manufacturers [to be held] liable for criminal acts committed with handguns.”

We have previously seen her handiwork.

Caitlin J. Halligan, who in her tenure as Solicitor General of the State of New York, attempted to hold firearms manufactures and retailers responsible for crimes committed with guns. In 2006, Halligan also filed a brief arguing that handgun manufacturers were guilty of creating a public nuisance.  This caused an almost incredulous rejection by the New York Court of Appeals.

“The New York Court of Appeals has never recognized a common-law public nuisance cause of action based on allegations like those in this complaint. Moreover, other jurisdictions have dismissed public nuisance claims against firearms manufacturers on similar or other grounds… In light of the foregoing, we believe it is legally inappropriate, impractical and unrealistic to mandate that defendants undertake, and the courts enforce, unspecified measures urged by plaintiff in order to abate the conceded availability and criminal use of illegal handguns.” (People Of The State Of New York v. Sturm & Ruger Co., 309 A.D.2d 91, 2003).

But we knew this about Halligan.  She is a traitor.  Actually, we knew this about Obama too.  He is a traitor to the constitution of the United States.  But we are reminded yet again of his traitorous intentions, and it says more about Obama than it does about Halligan.  She is small potatoes.  Obama is the traitor in chief.

Pickens, S.C., Range day, because shooting is a persishable skill.

My oldest son Josh.

He uses a modified Weaver stance.  He is better with a pistol than I am, but I still have him beat as a rifleman.  Below, Heidi is by the fire trying to stay warm.

My son Joseph is drinking coffee by the morning fire.  We were on the Foothills Trail in South Carolina up around Jocassee Gorges.

In this article I have three objectives.  First I want to discuss what would happen to a lone wolf fighter if he tried to be effective without aid and assistance.  Next, I want to distinguish between thinking tactically and strategically concerning survival.  Finally, I want to describe things that might catalyze the need to invoke such plans, from rogue, illegitimate groups to patriots who will not relinquish their second amendment rights, regardless of the consequences.

In Tactical Considerations For The Lone Wolf we saw how good tacticians can provide broad outlines for tactics, equipment and knowledge of procedures for small unit maneuver, and can enable a lone wolf fighter to be effective for a short period of time.  But I said, and still hold true, that this is a bad paradigm for operations, and represents tactical rather than strategic thinking.

The lone wolf fighter faces a daunting set of problems.  From a small child, between riding and training horses, working, camping, hiking, shooting and hunting, I have spent thousands of days and nights in the wilderness.  I have experienced some or a lot of what I am going to describe, and seen others experience the balance of it (or in extreme cases, I simply know of people to whom this has happened or know that it can happen).

Within a couple of days of being in the wilderness, your personal stench is merely disgusting.  By the end of the first week, the putrid, toxic paste that develops around the groins of men becomes a risk to health and safety and can cause serious diseases.  Within another week your feet develop a cocktail of fungal infections, and within another week the skin begins to fall off of them.

Around this time sores develop across your entire body, and the clothing you wear and carry, from underwear to socks, to pants and shirts, to boots and sleeping bags, is fit for nothing but putting into a pit and burning.  Listen carefully.  You cannot carry enough baby wipes to prevent this process from occurring.  You can only slow it down.

In the winter, the cold will sap the energy and even the life out of your body.  It is even difficult to maintain proper hygiene in harsh weather like this.  I have been backpacking in such cold weather than my toothbrush froze into a solid block of ice between the time I pulled it out of the river and the time it reached my mouth.  Without proper dental hygiene, various dental diseases can develop, and these can be debilitating to anyone, much less someone in the wilderness.

In the heat the problems only multiply.  Dehydration is a constant concern, and the time it takes to boil water is precious, if you are able to get a fire going or carry an isobutane canister.  Rarely, there is a Godsend like fresh, naturally-filtered water.

Our Nalgene bottles are sitting under moss at the bottom of a steep rock face collecting potable water.  My 80 pound Doberman Heidi is drinking.  I almost lost her that weekend at Jones Gap.  She almost went down a waterfall, and my son Josh managed to catch her collar with his trekking pole.

I have also been backpacking in such a downpour that nothing would burn, and it would have taken a gallon of gasoline to achieve a fire that lasted for longer than ten minutes.  Assuming that you can find a potable water supply at all times, food presents yet another problem.  You simply cannot carry enough freeze dried food to meet your needs.  There are no Gunny Sergeants ordering up coffee in the morning and rations all day as long as you are in the field doing training.  There is no training.  This will be for real.  The lack of food energy is debilitating, and eventually deadly.

In the summer heat, there are snakes.  I have been bitten by a Copperhead before, as has my dog.  A Rattlesnake bite almost always involves loss of limbs, and in the field without medical attention, would be deadly.

My XDm .45, Ka-Bar folder, sleeping bag and one man tent.  The tent is barely big enough for Heidi and me.  I probably need a good, small two-man tent.

Ticks bring tick-borne diseases, and they can be deadly.  After every summer backpacking trip, I and my sons strip and search each other for ticks (or I have my wife do it, but it must be done soon from the field).  Lack of a partner to perform this inspection can be deadly.  Eventually without showers, washing, and proper hygiene, the body can get lice or scabies.  Without Ivermectin this is untreatable in the wilderness.  Marines will routinely shave their entire bodies of hair before deployment in order to avoid lice, but without this possibility in the wilderness in the absence of water and other sanitation, lice will be hard to avoid.

There are the very rare cases of those who become beached on a deserted island and live long enough to tell their story, or survive on the open ocean by drinking turtle blood.  But in the main, you simply cannot last for long as a lone wolf fighter, and if you think so, you’re delusional and like to nurture fantasies.  You can stay out for several days, but eventually you and your family must ensconce somewhere.  It might be in your neighborhood, it might be in the mountains or wilderness somewhere else, or it might be with multiple families.  But you cannot stay lone wolf for long.

In Tactical Considerations For The Lone Wolf we discussed standing down a SWAT team on your front porch, ready to breech.  This is a highly controversial issue, and there are those who will perish defending their second amendment rights, or more correctly, God-given rights.  They will choose to perish in their own home during an armed standoff with governmental forces.

But it must be remembered that those who advocate such measures are thinking tactically.  The SWAT team is also thinking tactically.  But the SWAT team reports to supervisors, and those supervisors report to managers, and they are all thinking strategically.  A thousands deaths at the hands of SWAT teams means only one thing.  Losses.  That is a losing strategy.

I’m not advocating against this sort of approach, so much as I’m observing reality.  I’m not saying that it should not happen this way, so much as I’m saying that it won’t happen this way.  The first bloody corpse dragged from a home invasion by government forces hunting for firearms will be the occasion for some deep soul searching by millions of firearms owners across the country.  This may happen sooner, when confiscatory plans are announced.

Americans are generally very adaptable.  Turning for a moment to a warning I had about foreign terrorists in the country, I observed that there are deep vulnerabilities in our infrastructure.

The most vulnerable structure, system or component for large scale coal plants is the main step up transformer – that component that handles electricity at 230 or 500 kV.  They are one of a kind components, and no two are exactly alike.  They are so huge and so heavy that they must be transported to the site via special designed rail cars intended only for them, and only about three of these exist in the U.S.

They are no longer fabricated in the U.S., much the same as other large scale steel fabrication.  It’s manufacture has primarily gone overseas.  These step up transformers must be ordered years in advance of their installation.  Some utilities are part of a consortium to keep one of these transformers available for multiple coal units, hoping that more will not be needed at any one time.  In industrial engineering terms, the warehouse min-max for these components is a fine line.

On any given day with the right timing, several well trained, dedicated, well armed fighters would be able to force their way on to utility property, fire missiles or lay explosives at the transformer, destroy it, and perhaps even go to the next given the security for coal plants.  Next in line along the transmission system are other important transformers, not as important as the main step up transformers, but still important, that would also be vulnerable to attack.  With the transmission system in chaos and completely isolated due to protective relaying, and with the coal units that supply the majority of the electricity to the nation incapable of providing that power for years due to the wait for step up transformers, whole cites, heavy industry, and homes and businesses would be left in the dark for a protracted period of time, all over the nation.

Bob Owens takes this down the grid to the next components.

They don’t understand asymmetrical warfare in the slightest, much less how it would be waged here. Let me give you just one small example of how a lone wolves or small teams can strike well beyond their size against a near defenseless leviathan.

After the Dot Com bubble burst in the early 2000s, I took a job in upstate New York for a subcontractor of Central Hudson Gas and Electric. I was part of a crew sent out to map electrical transmission line power poles and towers via GPS, check the tower footings for integrity, check the best routes for access, etc.

It meant I rode quads (ATVs) through mountains, swamps, forests, neighborhoods and farms all over southern New York, in winter’s icy chill and blowing snow, and in summer’s melting heat. It was exhausting work, often in beautiful scenery.

We probably averaged 20 miles of line a day, and that over the course of the contract I easily rode a thousand miles. I can tell you stories of flipping quads, sinking quads, going down a mountain without brakes, almost hitting deer at top speed, and parking on the remains of an electrocuted bear, but that isn’t really what I remember most about the job.

No, what I remember most about the job were the days we spent up near the Rondout Reservoir. What I remember in specific was discovering how powerless the government was to protect key utilities.

[ … ]

Substations like the one above could be accessed not just from surface roads, but from access trails under the power lines by people with UTVs, ATVs, and motorcycles.

Just like the residential transformers in your neighborhood, the transformers in substations are cooled with a form of mineral oil. If someone decides to blast a transformer at its base as prepper Bryan Smith did, and the oil drains out, then the transformer either burns out catastrophically, or if the utility is lucky, a software routine notices the problem and shuts the substation (or at least the affected portion) down. The power must then be rerouted through the remaining grid until that transformer can be replaced and any other resulting damage can be repaired.

Were an angry group of disenfranchised citizens to target in a strategic manner the substations leading to a city or geographic area—say, Albany, for example—they could put the area in the dark for as long as it took to bring the substations back online. Were they committed enough, and spread their attacks out over a wide enough area, perhaps mixing in a few tens of dozens of the residential transformers found every few hundred yards along city streets, they could overwhelm the utility companies ability to repair the damage being caused or law enforcement’s ability to stop them. The government could perhaps assign a soldier or cop for every transformer, substation and switch, but they’d run out of men long before they ran out of things they need guarded.

It’s even more vulnerable than Bob hints.  The utilities in America don’t belong to the government (except for TVA), and the government isn’t duty bound to protect them.  They are private assets.  Even if the government could protect those assets (and they can’t), they wouldn’t.

If the DHS had a trillion rounds of .40 pistol ammunition it wouldn’t matter.  With America in the dark for two years, confiscation of weapons would be the last thing on the minds of law enforcement (that is, the LEOs who left their families alone and without protection in order to come to work).

And there you go.  Smart New Yorkers who don’t want to watch their friends perish on their doorsteps might choose to act strategically rather than tactically.  And that brings in a whole host of issues that need our attention.

When such a scenario occurs, are you prepared?  Do you have a place to ensconce your family?  Do you have the weapons and ammunition that you need?  Do you have means to make potable water?  Do you have freeze dried and canned food?  Do you have means to generate power when you need to, to plant seeds for crops, or provide covering and clothing to stay warm?  Are you allied with like-minded families who will assist each other in dealing with a scenario like this?

The questions run deeper than you think.  I sat across from the dinner table with a very dear friend of many years a few days ago, and heard him lament the fact that they hadn’t been able to afford to purchase firearms for family protection.  This family operates on a thin budget.

My thinking began: “Do I give him my .45, no, that’s my premier personal defense weapon … do I give him my .40, no, I have that one because it’s the same caliber as Josh’s gun … do I give him my .357 wheel gun, no, that’s the best CQB weapon ever invented my mankind … I cannot give him my rifles … ” and so on, and so forth.

Should I go buy a relatively inexpensive polymer frame semi-auto handgun and some ammunition in order to be able to assist friends and loved ones in their time of need?  We need to think through these issues.  Are you a diabetic?  Do you have the insulin you need for a protracted period of time?  Are there other medications you need?

And it might not take firearm confiscation to pull off catalyzing a scenario such as this.  Mr. Obama has created an America that is as bifurcated as it has been in more than 100 years.  More than 40 million people are on food stamps.  This roll is growing at more than 11,000 per day.  We owe so many trillions in unfunded liabilities that we will never be able to meet our commitments.

Ben Bernanke, the most notorious Keynesian economist in history, has clearly said that his printing money like he was drunk will not recover employment.  Translation: Keynesian economics is failing, and I am admitting it to the Senate today.  Yet I will keep doing what I’m doing.

Even states that think they are rejecting Obamacare because of opting out of the plan aren’t really opting out.  I know these things because my daughter is a Nurse and lives in this world.  She knows that the smaller hospitals will cease to exist.  They will be driven out of business.

The larger ones will stay in business, but they will bear the brunt of the penalties.  The penalties that America doesn’t yet know about involve penalties for treating and releasing homeless people, only to have to re-admit them later, or any of a large group of things that cause the hospital to have to pay the federal government money.  Obamacare will get its way, and we will all pay the price for it even if we opt out of participation.  States have no say-so, regardless of what the talking heads are telling you.

If you think that the austerity measures in Greece caused a backlash, wait until we implement them in America.  And we will, after hyperinflation hits, price controls are put into place, the supply of goods dries up and your money is worthless.  Gangs will roam the streets looking for anything they can take, the elderly may as well have targets on their backs, and the apocalypse will be upon us.  The government won’t be able to do anything about it.  The government will have caused it.

Are you ready?  Have you thought through the salient questions?  I haven’t thought through all of them either, and we all have some soul-searching to do.

As always, everything I have said in this article has been for educational purposes only.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to Western Rifle Shooters Association for the attention.  Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.