Security

Gun Safety Guide That Every Prepper Should Know

April 3, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

Following the firearms safety rules is a universal best practice for all gun owners. However, there are additional safety concerns for preppers. We’re planning on using guns in a very different environment that we use guns in right now.

One of the misconceptions about SHTF situations is that they’ll be similar to war. Surviving without infrastructure support, law enforcement, and other daily essentials is much different than wartime operations.

Preppers often crib their gun safety procedures and protocols from the military. But, in reality, not all the military safety standards work in a survival context.

So, gun safety for preppers is more of a holistic approach. Handling your weapon safely is important. But, being safe with your guns as a prepper requires more environmental consideration and planning.

We’re not going to cover the traditional safety rule stuff right now. Here’s what you should think about in regard to keeping yourself and your family safe with your guns in a survival situation.

Storage and Staging

In a survival situation, the environment where you store and stage your guns will be much less stable and controlled than it is now. You need to protect your guns to keep them serviceable for when you need them.

Some quick definitions before we move on:

When you put your guns away for use at some later time, without concern for quick access, that’s storage.
When you put your gun in a place where you can access it quickly, and you plan on retrieving that gun if you need to defend yourself, that’s staging.

Now, obviously, you want to protect your guns from unauthorized access. Keeping your guns away from children is a priority. But, you also want to take special precautions to protect your guns from burglars or raiders, and possibly even government intrusions.

However, you also want to protect your guns from the elements. If you’re in a survival situation, something really bad has probably happened. So, your storage location may need to keep your guns safe and functional until you can retrieve them.

That means your storage location needs to be pretty sturdy. It might need to withstand some pretty serious trauma.

Clearly, a solid gun safe is almost a slam dunk in this regard. However, it’s not the only option. If you’ve got the resources for an underground gun vault, awesome.

But, no matter how you store your guns, a big part of prepper gun safety is protecting your guns from whatever might happen.

In regards to staging: it’s best if you keep your weapon on you as much as possible, and we’ll talk about carriage in a moment. However, even if you have a gun or two that you keep on your body, staging some guns is still a good idea.

This gives your family options for getting a firearm if you’re not around. Or, you can use a staged gun if your carry weapon is unavailable for some reason.

Wherever your bug-in location is, your staged guns should be inaccessible to anyone who you don’t want to get them. If you might be stuck in a more populated area, it’s especially important to protect your staged guns from snoopers or looters.

There are quick access gun safes and options for securing staged guns. However, hiding the thing that secures your staged gun becomes much more important when you’re living in an unsecured environment. Building something like a tactical wall is also a good idea.

In short, the need for keeping your guns handy and the need for keeping them away from bad people goes way up in a survival scenario. So, you need to take this into account when selecting your storage and staging locations.

Carrying Firearms

As we mentioned earlier, carrying a gun is your best bet for ensuring that you’ve got one handy if you need it.

Carrying a rifle is a totally viable option in a survival scenario. It’s not like you’re going to alarm anybody at Starbucks. But, you don’t want to just carry your rifle around all willy nilly.

First, one of the things you should consider doing right now: pursuing some weapon retention training. One of the biggest concerns with carrying a weapon in the open is that people know you have it and can try to take it from you.

So, knowing how to retain a weapon in a hand-to-hand fight is some of the most valuable knowledge you can have.

Also, carry your rifle on a two-point sling. One-point and three-point slings are excellent for fast, tactical operations. But, a two-point sling is perfectly serviceable for shooting and running your gun. And, it provides a lot of utility for keeping your rifle on your body while you’re doing stuff.

With a two-point sling, you won’t need to unsling your rifle so often as you go about your daily tasks. That minimizes the opportunities for being caught without your rifle or being permanently separated from it.

Your rifle can be an insanely powerful defensive tool. But, carrying a sidearm is also a good idea. Even if you’re using a two point sling and keeping your rifle slung as much as possible, sometimes you just need to unsling your rifle.

Now, keeping your sidearm concealed is best, even in a survival scenario. A concealed gun provides a tactical advantage, because it gives you control over when you deploy that firearm. And, it keeps people from going after your gun right out of the gate.

Yes, concealing your firearm makes it more difficult to transition from your rifle to your pistol, if you need. But, you’re not going to be in a ton of tactical situations where switching weapons quickly is the priority.

Most of the time, you’re going to be gathering food, cleaning water, and doing daily survival things. An ambush or intruder scenario is much more likely than a pitched gunfight.

So, the most secure setup for weapons carriage is a slung rifle with a concealed sidearm. That way you have a primary defensive tool readily accessible, and you have an element of surprise for regaining control if you’re caught flat-footed.

Securing the Compound

Obviously, the fundamental rules of safe firearm handling apply to all firearms use.

But, prepper firearm security requires a bit more consideration. In a survival scenario, you’re most concerned with:

Keeping your guns safe from whatever caused the SHTF situation.
Keeping your firearms away from other people who may become more aggressive without ordinary societal restraints.
Ensuring that you’re still able to protect yourself with your guns whenever the need arises.

So, check your storage locations and consider how you plan to carry your weapons in the event that you’re forced to strike out on your own. And, make sure that you’ll actually have your guns when the time comes.

Can War Games Help us to Prepare for TEOTWAWKI?

March 29, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

A lot of us, when we talk about war games, think about a bunch of guys sneaking around the forest at night firing blank bullets at each other. But whilst this is slightly true, it doesn’t give an accurate representation of how serious war games actually are.

A war game is any type of military-esque exercise which is carried out to improve strategic or tactical expertise. Some of them take the form of highly specialized maneuvers, whilst other seek to replicate potential real life situations, such as domestic insurrection.

They’re great training for military personnel who are to be deployed into hostile situations, in which they might feasibly have to remain undetected and secure, whilst surviving any way they can, for long periods of time.

How Useful Are War Games?

So now we know how war games are used by the military. But can they be adapted to suit the purposes of the modern day prepper?

We can start by examining the way in which war games are designed. They mimic potential real life situations as far as is possible, in order to give the participants the training and experience they need to survive should such a situation occur. In some cases, this might mean going to sea on an aircraft carrier, or carrying out maneuvers in tanks in the desert.

However, many war game situations require participants to survive on the land for months at a time, having no contact with the outside world, and needing to plan and implement strategies for achieving objective goals. It is these elements which can be easily adapted to suit a prepper’s needs.

Designing Your Own War Game

The type of situation in which a prepper may find themselves after the shit hits the fan may not necessarily be ‘war like’. But it’s still true that in many of the potential SHTF situations we can imagine, skills such as living off the land or moving stealthily will become very important.

So, in this respect, using war games as a template for designing our own survival training situations is a great idea. And all we need to set up our own war game training exercise is a terrain map, goal objective (such as surviving for a certain period of time, or reaching a specific location) and whatever military gear at night we can find which might prove useful – such as sturdy boots, sharp knives or military-grade camping equipment.

How to Choose the Best Body Armor for Personal Protection?

March 29, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

When you are looking for body armor that would protect you from either ballistic or stab/spike attacks, there are a few things you should consider, before finally making your mind.

Overt or Covert Armor?

You have to decide whether you want your body armor to go over your clothes (overt body armor) or to be worn under them (covert body armor). Do you have any special demands for your armor? For example, do you want to use a SAPI plate or maybe you want your vest to have a front zipper?

These are the questions you must answer before choosing a type of body armor you need.

Consider the Threats

Make sure you appraise your situation. Are the threats you will be facing going to be just ballistic or are they going to involve edged weapons too? Do you know the maximum caliber you are going to encounter? After considering this, make sure to refer to the NIJ ballistic protection ratings or the HOSDB stab/spike protection ratings.

As significant as it is to have proper protection, it’s also essential to not overestimate the protection levels you require, specifically if you must wear the armor for prolonged time frames. Body armor with higher protection levels will be a bit heavier, than armors of lower levels, and will frequently stiffen your mobility.

Make Certain about the Size

There are 3 (4 for women) essential measurements that a consumer should refer to in order to increase the chances of body armor fitting them well.

First of all, it’s the overall standing height. This will help you make certain that the armor is not too long, but is long just enough.
Secondly, estimate your chest size. You must as well match this to a reliable chest size chart and guide.
Thirdly, measure the length of your breastbone – the distance between the belly button and the top of your chest bone. This particular measure is the most significant in ensuring the length of the vest is appropriate.
Fourthly, and lastly, female wearers should measure their cup size.

Make sure that you collect all this data before you choose body armor for personal protection.

Factual Fitting of Body Armor

A lot of people think that a body armor vest has to reach all the way down to the waist. But, this is not how it is in reality. The vest has to extend just to the navel area – the belly button. If a vest passes the navel, it becomes too heavy, while protecting non-vital inner organs. A too long vest will as well impede with the mobility of the wearer. It will also not feel comfortable and won’t even allow the person to bend down, if needed.

Even though taking care of all these things may take some time in the beginning, it is still better to do it before buying body armor. These factors and measurements will help you make certain that you buy the perfect body armor for you and your particular needs.

Safety With Gun Magazines

March 25, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

When I was a youth and enlisted in the Army, my usual firearms were single shot, double barrel, revolver or pump action and not a box magazine fed unit. My first experience was during training when I first fired the little M1 carbine. Lovely little weapon and I still love it today but, here is where it had gotten intense.

We were issued according to what we were carrying and if you had the M1 carbine you got 15 round magazines and if you had the M2 fully automatic version you got 30 round magazines. Being an old snap shooting country woods boy, two things immediately became clear. Unless I was in one hell of a firefight backed up by persons on both sides of me, I would never use the automatic enabled version because common sense told me that would be where the opponents fire would be concentrated immediately.

Desiring to preserve my hide, I objected to the tactics being taught and was hauled off to the rifle range where I was provided with the opportunity to fire for record every shoulder arm and pistol in the Army’s inventory.

I fired Expert with everything they threw at me that day and when the results were compared to my structured range and tactics records there seemed to be a great difference in results. I confided in the drill sergeant that I did not understand the windage adjustment on the rifles and when I applied what is known as Kentucky windage, unless they checked and saw that indeed my windage adjustment had not been made, I was not counted as making the shot.

They quickly told me that I was just fine the way I was and they would be happy to share a foxhole with me and that use of the windage adjustment was optional and for people who really were not shooters. This stuck in my memory and when discussing the M2 carbine and my reluctance to use it in that manner, they wanted to know if I saw anything else objectionable about it.

I said I had observed that the magazine protruded so low from the weapon that special care had to be taken in assuming a prone position to prevent damage to the magazine and this require extra time in assuming a prone position and increased the possibility of getting hit. After a short demonstration in which two magazines were damaged and would not feed the entire thirty rounds and also were difficult to remove from the weapon because of the damage, my thoughts on the subject were recorded and passed around.

Various shooters of the carbine had proven that the fifteen round magazine could be changed much more quickly and could be done in a full prone position without exposing yourself and you could not do this with the thirty round magazine. From then on until the retirement of that fine little weapon, anywhere I went while in the Army and was assigned a carbine, the option of six thirty round magazines or twelve fifteen round magazines were offered. I invariably chose the fifteen round magazines and left half of them still in their protective packaging in my pack as long as I was so armed.

After leaving the service I had given to me a fine looking lever action Winchester that had only one thing wrong with it–It would only accept three rounds in the magazine. The outer tube appeared free of damage and I acquired through a gun shop in Terra Haute, a completed magazine tube, spring and follower which, when installed, showed a bad kink in the follower spring which prevented loading more than the three rounds.

Second incident was a Remington Nylon 66 that had gotten damaged when a truck door was shut on it and crushed the magazine tube. Then this happened with a Marlin 60 which had been dropped. All of these things were repairable, except not at the moment when I needed it the most, but were rendered useless until parts arrived.

This colored my judgment since then and I have settled on ten round magazines for my Marlin 995 carbine which feed flawlessly, held enough ammunition for that follow up four rounds to the same vulnerable place theory which has stood me in good stead for years. It is easy to assume a prone position with this magazine inserted, it does not protrude lower than the heel of the stock and keeping extra loaded magazines on hand ensures that I have a recharge readily available if needed.

The fifteen round magazine sold by various people was junk to start with and was quickly damaged by a grandson on our first test. Added to the fact that since the 22 rim fire is a rimmed round the magazines can not be offset like a rimless round and therefore are not loadable from a stripper clip if any existed since it has to be loaded from front to back and depressing the spring when the last few are loaded is a real bear. Unless you have a slotted magazine with the stripper tool that depresses the magazine spring and follower for you along during the loading.

After trying all of the tests I have mentioned here, the ex-friend said that indeed all of this was so and a person just was well have an AR15 with which I agreed, except if you really needed a 22. He said if you really needed a .22, one with a smaller magazine would work just fine, to which I agreed. He was so mad when he realized he had outpointed himself he stormed off stating that he would never talk to me again. I should have just stayed sick.

Should You Help Your Friends and Neighbors During A Disaster?

March 25, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

It is so easy to say that you’ll turn away someone when they come calling – until it happens. My daughter’s friend has issues. She is a walking disaster in many ways.

She was a teacher until persuaded by her husband to go into business together in a restaurant. He had both restaurant experience and business experience so it wasn’t an unreasonable thing to do. But it didn’t work and they lost all the capital they had built up over the years.

Under the stress her bipolar disorder flared. He couldn’t cope and started to beat her up. They separated and each took a rented place and shared custody of the children. He got adequate work and is able to support his lifestyle. She, with her mental health issues has had ongoing problems with employment.

Now the friend has been away from teaching for so long she cannot get back into it for various reasons relating to registration and the local teaching culture. While the economy was good she was able to get work. Now it is tightening the work she used to get is no longer there. The government support only pays $10 a week more than the cost of her rent in one of the lowest cost suburbs so she is not paying her utility bills.

It is only a matter of time before she has the power and water turned off and then is thrown out of her place for not paying rent (she is still paying it at the moment, but only just).

The stress is making her mental health condition much worse than it need be. She is difficult to tolerate for more than one day at a time, given her personality issues that she has been working hard on for years. There is no way my daughter wants to have her friend living with her but the friend’s father refuses to have her also and there is no other accommodation for low income families.

Now when the inevitable happens and this friend and her two young children are turned out of the house what is going to happen? She will turn up next door at my daughters place as her father is so unpleasant towards her.

We have already had a conversation about it and my daughter is prepared to put her up on a one day a week basis for a limited time. Then she will be hard hearted and send her around to her father’s place to sleep in the car outside his place if he won’t let them in. She has turned this friend away before when the demand was too great so I think this will be possible.

This is just the first step to things being difficult for so many. Apparently we have around thirty families in our immediate community who are living like this and who have to seek public assistance to eat.

Part of me wants to be angry and blame them for getting into this mess in the first place through making bad decisions. Part of me is very aware that when jobs are difficult to get, and “appropriate care” for children costs what this mother could get for working.

As a society we no longer support such parents though we find money to remove the children and put them into foster care, often in circumstances worse than they would be with a mother with mental health issues who is working. The court awarded custody to the father at weekends as he was “working”. So was she and she had to pay for child care so she could bring in enough to feed them and provide a bed, a shower and toilet during her days of care.

This is not yet a SHTF scenario, but it will be shortly as it already is for the 30 odd local families in this situation.

And as a society we have to live with the consequences of having children poorly fed and without housing. I don’t know where they go and I don’t want to know (yes, I know being ostrich-like with my head in the sand is not a good idea). I just know that as the economy worsens and as people with poor health no longer have social support that things will get more and more dire for so many.

I have made a decision that with so many poor people the best I can do is not to be one of them, using up the limited resources that are there. My husband and I have to pay off our mortgage and support our daughter and her two children who live next door.

I’m here to make it easy for her to work at a reasonably well paid job by being the “slack in the system” providing child care when it is needed, looking after them when they are sick and helping out when things get difficult so she is able to continue to work. My husband was only five minutes away when someone smashed into our daughter’s car and he was able to support her to do all the things that needed to be done.

We could also help to get her to the train station and back again while the insurance people took their time about paying out so she could get another car. Her work and hence her income was unaffected. Family resources made life much more manageable in a difficult week.

Frankly we don’t have the time, energy or resources to help every family in dire need in the community. By having strong bonds we can, however support our own family and make sure we are prepared for what is coming.

I feel torn that we cannot help this woman more. But we have to realistic and I think the friend will appreciate boundaries early on in the situation so she can have ongoing support. She is not unaware, having done a lot of personal work and she knows that the most that people can manage to have her around is about three days.

I think she would appreciate having one day a week in a house with toilet and shower rather than four days and then be chucked out forever. But what when this is not an isolated incident, albeit number 31 in our district? What when the numbers and suffering become so great that something has to give and these people stop being reasonably polite?

Using Thorn Bushes for Security (and Other Defensive Landscaping Tips)

March 24, 2024 by Seasoned Citizen Prepper

Last year was a particularly bad winter and it killed a lot of my rose bushes right back to the roots – and some it just plain killed. As I was cleaning up the roses and pruning the dead branches (and bleeding from multiple scratches to my arms and face) this spring it occurred to me why roses were so popular in Medieval times when marauding vandals and knights raided villages and outlying homesteads at will.

I was thinking about the English cottage gardens and how they were built to keep out livestock. Hmmm, defensive landscaping in order to survive. It made perfect sense to me. You could easily use a nasty hedge or roses or thorn bushes for home security. I’ve been thinking about this all summer and have even done some research on the subject.

If you go to eHow, they advise keeping everything open and low shrubbery as your neighbors are your best defense – that just doesn’t seem too practical to me in a WROL situation.

On several sites there was talk about open space for a good field of vision around the home, and using thorn bushes and hedges as protective barriers.

wooden fence and hedge — *In town wooden privacy fence covered in vines with a multi-species hedge in front.*

Hedges

Hedges are a popular way to gain privacy, block traffic noise and wind. Here in the North many people plant an evergreen hedge of either pine/spruce trees or arborvitae – a native species with flat needles. These evergreen hedges block the relentless prairie winds and even the snow from piling up against the houses.

Hedges are a natural barrier whether evergreen or deciduous. A tightly spaced tangled rose, lilac, barbarry or honeysuckle hedge will keep out most critters and intruders. Please hesitate at invasive species like bamboo and always check to be sure what you are purchasing is hardy in your zone. A sturdy hedge around a property provides privacy and directs visitors to where you want them to enter.

Fences

Fences are another option to keep people/critters out or in. Chain link fences are fairly inexpensive. Tall wooden ones offer privacy. Adobe and rammed earth enclosures are popular in the southwest. If you are living rural, you will see a lot of barbed wire fencing around pastures as well.

All of these provide some degree of protection and funnel traffic flow where you want it. In town wooden privacy fence covered in vines with a multi-species hedge in front.

Driveways

Open lawns and driveways are ideal for a Mad Max invasion. Imagine intruders deciding to storm your home with a four wheel drive truck.

So how do you stop them? If you take a look at most convenience stores, they have these cement posts carefully placed in front of the store to stop a vehicle – I wouldn’t want to hit one of those!

So I started looking around at what I have that could be defensive in the driveway and stop a vehicle, or at least make them think twice because even if they ran these over the oil pan would probably be punctured. Hmmm, those cement statues I am so fond of could be a defensive barrier in time of need! Imagine hitting one of these 4′ cement statues!

What do YOU have around that would work as a barrier in your driveway? Preparedness is all about thinking ahead. :)

Paths and Entrances

Pathways are invitations to an entrance. Then the next question is, how secure is your entrance? Is the door solid with a good lock? Are the current screws in the hinges 3″ long penetrating the structural studs around the door? Is the siding and/door burnable if an incendiary device were thrown at it? How about drive-by shootings?

Stone house with open entrance. Note how intruders could be beside the door when answered. And then there is the “fatal funnel” where there is no cover near the door and an invading group would have to commit to a full frontal assault square in your sites. This can be accomplished with shrubbery on either side of the door or with simple handrails.

Rails and shrubbery to funnel the visitors to the door. Again, funneling visitors directly to the door with no place to stand other than in the line of sight. Barred door, funneled, but with space to conceal on either side. Funneled with brick around the entrance and a dog sign in the yard. Which house would YOU prefer to defend?