Like many of you, I am just a suburbanite schlub who loves his family, works hard and has the foresight to realize that prepping is important. I am not a former military intelligence officer. I didn’t run Black Ops in Denang during the Tet Offensive of (whatever year?). Those with military experience may (I stress ‘may’) have an advantage of us normal everyday folk. Those with criminal or gang experience do have an advantage. If you are a serial killer, well, you get where I’m going.
See, I believe that if the disaster is big enough and its effects are long lasting, society will break down. Like Katrina has shown us, people can go from calm law abiding citizens to man-imals willing to kill, rape and loot in a very short period of time. Like many of you, I am well armed, well stockpiled with ammunition and reasonably proficient at civilian arms fire. I am confident that I have the sufficient skill to hit what I am aiming at. But will I “take the shot”? I am scared shitless at the thought of having to do it!
My dad was in Vietnam. When I was old enough he talked about his experiences a little. He told my that killing another person is more difficult that putting a burning needle in your eye. Yes, a little more detailed than I needed but it got his point across. Killing another human being is VERY difficult! If you are serving or have served in IRAQ or Afghanistan then you may be at an advantage when it comes to making that decision. If you killed another human being then you are far less hesitant to pull the trigger. You have already made a “you or me decision” and taken a person’s life to save your own or that of a fellow serviceman. If you are an infantryman you may have had to actually look at their face and see the consequences of your actions. If you are an A-10 pilot and just unleash hell from the sky perhaps you don’t have the experience of getting your hands dirty.
If you are a gang banger who has been raised in a violent world and seen death throughout your life then you are the future leaders of the groups that will raise from the ashes of society. Too dramatic? Ok, fair enough. Remember, these kids (mostly teens and twenty year olds) are going to have violent tendencies to begin with. Making the change to man-imal in a lawless society will be effortless. If you are a serial killer, well, then you were out killing anyway and you might actually not like the competition! Let alone now all your victims are armed!
That brings us to you an me. I love my family. I will shoulder the burden of taking another man’s life if I believe it is necessary to save theirs. I do not want my wife or children to have to live with the regret and stress of killing another person. But if it comes to that, do I have what it takes to shove the burning needle in my eye? Do you? I don’t have an answer. The situation hasn’t occurred. I can tell you that I will do everything I can to avoid it, be prepared if it needs to happen and do my best to make the right decision depending on the circumstances.
Many of you know that I am in the legal field. I am currently awaiting my bar results in order to be a licensed attorney in the state of California. I do not practice in the criminal law field which covers self defense and the defense of others so anything said is not to be construed as legal advice. The common law allows a person to use deadly force if reasonably necessary to protect your life or the lives of others or to prevent grievous bodily harm. Every state is different as the requirements of self defense are usually codified (defined by law). It is useful to pull your state’s statute (law) on self defense and know the requirements. Some states are more liberal than others. Ask Joe Horn about that. The belief that your life is in danger is a subjective one. In other words, it is YOUR belief or opinion at the moment the action took place. It is not what a judge, jury or prosecutor believes after the dust settles and everyone has time to reflect on the actual circumstances, it is what you felt or believed at that very moment. In a time of societal unrest and violence your subjective belief that your life was in danger will be easier to proof to a jury (if a later trial takes place). When the looting starts and the bullets begin to fly, it is reasonable that a person would interpret an adversary’s even slightest move as a danger to their life.
If it gets crazy out there, do your best to mentally prepare for doing some nasty, regrettable yet necessary shit!
Prepare, Care and Live!
-SP
Filed under: SHTF, suburban survival | Tagged: self defense
[...] My Biggest Survival Fear…And Probably Yours Too! « Suburban Preparedness and Suburban Survival Like many of you, I am just a suburbanite schlub who loves his family, works hard and has the foresight to realize that prepping is important. I am not a former military intelligence officer. I didn’t run Black Ops in Denang during the Tet Offensive of (whatever year?). Those with military experience may (I stress ‘may’) have an advantage of us normal everyday folk. Those with criminal or gang experience do have an advantage. If you are a serial killer, well, you get where I’m going. [...]
I’m an 8 year infantry, spent all my time in light infantry units. I’ve always heard “professionals are predictable,amateurs are not’.Constant practice with your weapons at different ranges and stances help.preferably with others shooting around you. Get THE RANGER HANDBOOK and COMBAT TRAINING AND PATROLING. Read and practice immediate action drills
I was a victim of violent crime. I managed to fight him off without too much damage to either of us. Part of it was that I couldn’t believe it was happening…to me….right then. It actually took me a while to respond and I have some martial arts training. I wasn’t as nasty as I should have been. Now I assume anyone that attempts to assault me or impede my progress is a deadly threat. It took me once to learn. Once you are victimized you know that you can seriously hurt or kill another human being because now you KNOW they are trying to hurt or kill you.
You wrote, “Like Katrina has shown us, people can go from calm law abiding citizens to man-imals willing to kill, rape and loot in a very short period of time.”
I don’t think that happened in Katrina. That is, the people who became violent weren’t what you’d call “calm law abiding citizens” to begin with.
All it takes to be capable of violence is to be exposed to violence long enough to overcome the social conditioning against violence. (Some people have little of that conditioning to begin with.)
The worst problem you might have with finding the will to use violence is if conditions deteriorate faster than you perceive– if you find yourself in a situation calling for violence before you really understand what’s happening.
There’s an earthquake, for example, and a large refinery fire. You’re driving home and your car is surrounded by gangbangers who believe they need your car to escape the toxic smoke. A moment ago you were worrying about your family, and 15 minutes ago you were focused on a report you were writing; right now, you hardly know what’s going on.
You may be scared, but you need to be angry instead, and you need to act decisively to escape and return to your family. Many civilized people can’t get into that mindset so easily.
As a lawyer, you’re telling yourself that nobody has actually attacked you yet, so you can’t just nail the gas and drive over those two guys in front of your car. But you can’t wait for someone to throw a cinderblock through your window or start shooting at you; that could be too late.
But then again, society hasn’t collapsed. It’s just an earthquake and a fire. If you kill someone, you will still have to deal with the legal consequences.
So that’s about as bad as it’ll get– a situation where you need to act, but you aren’t ready for it and you can’t escape the consequences anyway. There’s no good way to prepare for such a situation; the best you can do is to develop a skill for estimating what you can get away with in a court of law. When would a jury believe you were acting reasonably? What can you do and still say honestly that it was just?
By comparison, pulling the trigger when some other guy is shooting at you and you know you’ll never see a uniformed cop again will be relatively easy. And once you see someone you love under fire, you won’t hesitate again.
Hi,
First you are probably the bravest man your children and family will ever know. To have children on purpose and try to make a decent life takes a huge amount of courage. As to the willingness to use lethal force, please allow me to say it is the soldier who is the last one to seek a military solution. It is the soldier who is most reluctant to wage war. He prays for peace above all others. Because, he is the one who will bear the wounds of war, who will witness the terrible price of battle. Of course you don’t want to use lethal force, only an inexperienced man or a fool is eager for battle. Your dad sounds like a very brave and experienced warrior. He did his duty, because he swore an oath and therefore did the honorable thing.
All I can say if the time comes we will all try to do the decent and reasonable and prudent thing. I was an infantry medic in Vietnam and saw the price of war close up and personal. But, please remember all veterans are survivors, SO SURVIVE!!!!
ALL I CAN SAY IS WALK SOFTLY, OFFEND NO ONE, AND CARRY A .357 WITH THE WILL TO USE IT IF NECCESSARY.
Good post and comments. Having the right attitude or mindset is definitely the key to survival. Try not to think of self defense as a hot needle in your eye, or you may not be able to carry it out when your family needs you most. Besides, there are situations where killing someone isn’t necessary. I read an account recently of an elderly lady who held a gun on a 17-year-old intruder and made him call 911. She held the gun on him until the police arrived. Granted, that’s how things are in today’s world, maybe not tomorrow’s, but it makes my point about killing not always being necessary.
John
Great Comments. Thanks for the input, all of you! This post really came from the heart so to speak.
Please note that I read all the comments even though I don’t reply or comment on the comments. I appreciate the involvement of the readers. After all, I don’t do this for myself, I do it for you, the reader. I make NO money doing this as you can see. I have no advertisements.
Please keep reading and I will keep writing.
Some reading recommendations –
On Combat by Dave Grossman
Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales
You’ve got to understand what will happen in your head in stress conditions. And how to counter them (or at least stay on that horse).
And as an adjunct read The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley. You also have to have some idea about how the ‘masses’ will act & react in response to events. And there are other texts worth your time. Ripley’s work has a decent set of references to ponder.
Breath In – Breath Out….
SandPine
the authorities can always claim that they’re not obligated to protect you. the supreme court said so. just like they said sodomy is legal. as always, YOYO.
To kill a man is a very easy thing to do. Many like the writer will have a problem with it, but remember many of us do not. Remember hunter/killers are drawn into infanfantry/rangers/sf and so on. Sheeple are not. thats ok, but don’t lay awake thinking about it. You do or do not. The writer is going to be a lawer that should tell you something about his nature. My familiy will best served by the skills I’ve aqquired than the books of law, or the torture of ones mind over right and wrong. If you don’t think you can kill, well probably someone will take advantage of that when the shit goes down. It’s not different from killing a cow,dog, rabbit, deer, etc.. sad but true. But reality is harsh.
I agree with bendak. I spent 6 years in the USMC infantry and i never had a doubt that my fellow Marines could kill. I now do something similar in the private sector
Grossman says that only 1% of the population are of the warrior mentality and half of those are the bad guys. He also states that most people fall into the sheep category. He doesn’t mean sheep in a bad way, just that people follow the norms of society.
I guess people are drawn to what they are good at