Any fellow survivalists utilize their truck?

Its perfectly fine to carry a gun for self-defense, I just don't know why its necessary or useful to hypothesize these horrible and gruesome situations to justify it. It just seems like an irrational appeal to emotion/fear.

There's a difference between saying "anything could happen, be prepared!" and "always have your gun on hand in case you come across a staged mugging or see a child watching helplessly as her mother is gangraped!"

I wish I could say the same about having no rashes... skin problems

Genuinely sorry if I crossed the line... it just seemed, extreme. I didn't mean it to sound as assholish as it did

 

So you agree that carrying a gun for self defense is wise but then you would choose to disparage me for taking steps to mentally prepare myself in the event I have to use it? Seems foolish to me.

You claim it's irrational appeal but I assure you, those scenarios & much worse happen daily all across the nation in any neighborhood or area you can imagine. Violence knows now race, color, religion or creed and to assume your safe from it ANYWHERE is what's irrational since it's not derived from any fact based reality. Because you convince yourself it can't happen to you and put the blinders on to any possibility doesn't make it so.

 

I never said it couldn't happen, but I would assume that statistically, you are comparably likely to be struck by lightning as you are to stumble across a child watching as her mother is gangraped in a non-populated/wilderness area. No one goes around trying to protect against being struck by lightning. (maybe they do? ... i don't know any)

edit: you said you don't frequent bad neighborhoods so I figured this hypothetical situation you were proposing was not in one of those bad neighborhoods

 

You did a ninja edit so I'll address the remainder of your post in a new post to try to not confuse things further.

You can say "anything can happen, be prepared" but if you never take pause to actually try to think of the scenarios in which you might have to present your firearm you're setting yourself up for failure and are likely more of a danger owning a firearm with your head stuck in the ground. Part of every conceal carry class is getting those who are considering carrying a firearm MENTALLY prepared for the possibility of having to actually use the thing. When you carry a firearm it changes your mindset and your whole outlook on every situation you put yourself in. A weird maturing occurs out of necessity. I'm a big fella chalk full of testosterone who's never lost a fight so I was also not the first to back down from conflict and had my share of road rage incidents over the years. Once I got my permit and started carrying it was like a light switch flipped. An instant change occurred and strangely it was to the opposite that most anti-gun people think. They think that if you have a gun you are more likely to not back down and look for trouble. When I hear this I usually laugh audibly (I believe the kids call it "lol" these days?) because I know they have never carried a firearm or they would know different. The problem is that those who also have never carried believe BS like this and it becomes a 'fact' even though it couldn't be further from the truth. I digress. The fact that I run through scenarios in my mind daily is what I feel helps prepare me in the even that something horrible happens. I sit with my back to the wall facing the door. I know where exists are. I do a quick snapshot of everyone in the room and where they're faced and what they could be capable of based on baggy clothing, larger bags, items to disguise anything identifiable, etc. This all sounds weird to someone who doesn't carry and likely sounds like it consumes your entire day but it really doesn't. When I pull into a 7-Eleven I quickly address any cars or people in the parking lot. If there's dark areas I don't park there. When I exit me vehicle I look my doors and grab my cell phone and throw it into my pocket in case I need it for an emergency. When go into the 7-Eleven I account for everyone inside and account for their movements and am especially aware of where they are in relation to where my firearm or wife is. All of this happens in milliseconds. It also helps me to avoid potential bad situations that the average non-gun carrying person would blindly walk into because... nothing is going to happen to them, right?

You should get that looked at. Prescription creams have come a long ways in the last decade or two I hear.

I didn't see you as an asshole as I felt your posts came across genuine and may have come from a place of ignorance. Not to say that you are personally ignorant you just may be ignorant to what actually goes on around you. Don't forget that most police forces take painful steps to make sure you 'feel' safe in the town you live in. You may not hear about things happening but I assure you... they do. Don't listen to me, get in contact with your local Sheriff Dept or City Police Dept or better yet... both. Schedule some ride alongs and they will be happy to take you along to show you what actually happens around you. You will be amazed how some nights are pretty slow but inevitably on most nights there will be on situation that blows your mind that you won't hear boo about the next morning in the newspaper or on your local news. This is by design. Do that enough times and you will quickly learn that the Mayberry you live in may be a bit scarier than you were raised to believe. There are bad people out there who mean to do you harm and the police won't be anywhere close enough to help you before the bad things are already done to you. This is statistical fact.

 

Statistics are wonderful but never forget that in a nation this small even something like 99.99% means that it could happen to thousands of people. You willing to bet your life on those odds? I'm not. That scenario I painted was but one example of something that could happen. That doesn't mean it will unfold exactly like that but it's just a scenario with a few concrete examples to allow you to paint a mental picture of what actually happens daily in this county. In the woods, on the road side, in the middle of nowhere or even in your nice neighborhood. This stuff happens.

So if there's a lightning storm do you run around in a wide open space with a lightning rod in your hand stretched as high above your head (golfing for instance) as you can or do you take precautions if lightning strike is more likely?

See? You take necessary steps to protect yourself when you think that the possibility of lightning strike is possible and you don't even know it. Why is that? It's because you were raised to know that lightning is dangerous and it's doesn't matter who you are, what you look like or where you live... you can get hit by lightning.

Violent crime is the same and if you open your eyes to it you too can decrease your chances of becoming a victim and it's through steps you take that are no different than the ones you already take to avoid getting hit by lightning. Trying to convince yourself that the odds of getting hit by lightning are slim and not taking the simple steps available to you to swing those odds in your favor is just moronic.

How is this different?

 

Sadly... eczema is generally chronic and without any identifiable cause. :'(

This is something I've never considered. I don't know if this 'maturing' is inevitable to anyone who gets a CHL... I definitely think there are plenty of people not sound of mind enough where this wouldn't happen. You sound plenty mentally competent though (even if you do go to some mental extremes in hypothesizing scenarios) and most gun owners *are* mentally sound, so its enough to make me seriously ponder the point.

I have actually done a ride along, but it was pretty uneventful (lots of public drunkenness / domestic abuse / crackhead issues... which was what I expected). My ex-gf of many years father was a local LEO, former marine, and trainer of our SWAT team. Honestly, I came out of it being a little disturbed by his near-fetishization of guns (he spent entirely too much time showing me and fawning over all the tactical SWAT gear), but I was definitely glad he had one while on patrol in this country where so many others own guns.

 

The more air you can get around it the better, so I would collect larger shavings. My dad owned a cabinet shop and I worked there growing up and we burned all of our scrap and a lot of the dust/shavings. All saw dust will burn of course, but fine saw dust smolders more than it free burns. The best shavings are plainer shavings, in my opinion. We had a larger plainer and the shavings are clean and when piled they resemble straw .. or paper packing material. They burn great, but we mostly had horse stable owners who came to get that since it works great in horse stalls. The fine saw dust will burn like a smolder on the surface, and since there isn't sufficient air for the material under it, it will need to be stirred to be completely burned away. For instance, if you take a pile of fine saw dust and burn it, and walk away, you'll likely return to find a pile of black saw dust, and when you stir it, the dust under the surface look un-burnt. So, if you know any wood shops in your area, and they run a plainer, I suspect they will gladly let you haul off plenty of shavings if you wanted. Heck, we even bagged out savings for the horse stable people.

 

I realize it's w/o causation but they've still got good creams to help with the symptoms. But this is a survivalist thread so...

If it was just me I'd say that maybe I'm special but I have personally witnessed this countless times in the last decade or so with people of varying age, sex, religion or back ground. Seems more pronounced with guys especially younger one as we appear to be wired from birth to fight first and ask questions later. So for guys it's more of an avoidance of potentially volatile situations that could suck us in when we now know that someone could lose their life. It's different when the stakes are real. With women it appears to be more of a focus on situational awareness. Not to say a guy has a right to rape you but dressing a certain way or walking down certain alleys alone does tend to put you in a situation where the likelihood of it happening increases when you could simply make better life choices. Again, based on how my other words seemed to rub you that could come across crass but the reality is that most people who are victims could have potentially avoided it with better choices. My situational awareness is my first line of defense and my firearm is always the last line of defense (even after fleeing if there's an out) but the latter helps the former be more acute to what is actually happening. Something about carrying a firearm makes you more aware of what the 'right' choice is.

It's hard to explain and while I will admit that not everyone who gets a permit will be affected this way there is quite a bit of red tape involved and going through all of this tends to make your desire to not have it taken from you greater as well. I'm probably just rambling now but the inevitable person who has a screw loose exists in society anyway. You can't legislate all the crazies into a padded room to protect you and yours and even if you could... what a shitty country that would be to live in. Instead, why not take small steps to be able to defend yourself and those you love from the statistically impossible to predict and the few loose screws that will always be among us? You can't guarantee they won't have a weapon so why not have a weapon and train to be more efficient at using it?

I don't know your ex's dad but just because you are pro gun or anti-gun it doesn't mean you HAVE to support every single individual of whichever group you belong to. That's for politicians to do. Face it, both sides have some crazies and we're all a little bit different. I see pro-gun people do stuff daily that makes me face palm and I know takes our cause of the freedom to protect ourselves and our families back a few decades in lots of people's minds and your ex's dad may have fit into this category. Hard to say as I don't know him. Did you make him feel like you were into guns or his gear to try to impress upon him that you were good for his daughter? Maybe he felt he had someone he could finally open up to about something that was dear to him. Hard to say. I know that when I'm among mixed company I almost never bring up the topic of guns nor do I discuss it in-depth unless I genuinely feel like the conversation might be met with open minds (or at least one) because otherwise it's just people shouting at each other and nobody listening to potentially learn. I've grown old of those debates and as such would rather waste 15min typing to someone like you who seems like they genuinely want to know what I think or feel rather than 2min talking to a group of 5 who won't take a single thing away from it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't let whackos on either side of a decision guide how you feel about something. Do your own research and make up your own mind about what's right and what's wrong and then do your best to adhere to whatever that is so long as it is something you arrived at with an open mind. I just dislike when people try to lump me in with all the whack-a-do's simply because I carry a firearm.

 

Simply put, you are in a thread of survivalists and preppers. Now, not agreeing with the disastrubator title given, you can't fault him for thinking ahead. That's what they do. They don't wait until it's dark to check the batteries in the flashlight. So, I guess I don't really know why you found it so disturbing? And for the record, no, I don't count myself as a prepper or survivalist. They're way too organized and I'm not. I'm more of a half prepper... on my moms side probably... maybe even a quarter.

As a firefighter, our training never ends, and I have seen an untold number of outrageous things. However, I have trained for the unimaginable, thinking I would likely never see a scenario like that play out, only to be wrong. So, if you want to fault someone for trying to be one step ahead of the game, then it's certainly your right. However, I don't really see the logic in you coming into this thread and not expecting it to some degree. Unless of course you came in just looking for something to pick at? Just my observation.

 

This is another good point I was going to make but was too busy rambling about everything. This is a survivalist thread so naturally those who are in it are going to be survivalists or at a minimum adjacent to survivalist which is also what I consider myself. I'm not at the drinking my own urine stage but if it came down to it... bottoms up! lol

Also my first reaction was this person was just coming into a survivalist thread to troll the weirdos within.

 

I'm somewhat of a prepper too (i'm not sure how far you have to go to be a real prepper). I have 55 gallons of water, lots of dry food/cans, generator, and my "bug out bag" always ready. Typing all this out makes me realize I should stock some gasoline too I think natural/political disasters and subsequent breakdown of resource-delivery infrastructure is way more likely than me encountering things like what he described in my lifetime.

You're right this was definitely the wrong thread to bring that up, survivalists/preppers tend to be 'extreme' in that sense. I just read his response and thought... good lord that escalated quickly. I'm still not convinced having a gun in some of those situations would really be an ideal solution. How do you know all of the hypothetical gang rapists dont have guns? If they did... could you take them all out without them shooting back? If they're willing to gang rape someone, surely they'd be willing to fire at a random person that discovered them and tried to threaten them with a gun. Even if they didn't have guns, could you take one out without hurting the victim?

I think when I read 'survivalist' I assume out-in-the-wilderness type situations, and when viewed in that context his proposed scenarios seem extremely unlikely and, to me at least, not worth preparing for (I hardly ever encounter anyone at all in the wilderness, much less people with malintent). I value my saw, matches, knife, etc in those situations much more than my shotgun (admittedly, not the best self defense gun). Using the term survivalist more vaguely to mean someone who is just prepared for anything in any environment makes his response more reasonable.

edit: perhaps i didn't read enough of the 100+ pages of replies to get the needed context

 

You think....

So you think that something that has never happened is more likely than something than something that happens daily? See where things start to get dicey? Wouldn't you rather just prepare for the worst and then hope for the best? To me someone preparing for an end-of-days type scenario but doesn't believe in carrying a gun has watched WAY too much Walking Dead where you just have to worry about 'walkers' and less about the other humans who DO have guns that are trying to kill you for your shit. This is more likely than actual zombies but when you prepare for 'zombies' you are effectively preparing for something unimaginable in the hopes that you've prepared enough to handle most things that come your way. That's the point essentially. Zombies are just an euphemism for the unexpected.

The scenario escalated quickly because that's usually how it goes and leaving your gun behind is only going to make you less likely to be prepared for whatever situation presents itself. Nobody plans to get raped, beaten or killed. Failure to plan is planing for failure.

As to if they are armed are not.. who knows. This is why I train and try to mentally prepare for a situation where my life is on the line in case someday it is. You picture me as the untrained average redneck but I can tell you that I train with my firearms more than most agencies require their LEOs. There are plenty who train more because they feel like the bare minimum isn't enough when lives are on the line but the idea that only LEOs are qualified to shoot in a life or death situation needs to end. It's a dangerous classification that puts them above the rest of us peons and I've competed with and against enough o them to know where my skills fall. That being said, I may not make it but I will damn sure be a hard target and will take a few of them with me. If I do die I want it to be in a pile of smoking hot brass instead of on my knees begging some crack head who values my life below that of his next hit because my gun is back in my truck.

The root word of survivalist is survival. If you are only thinking of surviving the elements haven't you already set yourself up for failure?

Sure the odds of encountering someone in the wilderness is slim let alone someone meaning to do you harm but are you still willing to bet your life on those odds?

Not sure that context is really necessary but knowing the audience is usually helpful. Probably wouldn't go into a Raider's thread and start talking about how good the Broncos are and not expect some push back on that standpoint.

 

Never seen it and I don't even have a TV... I just understand how fragile our very intertwined food-delivery / gas-delivery system in the US is. Most of the production centers for those things are very localized and could easily be crippled with one or two well placed disasters (flooding, power-grid interruption). I think in the case of disasters however, its more likely for people to band together for good than to become every-man-for-himself-shoot-you-for-your-gas type situation.

Sure, I was just explaining why I thought of it the way I do. I usually frequent backpacking/camping/hiking forums and typically it is used in that context in those communities (survivalist camping is like ... wander out into the woods with nothing but a knife and fashion yourself a house, type stuff).

I make riskier choices every time I drive on the highway! So I guess... yeah I am willing to bet my life on those odds, heh. Most of us bet our lives on some odds in some way or another every day.

Hey now, don't put words in my mouth. I think its pretty clear at this point that you're not 'untrained'

Day 2 of tacomaworld and I'm already stirring the pot!

 

I get your point. The term probably means different things to different folks. I suspect it has a larger definition in this day and age, with ISIS threats etc and all the unpleasantness in today's world. Everyone's environment is different. Here in Texas camping usually doesn't involve fear of running into an apex predator like it might in the north of Queensland, or bear country... so one preps or survives based on their ability to adapt to their surroundings. Sadly, these days that can involve to 2 legged kind. Plenty of cases of these women camping and ending up murdered by some nut camping close by. Just recently an off duty border patrol agent was shot by drug cartel types will fishing with his family. Being prepared is what it's mostly about... whether it be defending against a crime, fighting off the elements, or just having the right tool for the job when you need it.

 

But you also wear your seat belt, don't you? If simple precautions are available to lessen the odds of serious injury or death why would you choose not to use them? How is this any different than choosing to buckle your seat belt? I mean, if you don't need it it really doesn't affect your life much, does it? Much like a seat belt though, if you need it you'll be glad you have it.

 

This guy gets it.

 

I have a very similar list, cool...
I've been adding spare parts to my list as I do maintenance.. I did some maintenance early so I have good spares... My truck has 45,000 miles so I figured it's a good time to start doing maintenance now because if shtf it will be to late....

fan belt, hoses, light bulbs, wiper blades ect...
Fix a flat, tire repair kit, fuses and basic tools..
Kershaw folder, boot knife, pepper spray, bear spray, camp axe at all times..

These are the storage containers I have for the back. They fit under the tonneau cover and can fit 3 across and 2 deep, almost a perfect fit. They have a air tight seal and are good quality for the price. I have 2 and I'm getting more...

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Iris-Air-Tight-Storage-Trunk/1168933.uts?Ntk=AllProducts&searchPath=%2Fcatalog%2Fsearch.cmd%3Fform_state%3DsearchForm%26N%3D0%26fsch%3Dtrue%26Ntk%3DAllProducts%26Ntt%3Dairtight%2Bstorage%26WTz_l%3DHeader%253BSearch-All%2BProducts%26x%3D0%26y%3D0&Ntt=airtight+storage&WTz_l=Header%3BSearch-All+Products

 

I actually cut the seatbelt out of my tacoma. I crunched the numbers, and after comparing the number of seconds I would lose to putting on/adjusting/removing my seatbelt in 10 years and my likelihood of being in a serious car accident over that same 10 year period, I decided it just wasn't worth the time.

 

^^ kidding of course

 

I knew I liked you. This man gets it