The Boy Scouts' Motto...

BE PREPARED!  At least that's how I remember the Boy Scouts' motto.  It makes sense.  If riding around in the winter, be prepared to have to walk or stand in the cold.  Have a coat, decent shoes and socks so that your feet won't freeze.  Be smart.  Hot days?  Have some water to drink or at least know where you can get some.  Whatever you do, don't ignore what is happening around you and be prepared to deal with it.

I've been saying this for years with regard to your shooting supplies.  Some of the folks who asked me for advice didn't take it and in 2008 they had to scramble.  Others asked if I thought that would repeat, I said yes but they ignored me and now THEY are scrambling as well.

As soon as 2 hours after the Sandy Hook School shooting by a deranged man who we now know was on some sort of psychotropic drug(s), some politicians were calling for gun control and many people saw the writing on the wall.  After the shooting at the theater in Aurora, Colorado (another young man on psychotropic drugs) they knew that all bets were off.  Since the initial reports were rapidly being skewed towards blaming "assault" rifles for the shooting many people saw the writing on the wall and decided to get theirs while they could.  The fear of the ban soon extended to anything with a magazine capacity of over 10-rounds and the magazines to feed them.  Then it extended, in some regions, to the ammunition for those firearms.  As the politicians ramped up their hyperbole in their everlasting search for something to make them necessary and relevant, more and more items were perceived as endangered by a ban.

Then, Senator Diane Feinstein of California, a perennially hypocritical supporter of gun control for the masses (but not for herself or her bodyguards) made her ever-ready bill public.  Apparently she gave the pro-gun people a bone and removed the anti-grandfather clause (more likely because she knows the government hasn't the money to actually pay for the guns already out there as required by the constitution) and changed it to an NFA type tax (actually higher at $250 per firearm).  Now people aren't just buying all they can, they are getting angry.  One now commonly hears the famous refrain uttered by Charlton Heston, "...from my cold dead hands."


I don't think this is simply macho rhetorical posturing either. The sentiment seems to be accepted by many women as well. There is also a component of realistic expectation associated with the statement or similar statements in that the speaker often acknowledges that injury or death would be a certain result of individual resistance. I think that so many seem to know of the young, former Marine Corporal's letter to Senator Feinstein and the daily progress of legislative talk is indicative of a fairly widespread knowledge of and interest in the subject. In short, these people are just shooting off their mouths...

Glenn Beck has rather famously predicted that there could be widespread violence here as we've seen in Greece, Egypt, Libya, Syria, and so forth. His conclusion was that the Obama administration and its allies would be accepting of such a crisis as an excuse to have a wide-ranging limitation of personal liberty. Certainly, there are a number of people who perceive this is true based on the rather arrogant way in which public opinion was ignored to enact Obama-care without legislators reading the bill, it being introduced in the House as required by the Constitution and the rather tortured opinion written by the Chief Justice of SCOTUS to uphold the act. People generally perceive this as what it is, a separation of the government from the people.

A lot of people are banking on their representatives voting down any such legislation, at least in the House of Representatives if not also in the Senate. But now we've heard from the Vice President of the United States that the President is considering acting by executive order. That is, the President of the United States, sworn to defend the constitution, is going to ignore the constitution recently upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, and unilaterally act to control firearms possession. No legislation required. No vote.

It has happened elsewhere that such an act as the attempted confiscation of arms lead to resistance which lead to revolution or civil war. While we've survived one Civil War, it was only by the extraordinary efforts of a few to mitigate the animosities that lingered and to forgive, by public policy, the "rebellion" that we were able to reunite. Neither a revolution such as we began in 1776 nor a civil war such as we had in 1861-1865 have ever been so well ended as they have been here. It isn't likely that such would happen again.

What does this mean? It means we need to be prepared, in many different ways. Yes, you should have food just in case food supplies are somehow put in jeopardy. Yes, you should have some other way of heating your house if electricity and/or natural gas is cut off from your community. Yes, you should have as much of your necessary medications on hand as possible. Yes, it means that you should network with your neighbors so that you can act together for each other if that is necessary. You really should do a lot of these things anyway, including having cash on hand and perhaps protecting your investments from rampant inflation or seizure. But there are other ways in which you should prepare.

You have to be prepared to make critical decisions on short notice.  What do you believe is right? What are you willing to do to support what you believe is right? To what risks will you subject yourself and/or your family? What is really important to you?  You have to know, now, so that should the decision be required with little notice you will act properly, i.e. you will act as you deem proper and in a way that you can accept the consequences of that decision without regret.  And let's face this one fact, EVERY act has consequences.

Will you be prepared?