In honor of Jon C, I will continue this thread, part two!
And you spelled it right! Yea!!!
Maxman—
re: how I came to be an ex-pacifist. I’m happy to share.
I’ll pull together some of my thoughts over the next day or so and start a new thread. Keep an eye out.
jon c, I assure you the sentiment is mutual.
Although not exactly on the topic of this thread, I’ll suggest it anyway. When planning on ways to defend yourself and your family consider taking instruction in self-defense of some kind- whether it be formal martial arts or something more general. Not only will it help you physically in that endeavour, but it will also help you to feel more confident. When you know that you are not an ‘easy’ target you will react and carry yourself differently. You will also have a back-up in case other strategies fail.
PH @00:29
Many thanks. I look forward to your thoughts. I teach a course that includes a section on ethics, but I still struggle with this one.
Maxman-
If God calls you to be a martyr, then by all means, you must be obedient to that call; what man can resist God?
But if God doesn’t ask you to sacrifice your family, then God likely wishes you to follow his general teachings and become a protector of your family at all costs.
MaMa_Jon c, If you take the self-defense road check out Krav Maga or a reality based class. This should include adrenal stress training. Here is why, http://www.rmcat.com/page17.html Without the adrenal stress training, the skills you acquire will most likely not be available during a confrontation. It is the most critical part of your training. Make sure the instructor provides an “attacker” in a bulletman suit or fully padded suit (very important). This allows you to attack at full force. You need to feel the effects of a full adrenal rush both physically and psychologically. Trust me on this.
NS1 @ 7:14
I certainly respect your view, and it tends to coincide with my own. My problem is that there are competing positions that are arguably as, or perhaps even more, compelling.
As you say, “What man can resist God?” The trick, of course, is clearly discerning exactly what it is that God wants from each of us. One could quote scripture (Christian and others) endlessly in seeming support of widely disparate views.
For example, certainly one universally recognized spiritual tenet is to love others as yourself - even explicitly to love and forgive your enemies. Now it just seems to me difficult to reconcile that teaching with aiming for center of mass or looking for a clear head shot.
I realize this is a digression from the intent of this thread. I’ll save further comments for a new thread on pacifism and/or other non-lethal responses to home invasion.
Maxman, Start the thread. This is interesting.
Thank you for starting this new one( and spelling it right ) Hehe As to training, I was an NRA rangemaster in Guam and learned self defence in the Phillipines as a child,My father was a Navy Seal and got tired of watching me get my butt kicked and turned me over to an ex Seal buddy of his for training. I helped pay my way through college as the head bouncer in a club called Subculture in Wichita Ks. I have some great scars from that one. I was called the Karmic bouncer because I would go out of my way to not hurt someone if possible and I would not hire anyone who wanted to fight. I boxed for a wile and had my clock cleaned by the Pan American world champion. (hit me so hard my mouthpiece landed in some lady’s lap in the fith row.) hehe
jon c,
Hey I grew up in the Wichita area—Valley Center specifically. Where did you go to school? WSU?
Go Shockers!!!!
In a lot of disasters, groups (gangs) would go looting and rampaging together. We saw this in Katrina, and there has been alot of discussion in various threads on how difficult it would be to protect ourselves against a number of hungry, violent, drug dependent looters.
However, in the event of a flu, wouldn’t these same individuals create their own “undoing” should they hang out and act out in a group or gang? Isn’t this the exact place they are going to come in head-on contact with the flu? Are these types of criminals smart enough to figure this out? Will “social distancing” be anywhere on their radar screen?
It just crossed my mind that if we do see gangs and groups on the loose in the very beginning of the pandemic, we probably won’t see much of them (except in a cemetery) by the middle to end of it. They may all kill themselves off.
I am not saying that they won’t be a problem, but maybe the very nature of the physical closeness and power of a GANG/GROUP will be their ultimate undoing.
Social Darwinism? “hold my beer and watch this.”
bump
Talking about adrenalin I got attacked two days ago by a boxer. I did a lot of dog obedience training 10 years ago so I’ve been around dogs. This attack couldn’t be avoided but as it happened I chose to remain calm & move slowly even though the dog was between me and my car. When he bit on the calf I moved my leg slowly away & he let go. I kept arms across my chest, looked down at the ground not the dog and made my way back to my car. I’ve taken kickboxing for the past 18 months, maybe that’s why I could keep so calm. Owners were horrified that their “teddy bear” could ever bite anyone. We worked out a solution that I’m satisfied with so I’m not reporting it.
I see the threat to our personal security taking three general forms.
Gangs will ignore calls to quarantine and when they see an impotent police presence, they will come out in force. They will go after high end thefts. Gun shops, jewelry stores, and appliance stores will suffer their wrath. Often times, they will torch the establishments they burglarize to burn up security cameras and destroy evidence. When the looting starts, Wal-Mart will find its stores emptied in two days. The gangs will have their fun in the first weeks of chaos, then they will sicken and some will die. Their activity will taper off when they go to their sick beds. The average home owner will have little to fear from these groups unless of course they have a presence in your neighborhood. They will tend to congregate around their leader’s houses. Keep a low profile and do not attract their attention. Do what you have to do to survive; but if at all possible, do not start a war with these fellows unless you are Rambo. Even if the gang has a national affiliation, most are territorial. Once the disease has run its course, you may find the survivors have useful skills that can be utilized later. Most will have a vested interest in the security of their own community. By all means, treat them with respect; they will kill you over a perceived insult.
Foragers will begin to look for supplies as soon as it becomes apparent to them that they must forage or starve. They will begin to appear in the days and weeks after the pandemic has hit in force. Most will be decent desperate people trying to feed themselves and their families. Many will be armed for their own security. For the most part these people will not be a threat to homes that are obviously occupied. They will be looking for food and medicine, not a fight. Many of these will sicken and some will die as soon as they break quarantine. These people can be reasoned with. Meeting an armed homeowner, they will more than likely seek safer territory.
Marauders will appear if there is a total and prolonged collapse of the infrastructure. At first, they will appear as relatively small roving bands of immune individuals. They could come to mimic the roving armies of the middle ages. In time, they will settle in areas rich enough to sustain them and war lords will emerge unless the government rebounds. Most people would prefer to live under the rule of law rather than the gun. If the government offers a general amnesty, law and order could be restored and the local war lord may find himself under arrest. If he is too outrageous, he will probably be assisnated.
Jeez I should proof before I post.
I watched a bit of the Bill O’Reilly show on thursday evening. He showed the immigrant gangs in jail giving their gang signs and beating each other up brutally. He said that the first Mexican immigrants seem family oriented, but their children in the inner cities have taken to the gang subculture and are outdoing it. They join the gangs as young as 9. So you might get a young decoy to begin with. This is of course only a percentage of the illegals, but 30% of inmates might be gang members of this type. I don’t know where he got his figures. We have been flooded with Latino illegals. I hope they are of the family oriented groups. I have been to very nice areas that have been downscaling due to gangs. Home values go down, people are intimidated. How this would impact on the flu is obvious to me. They do not respect schools or learning, they respect brute force and intimidation like all bullies. On Cnn for the first time I saw the written news flashes over and over again, that some states are expecting civil unrest and are taking measures. Now I don’t think any gang member is watching CNN. I also saw in todays headlines (local) that the malls are getting fake 100 bills, made over from the 5. A new trend. I don’t like the way gangs are proliferating, but you had better have this on your radar if you live near these areas. They will wipe out stores first, they will burn them down. The national guard will be called in. People will die, not only from the flu but it will be like the Gangs of New York in the Civil War Period. Areas will be like that movie Sin City. I couldn’t watch it, even though I generally like Clive Owens as an actor. These things will happen, and I’ve seen it all before, only not as bad.
Cloud9, you sound like a man with some big city law enforcement experience under your belt.
Yes….and a common sense approach to “plan for the worst (as outlined by Cloud9)and hope for the best.” If governments do it, so should we.
Flourbug, My practical experience comes from reading thousands of Pre Sentence Investigations before I made parole recommendations. I worked for about ten years for the Florida Department of Corrections as a classification officer. Since then, I taught at the Sarasota Police Academy and was an adjunct for SFCC for a number of years. Now I teach history and street law to juniors and seniors at one of the local high schools. I have carried a gun, and I have hunted men. But, for the most part, I am an armchair policeman.
OK, so call me paranoid, but if roaming gangs are looking for stuff and they find your house full of provisions, heat, stove, etc. why would they leave? Early on in this discussion, someone said to make up a quarantine sign, but this might not be such a crazy idea. What about setting your sick room, but using it to store your preps until you need it as a sick room. If people come in and see the room and think they might get the bird flu by entering, they won’t take your preps. If you ever do need your sick room, then you can always make a secondary fake sick room to move all your preps to it. Only your family will no that the sick room is just a storage room.
In today’s world, all ‘large’ and most ‘midle-sized’ cities have gangs. Listening to the evening news will corroborate that on a nightly basis. As was pointed out, the closer the gang, the more concern. (Why I retired from L.A. and moved to southern Utah.) Most gangbangers are very territorial, from low income areas, and have never been more than 10 miles from home. Partly because they are paranoid of other gangs and driving through their areas could result in being shot at. These guys, and gals, are not brain surgeons and have this inability to stop flashing gang signs to every person they see, therefore letting others know they are not locals. But gangbangers also respect power, which is why attacks on the police are rare. Police can shoot back. Easier to go after someone who is thought of as cowed and defenseless than someone who will fight back.
In the event of any kind of prolonged emergency, gangs will stay in the ‘hood’ and utilize its provisions, including both public, such as stores, pawn shops, etc., and any supplies laid in by local residents. But, they will also be the ones who die first because of their habits. Only if the emergency extends past a month or more would those in the outlying, gang-free, areas start to see non-locals looting their areas, and by them most supplies willhave been consumed.
If you live in suburbia or a rural area, the first threat will be neighbors and those stranded in your area, who will be easier to dissuade from taking your supplies. Think of your neighbors and ask yourself, are they a threat? They have been made aware of the same information as you have, and if they chose not to prepare, you are not morally obligated to feed them. I am lucky, here in Utah most are LDS and many of them have a years supply of food already stored by religious edict, so I may be the one looking for food first.
If it gets to the organized ‘marauder’ stage, we will not have a country left. And if the USA is gone, every other country will also be nonexistant, so all bets are off.
Making a quarantine sign ‘might’ work, especially if you are wearing a shirt with blood stains on it and coughing. None of us know what will happen or when and what strategy will work or won’t. Which is what makes this thread intersting, and controversial.
Fighting gangs are made up of a psychopathic leader (out to make the world go fast) and a paranoid schophrenic who does the actual mayhem. The others are followers who will do what is necessary to maintain their gang status. In general, if you can Id the two engines of destruction and get rid of them the gang falls apart. Of course there are all sorts of variations on this basic organization but that is the usual structure that needs to be broken up.
Nealy all of the forgoing reinforces the notion that people will need to organize themselves into small communities for self preservtion and survival. These groups need to be composed of people with various skills that support the survival of the group.
I think that if you are serious about survival you will begin to form small groups. We listen to physicians and nurses for our health. There are others who need to be listened to for survival. Insure that such people are in your group.
Perhaps it is the National Guard in each state which needs to know what JoeW has written. At the mall last nite I saw a sign. N.J. National Guard, up to 20.000 bonus, Free College Education. I felt sorry for anyone who will fall for this bait. They will be the ones on line in this if it happens. There is always the strong leader, and the weedy followers . Get rid of him and his enforcers first.
I have for years required my college Criminology students to read “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote for insight into how gangs work. The interesting aspect of this work is that it shows a pure form gang structure with only two people. This is one way to learn how these groups operate - - complete with pathos.
Bump for Lily
Melanie doesn’t think gangs flu related, but, to those of you who might be affected do google them up. Just learning what to look at is good. Found out we have Crips, no Bloods, Ms-13. Right now not a big issue here, yet. Don’t need to discuss it, but every bit of awareness to safety is a good thing. My mailbox destroyed is a little thing. We generally have teenagers who are terminally bored whacking at them, or snow removal, or drunk drivers. So every few years I wearily trot down to the post office and have them hold my mail until I feel up to resurrecting the post and box. My neighbors are mostly sick of it, and now there are only two of us who keep the boxes on a traveled road. It would have had to be a local because a bridge down the road is out. Someone has a dent. Even our trees bear scars. that one is a deceased Senators wife scar, oh that one is a guy whose wife left him, and he….did he take it out on the tree??? Well you get the picture. Winding country roads.
My grandpa kept getting his mail box knocked down.(like 20 times) So he got a piece of railroad rail, not a tie, steel rail and sunk it 4 ft in concrete. Never had to put in another post.
and I think a group of thugs like ms-13 are something to worry about if flu hits. The police can’t stop them now.
I’m mulling over my mailbox. Sort of tired of replacing it.But don’t want to change my rural delivery for a post office box. Had a p.o. box for years, and its a pain, though chit chat at the post office is always fun. Just that the road is blocked at peak times. Sometimes I think I live in Mayberry, even though I never watched the show. But then I sort of carry my own Mayberry along every where I go. I think that is why I’m so sure my town will make it through. There are a lot of good people in my town, and in a lot of the U.S.A…..
I’m mulling over my mailbox. Sort of tired of replacing it.But don’t want to change my rural delivery for a post office box. Had a p.o. box for years, and its a pain, though chit chat at the post office is always fun. Just that the road is blocked at peak times. Sometimes I think I live in Mayberry, even though I never watched the show. But then I sort of carry my own Mayberry along every where I go. I think that is why I’m so sure my town will make it through. There are a lot of good people in my town, and in a lot of the U.S.A…..
I’m a newbie here and I would like to add a little about the MS-13 and our immigration issues. I live in Tempe Arizona and decided to research as much as I can about our southern neighbors because WTSHTF (!) I think that we will have a large problem with the disaffected and low income segments of our society looking for “fairness” from a government that does not have a good track record in that regard.
Our biggest problem with border security goes much deeper than our illegal immigrant issue; the most porous border is the Mexican/Guatemala border. This is where the most significant drug and human smuggling begins. The MS-13 gang plays a huge role in supporting the smuggling networks and they are greatly feared by the Mexican public and officials! Another ramification is that they are connected to a cult worship of “Santa Muerte” which translates to “Sacred Death”. This cult stems from the combination of traditional Catholic beliefs (i.e. Our Lady of Guadalupe)and ancient Mayan/Aztec native deities. Santa Muerte is supposed to be the patron saint of the criminal and down-trodden and performs small miracles daily according to her worshippers. I could go on forever about this cult, but my point here is that these gang members DO NOT FEAR DEATH. Rather, they are comfortable with death as a part of life and therefore live hard and fast. They pray to Santa Muerte for successful crimes without getting caught. I’m suggesting that an influx of immigrants over the past few years has brought in more believers in “Santa Muerte”, in fact there is one known shrine to her (female skeleton holding a scythe and globe of Earth) near a Texan border most often crossed by illegal’s. If you are interested in any of this, there is an excellent article written by Kevin Freese, Fort Leavenworth that covers all aspects.
In terms of neighborhood security, I’ve contacted a couple of my trusted neighbors and we’ve talked about what might happen if lawlessness occurred and have agreed to band together to defend our section of the street, if necessary. We also have discussed the possibilities of growing food, sharing resources and skills. I think that the people who survive this or any other civilization threat, cannot do it alone, but will need the support of friends and family.
Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”
Corrie
corrientempe- Thank you for the info. We in Flagstaff have seen a large increase in shootings that are gang related here. Welcome. Thanks again for posting
I’m so glad that FluWiki is here. I’m recovering from the “no body understands me” syndrome. I think my husband is finally a believer, but he can only take me in small doses if you know what I mean! Nice to know someone like-minded is as close as Flag too!
Thanks again.
Old thread - Closed to increase Forum speed.