Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label violence. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Pic Post
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Hybrid Threats and Modern Law Enforcement in the Border States
Hybrid Warfare is a strategy of warfare that blends some combination of conventional forces, unconventional/ guerrilla forces, terrorism and criminal elements as well as cyber and information warfare. Instead of dealing with one type of threat a force ends up dealing with multiple threats. Potentially these threats are working together though some (typically criminals) may just be doing bad stuff in the same time and space. Basically it's a big mess.
Of particular concern to the border states is the overlap between gangs and guerrilla/ terrorist (in this context I do not find that term productive as, excluding the most violent and pointless atrocities, it often boils down to a value judgement of a group so I use guerrilla instead) organizations. To some degree large gangs are guerrilla organizations and guerrilla organizations are criminal.
Mexican drug cartels cutting the heads off people and hanging them from bridges is certainly done to inspire fear which is by definition terrorism. On the other hand guerrilla groups inevitably resort to a variety of criminal acts for fund raising. Selling drugs to fund guerrilla actions is boringly cliche. The IRA was big on smuggling and various forms of fraud. All those Aryan groups in the 80's and early 90's were big on robbing banks. You get the point. What it boils down to for me is the primary purpose of the organization. Mexican drug cartels exist to make money by selling drugs. A bunch of folks robbing banks to fund the revolution are their guerrilla goals.
In any case I was involved in an interesting discussion that is worth talking about. Took me awhile to digest it so now we have story time with Ryan. Some thoughts in no particular order:
-The fusion between various federal agencies, state, county and local law enforcement is significant. Information sharing and intelligence gathering, training, a variety of joint operations and such. They are far more connected than in years back. This is necessary to deal with a variety of threats that do not neatly fit into jurisdictional boundaries. On the other side of the coin I can certainly see how this fusion could concern some folks. Regardless of your value judgement on the matter this is here to stay.
-As to our southern border. It is a good reminder that barriers only stop people if they are guarded. Barriers without dudes carrying rifles watching them only serve to slow movement.
-Cell phones. I'm going to spot you the credit to assume the normal everyday cell phone most people carry is not around if you are doing something it would be a problem if ANYBODY knows about. If you did not know that I would recommend educating yourself. We are talking about semi anonymous disposable pre paid cell phones. These phones are also known as dirt phones, drug phones and my personal favorite hoe phones. Even still this just doesn't work. I've been talking about it for years. Like I said a long time ago.
The theory is that if someone on one anonymous cell phone calls someone on another one it is totally discrete. Easy wireless secure communications for prices any insurgent can afford.
Here is reality. People are lazy and stupid and modern methods of tracking/ snooping on cell phones are very good. This is how laziness and modern snooping collide. Lets say a dozen insurgents all have anonymous pre paid cell phones. Someones gets lazy and uses theirs to call their Moms house or their buddy at the local Mosque to ask what time the potluck is. Being as the people who are looking for them have done a good job in targeting they were snooping on Momma and the Mosques phone lines. They electronically snoop on the pre paid cell phone now, really recording and searching for key words (bomb, Allah, US, soldier, rifle, Israel, whatever). Pretty darn quickly they realize this phone is of interest. Lazy Insurgent calls one of his co conspirators to talk about the big soccer game or planting some IED's. Now they got Co Conspirators number from Lazy Insurgent. Of course being smart they wait awhile and Co Conspirator calls a couple more Insurgent buddies and so does Lazy Insurgent. More likely than not the whole network gets taken down.
If I was doing something where shady where the only viable communications option was cell phones they would be collected then dumped regularly. Probably weekly on a normal basis then as needed before then after significant operations. Only 'work' calls (and maybe some completely random planned ones) would be made with a significant penalty for any inflactions.
- If you weren't tracking it UAV technology has came to all levels of law enforcement. Maybe they own them or maybe they borrow them, the significance is negligible really. What matters is you can assume pretty much all but the most podunk PD's have UAV's.
- Again as noted before too many vehicles or people is a tip off. If a typically 4 person residence or agricultural operation always has 20 folks hanging out it is an indicator that something else is going on.
- Also too expensive of vehicles is another indicator of something illicit. This makes sense though is not something one might consider. A little farm or ranch that MAYBE brings in 25k a year should not (unless obviously the owner has significant income from another legitimate source) have several fifty thousand dollar customized trucks or SUV's outside.
- Paper records are an interesting topic. They are hard to destroy, especially on short notice. Info on a micro SD card is a lot easier to destroy on short notice. Obviously one would want to use a dedicated laptop THAT NEVER GOES ONLINE for this. If you really want to go old school with ledgers and records some sort of a burn cabinet (a container that stores files with a method in place to immediately destroy them if need be) would be the order of the day.
- Being able to get your hands on a rotating supply of legitimately titled/ licensed vehicles is helpful if you wan to avoid prying eyes. A buddy with a used car lot would be a good friend to have.
- Compartmentalization. In terms of drug stuff (obviously the big border show) people who know how the drugs come in should not know where they go. Folks who know where the drugs are stored should not know where the cash is stored. None of those people should know where the drugs are delivered to. The same could be applied to a guerrilla force keeping direct action cells separated from support folks and everybody from each other on general principle.
- Information and intelligence gathering. Both sides run intel on each other. They study successes and failures to learn from them gathering as much info as possible along the way. The cartels know who the cops are and where they live. The cops know who the real players (south of the border) are and where they live. The cops cannot reach the bosses down in Mexico and the cartels largely do not bother (lethally) targeting cops. Cops are held at bay by moral constraints and the border. Cartels just don't bother to (as far as any legitimate systemic trends I have seen) target American cops. Some busts are just a cost of business and enough get through that it's not a huge deal anyway.
- Often guerrilla's have a criminal wing to support their operations. Sort of like we discussed earlier. As we have also mentioned drugs are a common financing source. Personally I find that rather distasteful. In places where the business is in growing/ refining or shipping drugs I can see it but in the US it's all use. At the end of the day, despite my legalize everything libertarian tendencies, drugs are a scourge to our communities that I would never be a part of. Smuggling is a good option especially in a restricted economically dysfunctional scenario. Decent cigarettes, booze, name brand candy, perfume, make- up and maybe guns/ ammo could bring a decent amount of cash in. Obviously for a G government money is free game, significant government supporters (media, key politicians, etc not some secretary) are also a fine option to either rob or extort.
- Border regions. This whole drug mess would not be what it is without a border that gives crooks a safe haven. Being able to have established logistics and homes in a secure place then operate, largely through illegal alien cut out's, over the border without significant risk of consequences is a large part of why cartels are successful, rich and powerful. Looking at history the same could be said of guerrilla organizations. Insurgencies that succeed without a border to rest and train behind are at best the exception to the rule.
Well that's about all I can think of on this topic. Hope it was interesting for somebody.
Of particular concern to the border states is the overlap between gangs and guerrilla/ terrorist (in this context I do not find that term productive as, excluding the most violent and pointless atrocities, it often boils down to a value judgement of a group so I use guerrilla instead) organizations. To some degree large gangs are guerrilla organizations and guerrilla organizations are criminal.
Mexican drug cartels cutting the heads off people and hanging them from bridges is certainly done to inspire fear which is by definition terrorism. On the other hand guerrilla groups inevitably resort to a variety of criminal acts for fund raising. Selling drugs to fund guerrilla actions is boringly cliche. The IRA was big on smuggling and various forms of fraud. All those Aryan groups in the 80's and early 90's were big on robbing banks. You get the point. What it boils down to for me is the primary purpose of the organization. Mexican drug cartels exist to make money by selling drugs. A bunch of folks robbing banks to fund the revolution are their guerrilla goals.
In any case I was involved in an interesting discussion that is worth talking about. Took me awhile to digest it so now we have story time with Ryan. Some thoughts in no particular order:
-The fusion between various federal agencies, state, county and local law enforcement is significant. Information sharing and intelligence gathering, training, a variety of joint operations and such. They are far more connected than in years back. This is necessary to deal with a variety of threats that do not neatly fit into jurisdictional boundaries. On the other side of the coin I can certainly see how this fusion could concern some folks. Regardless of your value judgement on the matter this is here to stay.
-As to our southern border. It is a good reminder that barriers only stop people if they are guarded. Barriers without dudes carrying rifles watching them only serve to slow movement.
-Cell phones. I'm going to spot you the credit to assume the normal everyday cell phone most people carry is not around if you are doing something it would be a problem if ANYBODY knows about. If you did not know that I would recommend educating yourself. We are talking about semi anonymous disposable pre paid cell phones. These phones are also known as dirt phones, drug phones and my personal favorite hoe phones. Even still this just doesn't work. I've been talking about it for years. Like I said a long time ago.
The theory is that if someone on one anonymous cell phone calls someone on another one it is totally discrete. Easy wireless secure communications for prices any insurgent can afford.
Here is reality. People are lazy and stupid and modern methods of tracking/ snooping on cell phones are very good. This is how laziness and modern snooping collide. Lets say a dozen insurgents all have anonymous pre paid cell phones. Someones gets lazy and uses theirs to call their Moms house or their buddy at the local Mosque to ask what time the potluck is. Being as the people who are looking for them have done a good job in targeting they were snooping on Momma and the Mosques phone lines. They electronically snoop on the pre paid cell phone now, really recording and searching for key words (bomb, Allah, US, soldier, rifle, Israel, whatever). Pretty darn quickly they realize this phone is of interest. Lazy Insurgent calls one of his co conspirators to talk about the big soccer game or planting some IED's. Now they got Co Conspirators number from Lazy Insurgent. Of course being smart they wait awhile and Co Conspirator calls a couple more Insurgent buddies and so does Lazy Insurgent. More likely than not the whole network gets taken down.
If I was doing something where shady where the only viable communications option was cell phones they would be collected then dumped regularly. Probably weekly on a normal basis then as needed before then after significant operations. Only 'work' calls (and maybe some completely random planned ones) would be made with a significant penalty for any inflactions.
- If you weren't tracking it UAV technology has came to all levels of law enforcement. Maybe they own them or maybe they borrow them, the significance is negligible really. What matters is you can assume pretty much all but the most podunk PD's have UAV's.
- Again as noted before too many vehicles or people is a tip off. If a typically 4 person residence or agricultural operation always has 20 folks hanging out it is an indicator that something else is going on.
- Also too expensive of vehicles is another indicator of something illicit. This makes sense though is not something one might consider. A little farm or ranch that MAYBE brings in 25k a year should not (unless obviously the owner has significant income from another legitimate source) have several fifty thousand dollar customized trucks or SUV's outside.
- Paper records are an interesting topic. They are hard to destroy, especially on short notice. Info on a micro SD card is a lot easier to destroy on short notice. Obviously one would want to use a dedicated laptop THAT NEVER GOES ONLINE for this. If you really want to go old school with ledgers and records some sort of a burn cabinet (a container that stores files with a method in place to immediately destroy them if need be) would be the order of the day.
- Being able to get your hands on a rotating supply of legitimately titled/ licensed vehicles is helpful if you wan to avoid prying eyes. A buddy with a used car lot would be a good friend to have.
- Compartmentalization. In terms of drug stuff (obviously the big border show) people who know how the drugs come in should not know where they go. Folks who know where the drugs are stored should not know where the cash is stored. None of those people should know where the drugs are delivered to. The same could be applied to a guerrilla force keeping direct action cells separated from support folks and everybody from each other on general principle.
- Information and intelligence gathering. Both sides run intel on each other. They study successes and failures to learn from them gathering as much info as possible along the way. The cartels know who the cops are and where they live. The cops know who the real players (south of the border) are and where they live. The cops cannot reach the bosses down in Mexico and the cartels largely do not bother (lethally) targeting cops. Cops are held at bay by moral constraints and the border. Cartels just don't bother to (as far as any legitimate systemic trends I have seen) target American cops. Some busts are just a cost of business and enough get through that it's not a huge deal anyway.
- Often guerrilla's have a criminal wing to support their operations. Sort of like we discussed earlier. As we have also mentioned drugs are a common financing source. Personally I find that rather distasteful. In places where the business is in growing/ refining or shipping drugs I can see it but in the US it's all use. At the end of the day, despite my legalize everything libertarian tendencies, drugs are a scourge to our communities that I would never be a part of. Smuggling is a good option especially in a restricted economically dysfunctional scenario. Decent cigarettes, booze, name brand candy, perfume, make- up and maybe guns/ ammo could bring a decent amount of cash in. Obviously for a G government money is free game, significant government supporters (media, key politicians, etc not some secretary) are also a fine option to either rob or extort.
- Border regions. This whole drug mess would not be what it is without a border that gives crooks a safe haven. Being able to have established logistics and homes in a secure place then operate, largely through illegal alien cut out's, over the border without significant risk of consequences is a large part of why cartels are successful, rich and powerful. Looking at history the same could be said of guerrilla organizations. Insurgencies that succeed without a border to rest and train behind are at best the exception to the rule.
Well that's about all I can think of on this topic. Hope it was interesting for somebody.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
From Around The Web
Commander Zero tells a personal story about firearm registration. We need to fight any form of national gun registration or attempts to limit private party firearm purchases as vigorously as possible. If your state sucks and requires firearms to be registered I recommend voting with your feet.
Rural Mexicans form local security groups to protect their families and towns. The police and military either can not or will not protect them so these folks are doing it themselves. Note that lawful gun ownership in Mexico is seriously restricted. That combined with the abject poverty most rural Mexicans live in explains the single shot shotguns and other antiquated and less than ideal weapons.
Rural Mexicans form local security groups to protect their families and towns. The police and military either can not or will not protect them so these folks are doing it themselves. Note that lawful gun ownership in Mexico is seriously restricted. That combined with the abject poverty most rural Mexicans live in explains the single shot shotguns and other antiquated and less than ideal weapons.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Quote of the Day
"Doug MacRay:
I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people."
"James Coughlin: ...Whose car are we gonna' take?"
-The Town
"James Coughlin: ...Whose car are we gonna' take?"
-The Town
Saturday, October 27, 2012
RE: Claire Wolfe's Preparedness Priorities 2
Claire Wolfe has continued her excellent Preparedness Priorities series.
In Part 3 Claire talks about how people need to prepare differently. To me this is pretty obvious but some folks miss it all the same. We could break these differences down into regional and personal. Regional differences are pretty obvious. Different areas have unique weather and disaster concerns. Folks who live in really cold places like Michigan need to worry a lot more about warm clothes and sleeping bags, etc than those in Arizona. Conversely people in Arizona should pay more attention to keeping plenty of water around and such. Preparing for a hurricane in Iowa or an ice storm in Florida would be foolish.
On the other hand personal factors vary well, person to person. Let's look at two potential examples, economic/ financial vulnerability and violent crime risk factors. We will meet Tim and Bob.
Tim is a hustler but not in the bad way. He has a pretty good full time job, always has a few side projects going and works with his Dad when the full time job is slow. Also his wife has a clerical job for the state. If Tim loses his full time job they would probably be down 40% income but he could make some of that up putting more effort into other areas. If Tim was seriously injured (he works with heavy machinery full time and does some logging so it could happen) they could eat and keep the lights on with his wife's income. The point is that their 3-4 income streams come from totally different places. It is very unlikely they would all fall apart at once.
Bob makes a very good living. He went to college and got a business degree and went to work in management at the local plant. His wife stays at home with the kids. If he loses favor at work or the plant closes or whatever they have absolutely no income. (I do not mean to say stay at home mom's are a bad thing. That is another discussion entirely.)
The point is that while Tim's income may vary a bit Bob is actually more vulnerable. If something happens they are hosed. Bob would have a heck of a time finding a similar job in the same area. They probably want more like a year worth of expenses put away because it will take awhile to figure things out. On the other hand Tim might be comfortable with 3-4 months to get them through winter until he is busy again.
Looking at violent crime risk factors for our two guys.
Tim does a lot of work for cash. He also pays helpers and subcontractors and suppliers in cash. He buys equipment with cash. Tim carrying around a couple thousand dollars in cash and having 10k at home is pretty common. More to the point due to all the people involved a pretty good amount of people know Tim deals in cash. In the nature of normal events and casual conversation lot's of folks know about this. Tim is often alone driving between job's or putting in bids or working in the middle of nowhere. Also let's be honest in and around his line of work there are some unsavory characters.
On the other hand Bob gets payed by direct deposit. He rarely makes large cash sales or purchases. They do not have any particularly unique or special valuables that would be easy to sell/ transfer. He keeps some cash at home and have some PM's but only Bob and his wife know about that stuff.
[Real world point. A buddy of mine had a SWAT team spend a week camped out in his living room once. There was a pretty nasty home invasion crew and intelligence said he was on their list. His work was very seasonal and a lot was in cash. In season he often had a lot of cash at home and the wrong people knew about it. Aside from random crackheads people usually get targeted because crooks know or think they know something particularly valuable is there.]
Tim has some risk factors. He would be prudent to do something to mitigate that risk.Maybe nothing will every come of them but then again it would only have to happen once. Bob on the other hand has considerably lower risk. Aside from general common sense stuff he probably doesn't need to go out of the way here.
The point I am getting at is that different people have different concerns based on their unique situation. Obviously there are a lot more variables like medical issues, family networks, etc.
Part IV has some really good points. Focusing on more likely scenarios (job loss, violent crime, inflation) over less likely (EMP, nuclear war, Zombies) ones just makes sense. Also when giving people advice I think it is important to tailor advice to their situation, finances and level of commitment. Giving unrealistic advice will leave them bummed if they want to do it but can't, turned off if they don't want to or dismissive of the whole thing. The right advice for a family with a modest income and a lot of kids is different than for a working couple who make a lot of money.
I was talking about this with Wifey today. Often I find myself in the position of recommending things that I do not actually recommend if that makes any sense. The reason I do this is because it fit's their situation and makes them more prepared than they previously were. A few boxes of shells for the old .38 special and 12 gauge or a spam can for the Mosin Nagant you swapped for a case of beer, some batteries, a few gallons of water and some food in the pantry is a heck of a lot better than nothing.
Claire continues the series touching on risk assessments and water storage neither of which I feel like talking about. Anyway those are my thoughts on that.
In Part 3 Claire talks about how people need to prepare differently. To me this is pretty obvious but some folks miss it all the same. We could break these differences down into regional and personal. Regional differences are pretty obvious. Different areas have unique weather and disaster concerns. Folks who live in really cold places like Michigan need to worry a lot more about warm clothes and sleeping bags, etc than those in Arizona. Conversely people in Arizona should pay more attention to keeping plenty of water around and such. Preparing for a hurricane in Iowa or an ice storm in Florida would be foolish.
On the other hand personal factors vary well, person to person. Let's look at two potential examples, economic/ financial vulnerability and violent crime risk factors. We will meet Tim and Bob.
Tim is a hustler but not in the bad way. He has a pretty good full time job, always has a few side projects going and works with his Dad when the full time job is slow. Also his wife has a clerical job for the state. If Tim loses his full time job they would probably be down 40% income but he could make some of that up putting more effort into other areas. If Tim was seriously injured (he works with heavy machinery full time and does some logging so it could happen) they could eat and keep the lights on with his wife's income. The point is that their 3-4 income streams come from totally different places. It is very unlikely they would all fall apart at once.
Bob makes a very good living. He went to college and got a business degree and went to work in management at the local plant. His wife stays at home with the kids. If he loses favor at work or the plant closes or whatever they have absolutely no income. (I do not mean to say stay at home mom's are a bad thing. That is another discussion entirely.)
The point is that while Tim's income may vary a bit Bob is actually more vulnerable. If something happens they are hosed. Bob would have a heck of a time finding a similar job in the same area. They probably want more like a year worth of expenses put away because it will take awhile to figure things out. On the other hand Tim might be comfortable with 3-4 months to get them through winter until he is busy again.
Looking at violent crime risk factors for our two guys.
Tim does a lot of work for cash. He also pays helpers and subcontractors and suppliers in cash. He buys equipment with cash. Tim carrying around a couple thousand dollars in cash and having 10k at home is pretty common. More to the point due to all the people involved a pretty good amount of people know Tim deals in cash. In the nature of normal events and casual conversation lot's of folks know about this. Tim is often alone driving between job's or putting in bids or working in the middle of nowhere. Also let's be honest in and around his line of work there are some unsavory characters.
On the other hand Bob gets payed by direct deposit. He rarely makes large cash sales or purchases. They do not have any particularly unique or special valuables that would be easy to sell/ transfer. He keeps some cash at home and have some PM's but only Bob and his wife know about that stuff.
[Real world point. A buddy of mine had a SWAT team spend a week camped out in his living room once. There was a pretty nasty home invasion crew and intelligence said he was on their list. His work was very seasonal and a lot was in cash. In season he often had a lot of cash at home and the wrong people knew about it. Aside from random crackheads people usually get targeted because crooks know or think they know something particularly valuable is there.]
Tim has some risk factors. He would be prudent to do something to mitigate that risk.Maybe nothing will every come of them but then again it would only have to happen once. Bob on the other hand has considerably lower risk. Aside from general common sense stuff he probably doesn't need to go out of the way here.
The point I am getting at is that different people have different concerns based on their unique situation. Obviously there are a lot more variables like medical issues, family networks, etc.
Part IV has some really good points. Focusing on more likely scenarios (job loss, violent crime, inflation) over less likely (EMP, nuclear war, Zombies) ones just makes sense. Also when giving people advice I think it is important to tailor advice to their situation, finances and level of commitment. Giving unrealistic advice will leave them bummed if they want to do it but can't, turned off if they don't want to or dismissive of the whole thing. The right advice for a family with a modest income and a lot of kids is different than for a working couple who make a lot of money.
I was talking about this with Wifey today. Often I find myself in the position of recommending things that I do not actually recommend if that makes any sense. The reason I do this is because it fit's their situation and makes them more prepared than they previously were. A few boxes of shells for the old .38 special and 12 gauge or a spam can for the Mosin Nagant you swapped for a case of beer, some batteries, a few gallons of water and some food in the pantry is a heck of a lot better than nothing.
Claire continues the series touching on risk assessments and water storage neither of which I feel like talking about. Anyway those are my thoughts on that.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Ethics in Everything and Target Selection in Fighting and War
This one has been brewing in my head for awhile ever since Mountain Guerrilla and then American Mercenary wrote about the topic. (Since they wrote so long ago I couldn't find their specific posts within the amount of time I was willing to put into the matter.) In any case the topic has sat sufficiently and either turned into fine wine or some rotten cabbage dish. Anyway here we go.
A few overarching principles:
1) We have free choice.
2) Actions have consequences.
As Kurt Sutter (the guy behind Sons of Anarchy) said about killing off Opie "Bad thing's don't happen in a vacuum." Sooner or later somehow bad things usually happen to people who do bad things. Maybe it is about life choices or personality sets or social circles, call it what you want. It isn't always 1 to 1 or right away but things have a way of coming around.
3) As momma said other peoples bad behavior does not excuse ours.
4) There are clear lines of right and wrong. Between the clear lines of right and wrong are varying degrees of both.
5) While it is not a get out of everything worthy excuse the circumstances surrounding an event matter.
6) If in doubt, do onto others as you would want them to do to you.
So here we go. I am responsible for myself and the minor children in my care. I cannot control if Bank of Americaand the global banking oligarchy are destroying our economy or whatever. I have read about folks who think that B of A and the global banking oligarchy destroying our economy justify all manner of financial shenanigans on their part. I personally do not feel this way. If I swipe my credit card for a tank of gas or to buy some cool kit online I am promising to pay them back within the 42 page customer agreement I didn't read. If in a year or two I buy some land or a home I am promising to pay them back.
Things happen in life that can affect our finances. If people have a life changing event like being seriously injured or disabled or a sudden unplanned job change and a hard time replacing the income they can fail on some things. This is sad but happens in life. Bankruptcy exists for a reason. That being said I have a hard time with people borrowing money they know they will not be able to pay back or 'strategic defaults'.
This does bring us back to point 5. Jingle mailing B of A when you can afford the payment is a bit different than getting owner financing from a neighbor, ceasing payment and making them go through a ton of effort to get you out. Sort of like stealing from Mom and Pop's corner store is a bit different than Walmart. It doesn't make these actions right, just that I can see how someone could feel a bit less bad about them.
Fundamentally lethal force should be used judiciously in defense of life, limb, eyesight and essential property. The words most commonly used in legal circles are ability, opportunity and jeopardy. Ability is about a weapon or disparity of size that means they have the ability to harm me. Opportunity is about proximity; a guy with a knife can't stab me from 50 yards away but somebody with a gun could shoot me. Jeopardy is that you reasonably believe to be in danger. Randy Coulture or Bass Rutten (both famous professional fighters and all around scary guys) would have a hard time justifying shooting an narmed 200 pound man while 5 ft 100 pound Sally could justify shooting that same 200 pound man.
Property is an interesting sticking point. I won't shoot somebody if they try to steal my TV (but will shoot someone trying to take food that will feed Wifey and Walker during an emergency). That is what insurance is for and to be honest popping off meth heads for stealing my TV just isn't worth the hassle.
In some states people have the legal right to use lethal force in defense of property. Even setting aside ethical considerations it probably just isn't worth the hassle of shooting a meth head trying to steal your TV. If you fix the window and get a TV things can be back to normal in a couple days while shooting Meth Head Bob could very well ruin your life.
Anyway that sums up my opinion on that. Onto the crazy Mad Max, Red Dawn times.
The idea of using lethal force a bit freely is a common theme in survivalist circles. A lot of this blustering is just BS, sometimes 6 pack deep BS. However even factoring that in some seriously warped beliefs still exist.
To paraphrase AM "the concept of ethically justifying the profession of arms (or killing outside of the most narrow defensive scenario) is dubious at best."
There is how the world should be and how it actually is. People shouldn't fight and counties shouldn't have wars. Also people should date based on personalities and character not shallower things like boobs, butts, biceps and bank accounts. When they disagree adults fight and when countries (or tribes) disagree they go to war. Sometimes they do it for good reasons and other times for bad reasons but most of the time they are in between. If you want a job that is easy to always feel good about become a doctor and volunteer free medical services to disadvantaged children.
There is a definite need to respond with some proportion to events. Shooting or choke slamming a hungry 10 year old kid who is trying to steal from your garden doesn't make sense. Having a variety of options like basic hand to hand skills, mace, tasers, rubber bullets, etc helps here.
I do not believe that you must wait for somebody to attack you to respond. If you know a fight is coming better to be attacking their camp at 3am than them doing the same to you. That being said this is a hard one to balance. Folks would have to be pretty bad (like the classic roving robbing raping gang) or I would have to be pretty darn confident they were going to hurt me or mine to go this way.
Outside of a direct self defense situation such as in a civil war or guerilla situation things get even more complicated. Somebody can be an active participant in a conflict without pulling triggers. Hitler didn't (to the best of my knowledge) personally kill anybody but he was obviously a participant. In my opinion active participants, leaders and such are fair targets.
Everyone who disagrees with your agenda is not a legitimate target. Also the friends and family of legitimate targets are not automatically legitimate targets. Just because someone else can justify burning down houses with women and children inside doesn't mean that I will stoop to the same levels.
It is worth noting that low level folks who work in support of an organization may not actually believe in it or even in some cases be working voluntarily. A secretary who worked for the county might just be trying to feed her kids or not have a choice of staying on when the Chinese invade. A guy who runs a coffee shop can't very effectively turn away a bunch of young guys with guns. Especially those who are able to trash the shop and hurt his family without reprisals if they want. The question of whether you can justify ethically kill someone is different from whether you should.
I don't want to get into target selection too deeply because that is a different post that has been written by other people. Simply put you figure out the goal and the effect which you believe will lead to said goal and then look to achieve it by selecting appropriate targets. I would argue that low level support type employees of the regime who are not actively of your same broad regional/ cultural group are better targeted by recruiting, co opting, bribing or coercion than violence.
Example: Jill is a normal 40ish lady in one of those executive assistant/ admin type jobs. She is a key person in a fairly important office at the district/ county level of the regime. You could easily kill Jill or grab her for a quick interrogation then kill her. You would learn some of what she remembers off the top of her head and disrupt internal processes there for a week or so.
On the other hand if you do some analysis on Jill other opportunities may exist. It may be possible to have somebody (a recruiter or their cut out) approach her at the right place and time. If she is leaning toward the regime or apolitical (Despite what politically active and strong feeling people think a lot of folks don't really care and just want to live their lives.) there may be an easy button to push or threaten to push. Selecting, recruiting and running sources is like target selection a whole other topic and one I am not all that well qualified to write on. My point is that Jill might develop into (willingly or less so) a very valuable source. She could help you fill in who they players are, tell you what is coming down the pipe, push through or falsify paperwork that is convenient for you and lose or misfile stuff that would hurt you.
In fact if the best guerrilla campaign you can come up with is to kill the regime's low level soldiers and support folks it is advisable to do some self education and research instead of acting. It is not that they aren't valid targets just that it isn't a winning plan.
Let's touch on that low level soldier for a second to try and explain the difference between killing some poor bastard and killing that poor bastard for a purpose. Finding a nice place to waiting for the random PLA soldier to walk by and busting a cap in his dome is fine I guess. On the other hand if you were to kill that same PLA soldier today then a couple guys in the market tomorrow and kidnap another off chasing some skirt in a week you might well force the local PLA leadership to restrict movement to larger groups. This will restrict their movement because folks can't go out in onesies and twosies to do whatever. Also it will hurt their morale and force their presence to be more aggressive.
To put it another way let's say Billy Bob and his cousins happen to stop and blow up the ambiguous lone water truck. It is just the first enemy thing that came by. On the other hand Tom's group, in conjunction with other groups also decides to start blowing up (or whatever) water trucks. Their goal is first to hurt the morale of the PLA by killing their showers and forcing them to eat field rations instead of real food. The long game and primary purpose is to make them start guarding the water trucks. This will tie up resources that could be used for active combat and will generally stretch their already thin resources even further.
Make sense?
Precision in lethal targeting is desirable. Obviously you want to kill the folks you mean to kill, not the school bus full of kids in front of them. This runs all the way from training to actually hit what you aim at to choosing when, where and how to engage targets.
There is a trade off between collateral damage and payoff. Collateral damage alienates people from your cause, gives the enemy PR opportunities and generally complicates your life. The amount of collateral damage that is acceptable for an operation varies based on the payoff. This is really complicated and I don't think there are easy answers. If the equivalent of Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Stalin and Kim Jong Ill are all in the same place at the same time you hit it and use resources and energy to mitigate the collateral damage. On the other hand killing a soldier or minor figure but killing 6 random civilians and injuring 30 with a bomb is a bad trade. While I wouldn't target them specifically if a low level regime employee could get caught in something it wouldn't bother me too much.
The topic of collateral damage in the context of urban operations, people in houses and such is complicated. Proportion is important here as is the tactical urgency of the situation. Leveling an apartment building because somebody took a pop shot from a window is not smart. On the other hand of you are being effectively engaged or taking casualties do what you must. If somebody is stupid enough to shoot at some folks walking by from their house they should expect hate to be brought down on them. Shooting an RPG at a room that has a machine gun which is effectively engaging your element is probably a decent choice. If that RPG collapses the whole place and kills some innocent folks I'm sorry but those are the breaks.
Prudent target selection is very important. Aside from worries about collateral damage we have to consider that resources including time, money and ammunition are finite. This is especially important because Guerrillas are historically vastly out numbered and fairly poorly supplied/ resourced. A guerrilla group cannot trade a dead soldier and a case of rifle ammunition for the same regime blood and ammo. They will run out of men and weapons first which means they will lose, period.
We have to look at payoff. Guerrillas need to find times when they can shoot 200 bullets, kill 2 or 3 PLA soldiers and get away clean with them shooting lots of ammo and dropping a bunch of bombs onto an empty wood line. Also coming back to our previous point (if this is that organized) this needs to be in support of a desired effect.
While it is true that killing every PLA soldier would result in winning that isn't plausible and doesn't pass the historic reality check. Remember, if your group was capable of meeting the enemy openly in large scale combat this would be a conventional war, not a guerrilla war. A more plausible goal is to make the cost in terms of money and blood of pacifying/ holding the area more than the regime is willing to pay and wait until they give up. Or maybe conducting enough violence via attainable goals like wiping out a small outpost to make PR points until you are able to gain enough political backing to win that way or put together an army able to fight openly. All 3 of these options (fight till they leave, win via politics or win via open conflict) have historical presidencies though there is some muddling between the first two.
So in conclusion. I think it is ethical to kill people who are trying to kill you or directly and tangibly supporting them. However unless they are trying to kill you it is prudent to target specific groups in pursuit of your overall objectives. Don't do something just to do it, do it to achieve an effect.
Anyway this post got really long and rambling. Hopefully it makes you think about some things. Input is welcome.
A few overarching principles:
1) We have free choice.
2) Actions have consequences.
As Kurt Sutter (the guy behind Sons of Anarchy) said about killing off Opie "Bad thing's don't happen in a vacuum." Sooner or later somehow bad things usually happen to people who do bad things. Maybe it is about life choices or personality sets or social circles, call it what you want. It isn't always 1 to 1 or right away but things have a way of coming around.
3) As momma said other peoples bad behavior does not excuse ours.
4) There are clear lines of right and wrong. Between the clear lines of right and wrong are varying degrees of both.
5) While it is not a get out of everything worthy excuse the circumstances surrounding an event matter.
6) If in doubt, do onto others as you would want them to do to you.
So here we go. I am responsible for myself and the minor children in my care. I cannot control if Bank of America
Things happen in life that can affect our finances. If people have a life changing event like being seriously injured or disabled or a sudden unplanned job change and a hard time replacing the income they can fail on some things. This is sad but happens in life. Bankruptcy exists for a reason. That being said I have a hard time with people borrowing money they know they will not be able to pay back or 'strategic defaults'.
This does bring us back to point 5. Jingle mailing B of A when you can afford the payment is a bit different than getting owner financing from a neighbor, ceasing payment and making them go through a ton of effort to get you out. Sort of like stealing from Mom and Pop's corner store is a bit different than Walmart. It doesn't make these actions right, just that I can see how someone could feel a bit less bad about them.
Fundamentally lethal force should be used judiciously in defense of life, limb, eyesight and essential property. The words most commonly used in legal circles are ability, opportunity and jeopardy. Ability is about a weapon or disparity of size that means they have the ability to harm me. Opportunity is about proximity; a guy with a knife can't stab me from 50 yards away but somebody with a gun could shoot me. Jeopardy is that you reasonably believe to be in danger. Randy Coulture or Bass Rutten (both famous professional fighters and all around scary guys) would have a hard time justifying shooting an narmed 200 pound man while 5 ft 100 pound Sally could justify shooting that same 200 pound man.
Property is an interesting sticking point. I won't shoot somebody if they try to steal my TV (but will shoot someone trying to take food that will feed Wifey and Walker during an emergency). That is what insurance is for and to be honest popping off meth heads for stealing my TV just isn't worth the hassle.
In some states people have the legal right to use lethal force in defense of property. Even setting aside ethical considerations it probably just isn't worth the hassle of shooting a meth head trying to steal your TV. If you fix the window and get a TV things can be back to normal in a couple days while shooting Meth Head Bob could very well ruin your life.
Anyway that sums up my opinion on that. Onto the crazy Mad Max, Red Dawn times.
The idea of using lethal force a bit freely is a common theme in survivalist circles. A lot of this blustering is just BS, sometimes 6 pack deep BS. However even factoring that in some seriously warped beliefs still exist.
To paraphrase AM "the concept of ethically justifying the profession of arms (or killing outside of the most narrow defensive scenario) is dubious at best."
There is how the world should be and how it actually is. People shouldn't fight and counties shouldn't have wars. Also people should date based on personalities and character not shallower things like boobs, butts, biceps and bank accounts. When they disagree adults fight and when countries (or tribes) disagree they go to war. Sometimes they do it for good reasons and other times for bad reasons but most of the time they are in between. If you want a job that is easy to always feel good about become a doctor and volunteer free medical services to disadvantaged children.
There is a definite need to respond with some proportion to events. Shooting or choke slamming a hungry 10 year old kid who is trying to steal from your garden doesn't make sense. Having a variety of options like basic hand to hand skills, mace, tasers, rubber bullets, etc helps here.
I do not believe that you must wait for somebody to attack you to respond. If you know a fight is coming better to be attacking their camp at 3am than them doing the same to you. That being said this is a hard one to balance. Folks would have to be pretty bad (like the classic roving robbing raping gang) or I would have to be pretty darn confident they were going to hurt me or mine to go this way.
Outside of a direct self defense situation such as in a civil war or guerilla situation things get even more complicated. Somebody can be an active participant in a conflict without pulling triggers. Hitler didn't (to the best of my knowledge) personally kill anybody but he was obviously a participant. In my opinion active participants, leaders and such are fair targets.
Everyone who disagrees with your agenda is not a legitimate target. Also the friends and family of legitimate targets are not automatically legitimate targets. Just because someone else can justify burning down houses with women and children inside doesn't mean that I will stoop to the same levels.
It is worth noting that low level folks who work in support of an organization may not actually believe in it or even in some cases be working voluntarily. A secretary who worked for the county might just be trying to feed her kids or not have a choice of staying on when the Chinese invade. A guy who runs a coffee shop can't very effectively turn away a bunch of young guys with guns. Especially those who are able to trash the shop and hurt his family without reprisals if they want. The question of whether you can justify ethically kill someone is different from whether you should.
I don't want to get into target selection too deeply because that is a different post that has been written by other people. Simply put you figure out the goal and the effect which you believe will lead to said goal and then look to achieve it by selecting appropriate targets. I would argue that low level support type employees of the regime who are not actively of your same broad regional/ cultural group are better targeted by recruiting, co opting, bribing or coercion than violence.
Example: Jill is a normal 40ish lady in one of those executive assistant/ admin type jobs. She is a key person in a fairly important office at the district/ county level of the regime. You could easily kill Jill or grab her for a quick interrogation then kill her. You would learn some of what she remembers off the top of her head and disrupt internal processes there for a week or so.
On the other hand if you do some analysis on Jill other opportunities may exist. It may be possible to have somebody (a recruiter or their cut out) approach her at the right place and time. If she is leaning toward the regime or apolitical (Despite what politically active and strong feeling people think a lot of folks don't really care and just want to live their lives.) there may be an easy button to push or threaten to push. Selecting, recruiting and running sources is like target selection a whole other topic and one I am not all that well qualified to write on. My point is that Jill might develop into (willingly or less so) a very valuable source. She could help you fill in who they players are, tell you what is coming down the pipe, push through or falsify paperwork that is convenient for you and lose or misfile stuff that would hurt you.
In fact if the best guerrilla campaign you can come up with is to kill the regime's low level soldiers and support folks it is advisable to do some self education and research instead of acting. It is not that they aren't valid targets just that it isn't a winning plan.
Let's touch on that low level soldier for a second to try and explain the difference between killing some poor bastard and killing that poor bastard for a purpose. Finding a nice place to waiting for the random PLA soldier to walk by and busting a cap in his dome is fine I guess. On the other hand if you were to kill that same PLA soldier today then a couple guys in the market tomorrow and kidnap another off chasing some skirt in a week you might well force the local PLA leadership to restrict movement to larger groups. This will restrict their movement because folks can't go out in onesies and twosies to do whatever. Also it will hurt their morale and force their presence to be more aggressive.
To put it another way let's say Billy Bob and his cousins happen to stop and blow up the ambiguous lone water truck. It is just the first enemy thing that came by. On the other hand Tom's group, in conjunction with other groups also decides to start blowing up (or whatever) water trucks. Their goal is first to hurt the morale of the PLA by killing their showers and forcing them to eat field rations instead of real food. The long game and primary purpose is to make them start guarding the water trucks. This will tie up resources that could be used for active combat and will generally stretch their already thin resources even further.
Make sense?
Precision in lethal targeting is desirable. Obviously you want to kill the folks you mean to kill, not the school bus full of kids in front of them. This runs all the way from training to actually hit what you aim at to choosing when, where and how to engage targets.
There is a trade off between collateral damage and payoff. Collateral damage alienates people from your cause, gives the enemy PR opportunities and generally complicates your life. The amount of collateral damage that is acceptable for an operation varies based on the payoff. This is really complicated and I don't think there are easy answers. If the equivalent of Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Stalin and Kim Jong Ill are all in the same place at the same time you hit it and use resources and energy to mitigate the collateral damage. On the other hand killing a soldier or minor figure but killing 6 random civilians and injuring 30 with a bomb is a bad trade. While I wouldn't target them specifically if a low level regime employee could get caught in something it wouldn't bother me too much.
The topic of collateral damage in the context of urban operations, people in houses and such is complicated. Proportion is important here as is the tactical urgency of the situation. Leveling an apartment building because somebody took a pop shot from a window is not smart. On the other hand of you are being effectively engaged or taking casualties do what you must. If somebody is stupid enough to shoot at some folks walking by from their house they should expect hate to be brought down on them. Shooting an RPG at a room that has a machine gun which is effectively engaging your element is probably a decent choice. If that RPG collapses the whole place and kills some innocent folks I'm sorry but those are the breaks.
Prudent target selection is very important. Aside from worries about collateral damage we have to consider that resources including time, money and ammunition are finite. This is especially important because Guerrillas are historically vastly out numbered and fairly poorly supplied/ resourced. A guerrilla group cannot trade a dead soldier and a case of rifle ammunition for the same regime blood and ammo. They will run out of men and weapons first which means they will lose, period.
We have to look at payoff. Guerrillas need to find times when they can shoot 200 bullets, kill 2 or 3 PLA soldiers and get away clean with them shooting lots of ammo and dropping a bunch of bombs onto an empty wood line. Also coming back to our previous point (if this is that organized) this needs to be in support of a desired effect.
While it is true that killing every PLA soldier would result in winning that isn't plausible and doesn't pass the historic reality check. Remember, if your group was capable of meeting the enemy openly in large scale combat this would be a conventional war, not a guerrilla war. A more plausible goal is to make the cost in terms of money and blood of pacifying/ holding the area more than the regime is willing to pay and wait until they give up. Or maybe conducting enough violence via attainable goals like wiping out a small outpost to make PR points until you are able to gain enough political backing to win that way or put together an army able to fight openly. All 3 of these options (fight till they leave, win via politics or win via open conflict) have historical presidencies though there is some muddling between the first two.
So in conclusion. I think it is ethical to kill people who are trying to kill you or directly and tangibly supporting them. However unless they are trying to kill you it is prudent to target specific groups in pursuit of your overall objectives. Don't do something just to do it, do it to achieve an effect.
Anyway this post got really long and rambling. Hopefully it makes you think about some things. Input is welcome.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Read and Think
TEOTWAWKI Blog did a good post on 5 Tips for Avoiding Violence. My thoughts on it are as follows:
#1 Nothing good happens after 11 o'clock. We could debate exact times but the principle is sound.
#2 It is about choices. You can choose to pay a bit more in rent or have a slightly more modest place to live in a safer area. Maybe you can drive a bit further or in an extreme case choose to relocate to another city or region.
#5 In some situations harsh commands will let you separate a odd guy or somebody with mental problems/ whatever from a more probably threat. If you tell somebody to "Get the F back" and they keep coming, well at least you know there is a problem.
My bonus #6 would be to not be under heavy influence of drugs/ alcohol in public. I am not talking about a couple beers with dinner or a few drinks over the course of an evening. Being under heavy influence of anything makes you far more likely to miss the signs that a problem is coming or let yourself get into stupid situations. I am not judging as I enjoy some drinks myself. The point is that if you are going to tilt the bottle a little harder than usual keep it at home, or a buddy's place or whatever.
Anyway those are my thoughts on a great post.
#1 Nothing good happens after 11 o'clock. We could debate exact times but the principle is sound.
#2 It is about choices. You can choose to pay a bit more in rent or have a slightly more modest place to live in a safer area. Maybe you can drive a bit further or in an extreme case choose to relocate to another city or region.
#5 In some situations harsh commands will let you separate a odd guy or somebody with mental problems/ whatever from a more probably threat. If you tell somebody to "Get the F back" and they keep coming, well at least you know there is a problem.
My bonus #6 would be to not be under heavy influence of drugs/ alcohol in public. I am not talking about a couple beers with dinner or a few drinks over the course of an evening. Being under heavy influence of anything makes you far more likely to miss the signs that a problem is coming or let yourself get into stupid situations. I am not judging as I enjoy some drinks myself. The point is that if you are going to tilt the bottle a little harder than usual keep it at home, or a buddy's place or whatever.
Anyway those are my thoughts on a great post.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
Quote of the Day and Discussion
"A gun you can’t reach in an emergency is useless. When I read that book (Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, TOR) as a high school kid, it struck me that since I had long possessed guns in my bedroom including a loaded Colt .45 automatic, I would have had a lot more options than Clutter’s son did when the homicidal intruders entered his bedroom…and, knowing my dad, in Herb Clutter’s situation my old man’s regularly-carried Colt Cobra .38 revolver would have probably gone into action long before things got even that far.
In a lifetime among cops since, I’ve noted that investigators who piece together the aftermaths of home invasion murders tend to keep their guns on all the time after that, even when off duty in their own house, and keep them by the bed when they go to sleep.
They have learned from the helplessly-murdered dead"
-Massad Ayoob
Discussion
I don't really have anything to say about the quote. It pretty much stands for itself. The more worthwhile discussion is to the larger issue of deployment of defensive weapons at home.
If you think getting to the bedroom/ basement, turning the combo on the big ole gun safe left to 12 right to 6 and left again to 3, pulling out and loading a gun is going to work you are kidding yourself. For defensive purposes you might as well not own guns if you can't get to one very quickly. If somebody boots the door you need a gun right now, like almost immediately.
There are two basic options here. Carry a piece or have a bunch of them all over the place. There are some considerations which may affect your choice. The biggest consideration without a doubt is the occupants and regular visitors to your home. I won't tell you how to live your life. However if there are residents like young children (the age could be debated, some folks think a 4 year old having access to a gun is safe and others think it is closer to 25) or adults without the mental capacity to be responsible with firearms then having them lying around all over the place is stupid. Note that I didn't say everybody who is in your home needs to be an expert with guns or even know how to use them. Just that they have the mental capacity to be safe around them. Example, My 28 year old defacto sister in law hates guns and to the best of my knowledge has never touched one. She comes to visit. Her default reaction would be to leave a gun alone if she found it. She would either reach past it to grab something from the cabinet or whatever or ask one of us "could you grab the X from the cabinet with the handgun in it?" Even without the head knowledge she has the adult decision making to leave guns alone.
We could debate putting a gun outside of the physical reach of a kid, like on a high shelf or something. I know folks who have done it without incident. My buddy found out there was a 1911 in the cabinet above the kitchen stove when he was 13, it had been there his whole life. YMMV but personally I do not feel at all comfortable with this plan. Kids get into all sorts of stuff and tend to do it when they are in the dangerously curious accidentally shoot somebody age range.
Anyway to me when it comes to residents or very frequent visitors this is a GO/NO GO thing. Moving a few things around when your sister who has a pair of toddlers comes over for Christmas is easy but if there are regularly little kids or adults with diminished capacity due to mental health issues or drug use having unsecured guns all over the place is a NO GO.
If there are only adults in the home having guns all over the place is an option. Obviously this will only work if you have multiple viable guns to place around your residence. If you have just one gun it would end up in a nightstand all the way in the bedroom which is a bad option. In Alabama I had a pistol and a shotgun by my seat in the living room, a pistol and a shotgun by the bed, and a handgun in the other rooms. At the furthest point I might have been 4 paces from a loaded gun and that was from an awkward point in the hallway. This plan was sufficient to me and looking back I can't find fault in it. They were not locked up (which could be debated) but were concealed. With the exception of the steriotypical bedside none of them were in places you would look for a gun. As an option you could get a few of those convenient little quick opening hide a piece type safe's. Put one in the bedroom, one in the living room, etc. Slightly slower but it would be secure.
The other option is to just carry a handgun with you, physically attached to your person until you go to sleep at night. This is really probably the best option as a lethal option is on your person at all times. It covers everything. Working out in the garage, fiddling around on the deck or in the yard, etc. Just continuing to wear whatever setup you use out of the house is a very valid option if you will actually do it.
Regardless of your choice to carry or stash guns having a long gun quickly accessible is a good idea also. You probably won't carry one around the house all the time so it would need to be stashed, maybe in some sort of quick to open safe. Maybe something like this. Long guns are far more lethal than pistols. If memory serves me correctly the boring old 30-30 crushes the venerable .44 mag in terms of energy. Also probably more importantly most people shoot them a lot better. Folks shoot at each other at CQB ranges with pistols and miss all the time. The longer sight radius and multiple points of contact of a long gun make them much easier to shoot well.
Personally I will not do that, it is a fine idea but not something I will actually do. After getting off work and changing out of my stupid greyish monkey suit and boots I almost immediately change into comfortable clothes that are not carry friendly. Some sort of alternate carry method like a shoulder holster or one of the belt and pouch type holsters like the smart carry or the belly band would be options worth looking at. When we get back to the states my plan is a loose combination of both. Having weapons readily accessible but secured in a couple key places and one on me. Maybe it is a little belt and suspenders but nothing succeeds quite like excess.
In a lifetime among cops since, I’ve noted that investigators who piece together the aftermaths of home invasion murders tend to keep their guns on all the time after that, even when off duty in their own house, and keep them by the bed when they go to sleep.
They have learned from the helplessly-murdered dead"
-Massad Ayoob
Discussion
I don't really have anything to say about the quote. It pretty much stands for itself. The more worthwhile discussion is to the larger issue of deployment of defensive weapons at home.
If you think getting to the bedroom/ basement, turning the combo on the big ole gun safe left to 12 right to 6 and left again to 3, pulling out and loading a gun is going to work you are kidding yourself. For defensive purposes you might as well not own guns if you can't get to one very quickly. If somebody boots the door you need a gun right now, like almost immediately.
There are two basic options here. Carry a piece or have a bunch of them all over the place. There are some considerations which may affect your choice. The biggest consideration without a doubt is the occupants and regular visitors to your home. I won't tell you how to live your life. However if there are residents like young children (the age could be debated, some folks think a 4 year old having access to a gun is safe and others think it is closer to 25) or adults without the mental capacity to be responsible with firearms then having them lying around all over the place is stupid. Note that I didn't say everybody who is in your home needs to be an expert with guns or even know how to use them. Just that they have the mental capacity to be safe around them. Example, My 28 year old defacto sister in law hates guns and to the best of my knowledge has never touched one. She comes to visit. Her default reaction would be to leave a gun alone if she found it. She would either reach past it to grab something from the cabinet or whatever or ask one of us "could you grab the X from the cabinet with the handgun in it?" Even without the head knowledge she has the adult decision making to leave guns alone.
We could debate putting a gun outside of the physical reach of a kid, like on a high shelf or something. I know folks who have done it without incident. My buddy found out there was a 1911 in the cabinet above the kitchen stove when he was 13, it had been there his whole life. YMMV but personally I do not feel at all comfortable with this plan. Kids get into all sorts of stuff and tend to do it when they are in the dangerously curious accidentally shoot somebody age range.
Anyway to me when it comes to residents or very frequent visitors this is a GO/NO GO thing. Moving a few things around when your sister who has a pair of toddlers comes over for Christmas is easy but if there are regularly little kids or adults with diminished capacity due to mental health issues or drug use having unsecured guns all over the place is a NO GO.
If there are only adults in the home having guns all over the place is an option. Obviously this will only work if you have multiple viable guns to place around your residence. If you have just one gun it would end up in a nightstand all the way in the bedroom which is a bad option. In Alabama I had a pistol and a shotgun by my seat in the living room, a pistol and a shotgun by the bed, and a handgun in the other rooms. At the furthest point I might have been 4 paces from a loaded gun and that was from an awkward point in the hallway. This plan was sufficient to me and looking back I can't find fault in it. They were not locked up (which could be debated) but were concealed. With the exception of the steriotypical bedside none of them were in places you would look for a gun. As an option you could get a few of those convenient little quick opening hide a piece type safe's. Put one in the bedroom, one in the living room, etc. Slightly slower but it would be secure.
The other option is to just carry a handgun with you, physically attached to your person until you go to sleep at night. This is really probably the best option as a lethal option is on your person at all times. It covers everything. Working out in the garage, fiddling around on the deck or in the yard, etc. Just continuing to wear whatever setup you use out of the house is a very valid option if you will actually do it.
Regardless of your choice to carry or stash guns having a long gun quickly accessible is a good idea also. You probably won't carry one around the house all the time so it would need to be stashed, maybe in some sort of quick to open safe. Maybe something like this. Long guns are far more lethal than pistols. If memory serves me correctly the boring old 30-30 crushes the venerable .44 mag in terms of energy. Also probably more importantly most people shoot them a lot better. Folks shoot at each other at CQB ranges with pistols and miss all the time. The longer sight radius and multiple points of contact of a long gun make them much easier to shoot well.
Personally I will not do that, it is a fine idea but not something I will actually do. After getting off work and changing out of my stupid greyish monkey suit and boots I almost immediately change into comfortable clothes that are not carry friendly. Some sort of alternate carry method like a shoulder holster or one of the belt and pouch type holsters like the smart carry or the belly band would be options worth looking at. When we get back to the states my plan is a loose combination of both. Having weapons readily accessible but secured in a couple key places and one on me. Maybe it is a little belt and suspenders but nothing succeeds quite like excess.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Life is What Happens When You Turn The News Off
I seem to go into a sort of cycle with the news. Right now I am about sick of it. I still check out the drudge daily and if things get boring cruise the BBC. Instead of listening to the news at work I have been using a comedy show as background. I keep up enough to have a clue what is going on but really am having a hard time pretending to care.
The issues of police abuses has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind lately. Over a short time (since my being able to pay attention to these things at a relatively adult level) the changes which have occured are widespread and universally negative. Right now I do not have any additional thoughts on this topic which I am willing to share in a public venue.
Gang/ Mob attacks seem to be on the rise. The perpetrators, victims and area demographics seem to be quite consistent. The only thing that concerns me more than this is the total ambivalence of law enforcement about these crimes. The widespread efforts of government and media to conceal these events does not weigh positively into the mix either. I am not personally concerned about this. I do not frequent the kind of areas where this sort of thing has been happening. Also my life patterns, like being home at 7 to put the kid to bed, drops the odds even further. In any case it is still troubling.
Greece getting out of the Euro may almost be a foregone conclusion at this point. The idea of Euro bonds is laughable. Like cosigning for a loan your deadbeat brother in law/ whatever to get a loan it would require Germany be on the hook for things in the end. Like cosigning in general it is just a terrible idea. Banks or private markets are far better judges of who is a worthwhile risk than friends and family. I get what is in it for everybody but Germany, who actually has their financial house in order.
Also to complicate things there is significant risk to the Euro itself. As Tam put it "So Greece's profligate habits are threatening to drag the Euro under. Germany, the only wino at the bar keeping a squinty eye on the tab, is urging some restraint on Greece's part, which makes the Jerries the no-fun bad guy of the story."
The biggest way this inconveniences me is that it means I am not going to Greece which sucks. It was definitely on our short list before the mess of the last few months. Now the risk of getting stuck somewhere with a toddler in tow makes it a no travel zone for us. I guess it is a significant global risk, blah blah blah but I don't care about that.
So what did I do today?
After getting off work I came home for some quiet family time. For no clear reason I decided to make home made pizza. I had never done this but with some help from Wifey utter disaster was averted. I learned to do something new and we had a pretty good dinner. It was a nice quiet evening and I got something out of it.
It is worth noting that Dave Duffy wrote an article that inspired this one but was much better.
Anyway I hope you all have a nice quiet evening.
The issues of police abuses has been weighing pretty heavily on my mind lately. Over a short time (since my being able to pay attention to these things at a relatively adult level) the changes which have occured are widespread and universally negative. Right now I do not have any additional thoughts on this topic which I am willing to share in a public venue.
Gang/ Mob attacks seem to be on the rise. The perpetrators, victims and area demographics seem to be quite consistent. The only thing that concerns me more than this is the total ambivalence of law enforcement about these crimes. The widespread efforts of government and media to conceal these events does not weigh positively into the mix either. I am not personally concerned about this. I do not frequent the kind of areas where this sort of thing has been happening. Also my life patterns, like being home at 7 to put the kid to bed, drops the odds even further. In any case it is still troubling.
Greece getting out of the Euro may almost be a foregone conclusion at this point. The idea of Euro bonds is laughable. Like cosigning for a loan your deadbeat brother in law/ whatever to get a loan it would require Germany be on the hook for things in the end. Like cosigning in general it is just a terrible idea. Banks or private markets are far better judges of who is a worthwhile risk than friends and family. I get what is in it for everybody but Germany, who actually has their financial house in order.
Also to complicate things there is significant risk to the Euro itself. As Tam put it "So Greece's profligate habits are threatening to drag the Euro under. Germany, the only wino at the bar keeping a squinty eye on the tab, is urging some restraint on Greece's part, which makes the Jerries the no-fun bad guy of the story."
The biggest way this inconveniences me is that it means I am not going to Greece which sucks. It was definitely on our short list before the mess of the last few months. Now the risk of getting stuck somewhere with a toddler in tow makes it a no travel zone for us. I guess it is a significant global risk, blah blah blah but I don't care about that.
So what did I do today?
After getting off work I came home for some quiet family time. For no clear reason I decided to make home made pizza. I had never done this but with some help from Wifey utter disaster was averted. I learned to do something new and we had a pretty good dinner. It was a nice quiet evening and I got something out of it.
It is worth noting that Dave Duffy wrote an article that inspired this one but was much better.
Anyway I hope you all have a nice quiet evening.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Quote of the Day
"When in doubt, shoot them all"-Wifey
We are watching the movie Face Off where the good guy looks like the bad guy who looks like the good guy.
We are watching the movie Face Off where the good guy looks like the bad guy who looks like the good guy.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
The Zimmerman/ Martin Affair
I hadn't done a post on this yet, not for any particular reason. This evening I stumbled into Gabe Suarez's post on the matter and it got me thinking. First of all I am going to put in some good quote from Gabe's post. "I (seek) and teach my students that they should seek “distance from disorder” in their lives, and unless something shocks the consciousness of humanity, to mind their own business. Now I will also tell you that there is a vast gulf of difference between a suspicious black kid walking around the neighborhood, and an active shooter killing people in a restaurant. One is none of your personal business and more of a job for the police, the other…if you happen to be there, is in fact your business and your action can save many lives. The difference between the two extremes is also one of timing. In the former, nothing has happened. In the latter, the bad guy has already opened the game."
My random thoughts on the matter in no particular order:
Hindsight is always 20/20.
I know next to nothing about neighborhood watch but if I ran one the first rule would be that nobody ever goes on watch alone. The second rule would be to always have a video camera. The third rule would be to be clearly marked.I would buy We would have road guard type vests or hoodies or t shirts that say Such and Such Street/ Lane/ Whatever Neighborhood Watch in huge bright letters. Had this neighborhood watch been 2 or 3 people clearly identified as neighborhood watch with a video camera this whole thing would have almost surelygone down very differently.
I don't believe for a second that this was at all racially motivated. It sounds like Zimmerman was a pretty good guy and there are reports that he tutored some neighborhood kids who were black.
I believe Zimmerman was probably in fear of his life when he pulled the trigger. If just because there was a gun present and potentially they were fighting over it, or things were headed that way.
To paraphrase somebody over at Tam's place "You can follow the law and be doing something really stupid."
All goblins or potential goblins are not 28 year old weightlifting gang membercovered in prison tats, happen to be multiple felons on parol eand high on crack. All good guys are not cops or absolutely perfect beyond reproach pillars of the community who have never been arrested or made a mistake and are on the boards for the group promoting every racial or social agenda. Had Martin been a 28 year old gang banger out on parole for armed robbery and Zimmerman an off duty cop this would not have made it beyond a footnote in the local evening news.
Zimmerman was probably at fault in that he seems to have created a situation which lead to the confrontation that resulted in Martins death. This whole thing might have been entirely avoidable.
Martin is not an entirely innocent victim in all of this either. Of course we don't know the whole story yet but he probably could have done a lot of things differently. If he had stepped into a coffee shop or corner store and said "some crazy man is following me, please call 911" or just plain ran like hell in the other direction things would have ended very differently. It doesn't really matter that Martin was 17. He was adult sized andprobably started got into a street fight with an adult man. It doesn't get any more big boy rules than that. At 17 I was really stupid about a lot of things but I knew that if I got into a fight with a stranger in a dark alley that at least one person would likely be seriously hurt or even killed.
Once the fight got going Zimmerman did what a cop or pretty much anybody else who refused to be a victim would do. He fought back and well, you know the rest.
I don't think Zimmerman had evil in his heart or meant for this to happen but this is definitely a cautionary tale. Again we do not know all the details and hindsight is 20/20.
My random thoughts on the matter in no particular order:
Hindsight is always 20/20.
I know next to nothing about neighborhood watch but if I ran one the first rule would be that nobody ever goes on watch alone. The second rule would be to always have a video camera. The third rule would be to be clearly marked.
I don't believe for a second that this was at all racially motivated. It sounds like Zimmerman was a pretty good guy and there are reports that he tutored some neighborhood kids who were black.
I believe Zimmerman was probably in fear of his life when he pulled the trigger. If just because there was a gun present and potentially they were fighting over it, or things were headed that way.
To paraphrase somebody over at Tam's place "You can follow the law and be doing something really stupid."
All goblins or potential goblins are not 28 year old weightlifting gang membercovered in prison tats, happen to be multiple felons on parol eand high on crack. All good guys are not cops or absolutely perfect beyond reproach pillars of the community who have never been arrested or made a mistake and are on the boards for the group promoting every racial or social agenda. Had Martin been a 28 year old gang banger out on parole for armed robbery and Zimmerman an off duty cop this would not have made it beyond a footnote in the local evening news.
Zimmerman was probably at fault in that he seems to have created a situation which lead to the confrontation that resulted in Martins death. This whole thing might have been entirely avoidable.
Martin is not an entirely innocent victim in all of this either. Of course we don't know the whole story yet but he probably could have done a lot of things differently. If he had stepped into a coffee shop or corner store and said "some crazy man is following me, please call 911" or just plain ran like hell in the other direction things would have ended very differently. It doesn't really matter that Martin was 17. He was adult sized and
Once the fight got going Zimmerman did what a cop or pretty much anybody else who refused to be a victim would do. He fought back and well, you know the rest.
I don't think Zimmerman had evil in his heart or meant for this to happen but this is definitely a cautionary tale. Again we do not know all the details and hindsight is 20/20.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Getting Into Precious Metals
When I was home for leave my very good friend and nominal coauthor Ryan were able to catch up. He mentioned that he was somewhat interested in precious metals but wasn't quite sure where to start. I meant to send him some info but whoops, it never happened. Anyway it popped back into my head recently. I thought this might be a worthwhile blog post to boot. So anyway.
A lot of big names in survivalism say that you should not get into precious metals until you have your beans, bullets and bandaids squared away. One big name defines that as a years worth of food. I am not going to say they are wrong but I look at it differently. To me precious metals are not part of my preps parse, they are the ultra conservative portion of my financial planning. To me a dollar that is going to silver isn't a dollar that would be going to beans or bullets, it is a dollar that would be going into savings or investments. You could look at it either way or some other way.
[I realized in writing this that it is important to define some terms for newbs. When talking about pre -64 90% silver the term face value is used. Face value is the value of the coins at the time of minting, back when they were just money. A dime is a dime face value, 10 dimes are a dollar face, etc. 90% silver is often sold this way in $5 or $10 rolls and $50, $100 and $1,000 face bags. It is important to note that these bags are not weighed but sold by face value. Typically with newish or normally circulated coins the difference between the actual weight and the theoretical weight at manufacture is tiny. However in large quantities when dealing with seriously worn coins it matters. Either negotiate a significant discount for or pass on big bags of heavily worn dimes. Bullion is just that, metal that is made into a bar, ingot, coin or round that is sold essentially as metal. To me this includes the new American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs and such. They may or may not have a nominal monetary value but the cost of the metal is the real value. Precious metals are traded as commodities like oil, corn or whatever. Numismatic is a phrase that means collectible. Basically these are coins or whatever that are rare and or in particularly good condition and thus have significant value beyond their metal content. This is a totally different game than bullion with its own rules. It is one I don't fully understand and do not involve myself in. If you want to collect coins that is great but I would consider it a hobby not part of your financial or preparedness efforts. Spot price is the value of an ounce of silver or gold (or copper, platinum or whatever but they are outside of the scope of this post) strait out of the ground. Obviously it costs money to make that metal into a coin or bar and those folks have expenses and want to make a profit. Also the guy selling it has expenses and wants to make a profit. The difference between spot price and the actual purchase price is called a Premium. For various market reasons some products have higher premiums than others. For example an American Eagle gold coin always costs a few bucks more than a Canadian Maple Leaf or a Krudgerrand. In silver big names like Englehard can carry a premium of a buck or so. Feel free to ask if you have questions about anything.]
Are you ready to invest in precious metals?
By the theory I do not subscribe to you should have a bunch of beans, bullets and bandaids. (Certainly you should at least have a functional weapon with some bullets, and enough food, etc to deal with a snow storm or a hurricane.) If you look at it more as a financial thing like I do one would want to take care of any nasty debt like credit cards or anything above say 8% interest rate and have some cash savings. If you do not have some basic survival stuff like a pistol or a shotgun, some food, a way to cook it, etc and have an outstanding balance with Visa at 18% then it might be wise to throw your resources at those issues. Lets just say that you have some basic preps and no nasty debt before jumping into PMs.
How To Buy?
It depends on your overall situation. If you have a good amount of money sitting around you could go order a big bag of silver and or some gold and be done with it. The stockbroker seeing the writing on the wall and ordering a hundred thousand dollars in gold is kind of an urban legend in contrarian investing and precious metals circles. For most folks we don't have a lot of money lying around so we will be making purchases as our income allows. The concept of dollar cost averaging is worthwhile to consider here. However like any financial plan I recommend that you pay yourself first. Maybe you buy a one ounce round every payday or whatever you can afford. Figure it out and stick to it unless your situation changes significantly. This doesn't need to be a big thing just come up with a reasonable plan and execute it regularly instead of waiting till the end of the pay period and hoping there is something left. You may or may not want to go full on Dave Ramsey and allocate every dollar before you get it. We don't have a complete budget but we plan our saving and investments and execute them consistently. However our financial situation as bills relate to income is pretty comfortable. If we had credit cards with big balances, car loans and whatever we would go full on OCD. Typically like diets I would say the worse your situation is the more you need to be strict about it.
What to buy?
"The Moneylender" said "Buy silver before gold, buy small gold before large gold." I think that is pretty darn good advice. Silver is a good way to start for a lot of reasons. First it is affordable. Right now spot is about $32 which puts a one ounce round probably at $35-36ish. Pretty much anybody can afford to pick one up a paycheck. If you can't free up a bit under $40 a paycheck I suggest seriously looking at your overall situation. Also you can make a mistake and overpay by a bit and it won't kill you.
Silver
Silver can be purchased in two basic products, pre '64 90% silver and 99% bullion. There are other options but we are keeping it simple here.Pre '64 90% silver is dimes, quarters, 50 cent pieces and silver dollars made before 1964. Yes our change was made of silver. The stuff I am talking about has no real numismatic (collector) value and typically dates from the early 1900's to 1964. The advantage of this stuff is that it is in small pieces. A dollars worth of silver is right about .77 of a troy ounce of silver. Thus a dime is about .07, etc. I am too lazy to look up and type all the exact weights but you can look them up here. The other option is 99% silver bullion. This is rounds or bars or ingotts made of as close to pure silver as one can easily get. Some like Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs are minted by a country and many others are made by numerous private mints.These are made in all sorts of weights but 1, 5, 10 and 100 ounce are the most common.
Both have advantages and disadvantages. 90% silver is in small denominations. At today's prices even one ounce rounds are too large to make small transactions like a few groceries. Also they are readily recognizable at least to folks who know our change used to be made of silver. The biggest disadvantage is that many dealers charge almost crazy premiums if you buy this stuff in small (under $100 face value which is 70 some odd ounces and costs about $2,500 bucks) amounts. We will revisit this when we talk about where to buy the stuff.
Bullion is generally a bit cheaper per ounce [Remember for these purposes you are buying METAL, not a coin or whatever. Thus the goal is to get as much METAL as possible for your dollars.] than 90% silver. Also it is typically in convenient weights. If the going trade is an ounce of silver for 5 pounds of beef or 20 pounds of wheat (or whatever) it is a lot easier to have nice round denominations. Also some folks say that it is good for a coin/ ingot to say it's content and purity ie "One ounce of .999 pure silver". These folks thing people who are less than knowledgable about PM's may be more inclined to accept their value.
Whatever you decide to go with silver is a great place to start. First of all it is reasonably affordable. Second of all it is in small enough denominations to sell a coint or two to a dealer and buy groceries or a tank of gas or to barter a little bit at a time to get whatever. I would recommend purchasing a pretty good amount of silver before thinking about gold. If you are into round numbers maybe $100 face (70 some odd ounces) or 100 ounces of bullion could work but it all varies based on your situation.
Silvers biggest advantage is that anybody not living on the street (heck even a wino could cut down their Thunderbird consumption or panhandle a bit more agressively and pick up a 90% dime or quarter from time to time) can afford to buy it, if slowly and in small incriments. The biggest disadvantage of silver is that at some point it gets HEAVY. I know a guy who needs to use a truck to move his silver, while that is a nice problem to have he would face some hard choices if he needed to evacuate in a hurry. This brings us to gold.
Gold
Gold is a lot more expensive than silver and could be a bit overpriced right now, at least in relation to silver which is probably a better deal at this time. It is sitting somewhere around $1,660 an ounce. Gold comes in two basic varieties. Old coins and bullion. Old coins are just that, old coins from back when Gold was money. Bullion and new coins such as Eagles, Maple Leafs and Krudgerrand's pretty much fall into the same group. Sometimes you can get good deals on the old coins, particularly European coins from aprox 1890-1917. Just be sure to stick to ones folks will recognize like Swiss and French Francs, British Sovereigns and the like. New coins/ bars are convenient because they are typically in nice round (1/10th, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 ounce) sizes and have the weight and purity clearly written on the coin. I don't find one vastly superior to the other. Even weights are nice but old coins are kind of cool too. One noteable advantage of old coins (not numismatic/ collectable, just old very common coins in ok condition) is that they are typically the lowest premium way to buy small gold.
As we said before buy small gold before large gold. Small gold would be gold coins that are part of an ounce, typically 1/10th, 1/4 and 1/2 ounce and are also called fractional coins. As to how much of this stuff to buy before going to large gold (one ounce coins/ bars) I would say at least a couple ounces, maybe a few. For large gold I would purchase one ounce coins or ingots. I don't see a reason to get anything bigger than that. For large gold I would just be sure to get something common like Eagles, Maple Leafs, Krudgerrands or Credit Swiss ingots.
As we talked about Golds biggest advantage (already considering that it is durable, recognizable, divisible and there is consistent demand for it) is that it is a very compact store of value. For the price of a one ounce gold coin you could get a nice bag of silver or a lot of other stuff. One could toss 50k in gold into a daypack and evacuate or into a ruck to GOOD but silver would be problematicly heavy. Also gold has a certain allure and enough folks have been able to use it to bribe/ buy their way out of a warzone or terrible situation that it bears considerations.
Where to buy?
Fundamentally there are three options. Brick and mortar dealers, online dealers and private individuals. I will discuss the first two at length and then briefely hit the last.
It is important to note that you really need to be a smart consumer when it comes to PM's. Check on Spot Price and know what sort of premiums a given product typically carries. Also be sure to consider the full cost of getting a product to your door. This means your time and travel to a shop or shipping from an online dealer.
Brick and mortar dealers are often coin shops that deal numismatic stuff and have bullion as a sort of side effort. Also pawn shops and I have heard some jewelry stores deal in bullion. Brick and mortar stores have some advantages. The first advantage is that they are convenient. Hard to beat picking up a silver round or a small gold coin every payday on the way home. Also if you decide to pay cash they have the factor of discretion. Personally I just can't see Cops kicking in the doors of everybody who bought a few silver rounds or a gold coin so this is not much of a concern for me. However if you have some other issues going on this could be useful. Another advantage is that some of these folks can help you learn about PM's. The old guy hanging out in his coin shop might be willing to help you learn about testing silver and gold or grading coins if you have the gift of gab and are a decent customer (or offer to help clean up or whatever). Also if it is a small shop and you are a good customer they may give you a call when products you like come in. Furthermore the coin/ pawn shop guy can be a good "grey world" contact who knows how to get stuff.
This is not to say that brick and mortar shops don't have disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of brick and mortar dealers is often price. Some of them for whatever reason charge crazy prices. I once laughed in a coin shop guys face when he wanted $10 OVER SPOT for beaten up no name 1 ounce silver rounds. It varies shop to shop based on their business model, competition and how informed their customers seem to be. Heck it may even change based on how much they think they can get away with on a given customer. The next disadvantage is often availability. Especially with the folks who have bullion as a side business like numismatic coin or collectibles dealers and pawn shops they predominantly sell what they have bought. This means they may have 90% silver one week, 1 ounce rounds the next, a couple 1/4 ounce Eagles here and some Krudgerrands there. With these guys you need to either be patient or flexible. Since brick and mortar stores are a local thing I can't make any meaningful recommendations but I have had good dealings with a few in the past.
Online dealers tend to have the best prices and greatest availability which are their biggest advantages. Also comparison shopping is easy and you can do it on a Sunday morning in a bathrobe. The first downside is that you have to pay shipping. One absolutely must consider this in their "is this a good deal" calculation. It also makes frequent small purchases cost prohibitive. Paying $5 or 8 to ship something worth $35 or $40 is cost prohibitive for sure. That it is difficult to impossible to be anonymous could be a disadvantage or turn off for some folks. Also if for whatever reason you needed to turn cash into metals TODAY an online dealer would not be a wise route.
One of the biggest benefits of established dealers who make their living selling metals is that their livelihood rests on their reputation. If through bad intentions or neglect they sell some fake stuff they are totally hosed. Due to this they are as a rule honest and above board in their dealings. This doesn't mean they they will always have competive prices just that the products will be what they are sold as.
Personally I used APMEX for a long time and have heard good things from Zero about Montana Rarities.
Personal transactions vary from boringly easy to the wide open wild west. I have purchased silver from a family member. I had some cash and they had some silver and we swapped. Online type purchases of PM's from private folks have, at least IMO an uncomfortably high likelihood of fraud. I have been burned in a small way on Ebay and will not make that mistake again. Also there is just so much fake gold floating around. In the last few years some really legit looking stuff has came out of China.
Face to face transactions would have the same risk of counterfeits. I would need to be a lot more competent at testing gold, have calipers to take measurements and a scale to consider doing this. To make matters worse there are also security concerns. Remember that Marine who got shot trying to sell a gold necklace? If conducting such a transaction would meet somebody in a pretty public place, ideally with obvious cameras and carry a gun. If it was a significant transaction I would wear soft body armor and bring a couple friends with their own guns. No need to show up like gangsters, two guys at the next table sipping coffee would go unnoticed but could be very helpful if things went sideways.
Unless somebody you know and trust is selling what you want to buy I am not a big fan of personal transactions there are just too many issues involved for the couple bucks you might save.
Well I hope this gives some insight on my thoughts about getting into PM's and helps you make some informed choices about purchasing PM's.
A lot of big names in survivalism say that you should not get into precious metals until you have your beans, bullets and bandaids squared away. One big name defines that as a years worth of food. I am not going to say they are wrong but I look at it differently. To me precious metals are not part of my preps parse, they are the ultra conservative portion of my financial planning. To me a dollar that is going to silver isn't a dollar that would be going to beans or bullets, it is a dollar that would be going into savings or investments. You could look at it either way or some other way.
[I realized in writing this that it is important to define some terms for newbs. When talking about pre -64 90% silver the term face value is used. Face value is the value of the coins at the time of minting, back when they were just money. A dime is a dime face value, 10 dimes are a dollar face, etc. 90% silver is often sold this way in $5 or $10 rolls and $50, $100 and $1,000 face bags. It is important to note that these bags are not weighed but sold by face value. Typically with newish or normally circulated coins the difference between the actual weight and the theoretical weight at manufacture is tiny. However in large quantities when dealing with seriously worn coins it matters. Either negotiate a significant discount for or pass on big bags of heavily worn dimes. Bullion is just that, metal that is made into a bar, ingot, coin or round that is sold essentially as metal. To me this includes the new American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs and such. They may or may not have a nominal monetary value but the cost of the metal is the real value. Precious metals are traded as commodities like oil, corn or whatever. Numismatic is a phrase that means collectible. Basically these are coins or whatever that are rare and or in particularly good condition and thus have significant value beyond their metal content. This is a totally different game than bullion with its own rules. It is one I don't fully understand and do not involve myself in. If you want to collect coins that is great but I would consider it a hobby not part of your financial or preparedness efforts. Spot price is the value of an ounce of silver or gold (or copper, platinum or whatever but they are outside of the scope of this post) strait out of the ground. Obviously it costs money to make that metal into a coin or bar and those folks have expenses and want to make a profit. Also the guy selling it has expenses and wants to make a profit. The difference between spot price and the actual purchase price is called a Premium. For various market reasons some products have higher premiums than others. For example an American Eagle gold coin always costs a few bucks more than a Canadian Maple Leaf or a Krudgerrand. In silver big names like Englehard can carry a premium of a buck or so. Feel free to ask if you have questions about anything.]
Are you ready to invest in precious metals?
By the theory I do not subscribe to you should have a bunch of beans, bullets and bandaids. (Certainly you should at least have a functional weapon with some bullets, and enough food, etc to deal with a snow storm or a hurricane.) If you look at it more as a financial thing like I do one would want to take care of any nasty debt like credit cards or anything above say 8% interest rate and have some cash savings. If you do not have some basic survival stuff like a pistol or a shotgun, some food, a way to cook it, etc and have an outstanding balance with Visa at 18% then it might be wise to throw your resources at those issues. Lets just say that you have some basic preps and no nasty debt before jumping into PMs.
How To Buy?
It depends on your overall situation. If you have a good amount of money sitting around you could go order a big bag of silver and or some gold and be done with it. The stockbroker seeing the writing on the wall and ordering a hundred thousand dollars in gold is kind of an urban legend in contrarian investing and precious metals circles. For most folks we don't have a lot of money lying around so we will be making purchases as our income allows. The concept of dollar cost averaging is worthwhile to consider here. However like any financial plan I recommend that you pay yourself first. Maybe you buy a one ounce round every payday or whatever you can afford. Figure it out and stick to it unless your situation changes significantly. This doesn't need to be a big thing just come up with a reasonable plan and execute it regularly instead of waiting till the end of the pay period and hoping there is something left. You may or may not want to go full on Dave Ramsey and allocate every dollar before you get it. We don't have a complete budget but we plan our saving and investments and execute them consistently. However our financial situation as bills relate to income is pretty comfortable. If we had credit cards with big balances, car loans and whatever we would go full on OCD. Typically like diets I would say the worse your situation is the more you need to be strict about it.
What to buy?
"The Moneylender" said "Buy silver before gold, buy small gold before large gold." I think that is pretty darn good advice. Silver is a good way to start for a lot of reasons. First it is affordable. Right now spot is about $32 which puts a one ounce round probably at $35-36ish. Pretty much anybody can afford to pick one up a paycheck. If you can't free up a bit under $40 a paycheck I suggest seriously looking at your overall situation. Also you can make a mistake and overpay by a bit and it won't kill you.
Silver
Silver can be purchased in two basic products, pre '64 90% silver and 99% bullion. There are other options but we are keeping it simple here.Pre '64 90% silver is dimes, quarters, 50 cent pieces and silver dollars made before 1964. Yes our change was made of silver. The stuff I am talking about has no real numismatic (collector) value and typically dates from the early 1900's to 1964. The advantage of this stuff is that it is in small pieces. A dollars worth of silver is right about .77 of a troy ounce of silver. Thus a dime is about .07, etc. I am too lazy to look up and type all the exact weights but you can look them up here. The other option is 99% silver bullion. This is rounds or bars or ingotts made of as close to pure silver as one can easily get. Some like Eagles or Canadian Maple Leafs are minted by a country and many others are made by numerous private mints.These are made in all sorts of weights but 1, 5, 10 and 100 ounce are the most common.
Both have advantages and disadvantages. 90% silver is in small denominations. At today's prices even one ounce rounds are too large to make small transactions like a few groceries. Also they are readily recognizable at least to folks who know our change used to be made of silver. The biggest disadvantage is that many dealers charge almost crazy premiums if you buy this stuff in small (under $100 face value which is 70 some odd ounces and costs about $2,500 bucks) amounts. We will revisit this when we talk about where to buy the stuff.
Bullion is generally a bit cheaper per ounce [Remember for these purposes you are buying METAL, not a coin or whatever. Thus the goal is to get as much METAL as possible for your dollars.] than 90% silver. Also it is typically in convenient weights. If the going trade is an ounce of silver for 5 pounds of beef or 20 pounds of wheat (or whatever) it is a lot easier to have nice round denominations. Also some folks say that it is good for a coin/ ingot to say it's content and purity ie "One ounce of .999 pure silver". These folks thing people who are less than knowledgable about PM's may be more inclined to accept their value.
Whatever you decide to go with silver is a great place to start. First of all it is reasonably affordable. Second of all it is in small enough denominations to sell a coint or two to a dealer and buy groceries or a tank of gas or to barter a little bit at a time to get whatever. I would recommend purchasing a pretty good amount of silver before thinking about gold. If you are into round numbers maybe $100 face (70 some odd ounces) or 100 ounces of bullion could work but it all varies based on your situation.
Silvers biggest advantage is that anybody not living on the street (heck even a wino could cut down their Thunderbird consumption or panhandle a bit more agressively and pick up a 90% dime or quarter from time to time) can afford to buy it, if slowly and in small incriments. The biggest disadvantage of silver is that at some point it gets HEAVY. I know a guy who needs to use a truck to move his silver, while that is a nice problem to have he would face some hard choices if he needed to evacuate in a hurry. This brings us to gold.
Gold
Gold is a lot more expensive than silver and could be a bit overpriced right now, at least in relation to silver which is probably a better deal at this time. It is sitting somewhere around $1,660 an ounce. Gold comes in two basic varieties. Old coins and bullion. Old coins are just that, old coins from back when Gold was money. Bullion and new coins such as Eagles, Maple Leafs and Krudgerrand's pretty much fall into the same group. Sometimes you can get good deals on the old coins, particularly European coins from aprox 1890-1917. Just be sure to stick to ones folks will recognize like Swiss and French Francs, British Sovereigns and the like. New coins/ bars are convenient because they are typically in nice round (1/10th, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 ounce) sizes and have the weight and purity clearly written on the coin. I don't find one vastly superior to the other. Even weights are nice but old coins are kind of cool too. One noteable advantage of old coins (not numismatic/ collectable, just old very common coins in ok condition) is that they are typically the lowest premium way to buy small gold.
As we said before buy small gold before large gold. Small gold would be gold coins that are part of an ounce, typically 1/10th, 1/4 and 1/2 ounce and are also called fractional coins. As to how much of this stuff to buy before going to large gold (one ounce coins/ bars) I would say at least a couple ounces, maybe a few. For large gold I would purchase one ounce coins or ingots. I don't see a reason to get anything bigger than that. For large gold I would just be sure to get something common like Eagles, Maple Leafs, Krudgerrands or Credit Swiss ingots.
As we talked about Golds biggest advantage (already considering that it is durable, recognizable, divisible and there is consistent demand for it) is that it is a very compact store of value. For the price of a one ounce gold coin you could get a nice bag of silver or a lot of other stuff. One could toss 50k in gold into a daypack and evacuate or into a ruck to GOOD but silver would be problematicly heavy. Also gold has a certain allure and enough folks have been able to use it to bribe/ buy their way out of a warzone or terrible situation that it bears considerations.
Where to buy?
Fundamentally there are three options. Brick and mortar dealers, online dealers and private individuals. I will discuss the first two at length and then briefely hit the last.
It is important to note that you really need to be a smart consumer when it comes to PM's. Check on Spot Price and know what sort of premiums a given product typically carries. Also be sure to consider the full cost of getting a product to your door. This means your time and travel to a shop or shipping from an online dealer.
Brick and mortar dealers are often coin shops that deal numismatic stuff and have bullion as a sort of side effort. Also pawn shops and I have heard some jewelry stores deal in bullion. Brick and mortar stores have some advantages. The first advantage is that they are convenient. Hard to beat picking up a silver round or a small gold coin every payday on the way home. Also if you decide to pay cash they have the factor of discretion. Personally I just can't see Cops kicking in the doors of everybody who bought a few silver rounds or a gold coin so this is not much of a concern for me. However if you have some other issues going on this could be useful. Another advantage is that some of these folks can help you learn about PM's. The old guy hanging out in his coin shop might be willing to help you learn about testing silver and gold or grading coins if you have the gift of gab and are a decent customer (or offer to help clean up or whatever). Also if it is a small shop and you are a good customer they may give you a call when products you like come in. Furthermore the coin/ pawn shop guy can be a good "grey world" contact who knows how to get stuff.
This is not to say that brick and mortar shops don't have disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of brick and mortar dealers is often price. Some of them for whatever reason charge crazy prices. I once laughed in a coin shop guys face when he wanted $10 OVER SPOT for beaten up no name 1 ounce silver rounds. It varies shop to shop based on their business model, competition and how informed their customers seem to be. Heck it may even change based on how much they think they can get away with on a given customer. The next disadvantage is often availability. Especially with the folks who have bullion as a side business like numismatic coin or collectibles dealers and pawn shops they predominantly sell what they have bought. This means they may have 90% silver one week, 1 ounce rounds the next, a couple 1/4 ounce Eagles here and some Krudgerrands there. With these guys you need to either be patient or flexible. Since brick and mortar stores are a local thing I can't make any meaningful recommendations but I have had good dealings with a few in the past.
Online dealers tend to have the best prices and greatest availability which are their biggest advantages. Also comparison shopping is easy and you can do it on a Sunday morning in a bathrobe. The first downside is that you have to pay shipping. One absolutely must consider this in their "is this a good deal" calculation. It also makes frequent small purchases cost prohibitive. Paying $5 or 8 to ship something worth $35 or $40 is cost prohibitive for sure. That it is difficult to impossible to be anonymous could be a disadvantage or turn off for some folks. Also if for whatever reason you needed to turn cash into metals TODAY an online dealer would not be a wise route.
One of the biggest benefits of established dealers who make their living selling metals is that their livelihood rests on their reputation. If through bad intentions or neglect they sell some fake stuff they are totally hosed. Due to this they are as a rule honest and above board in their dealings. This doesn't mean they they will always have competive prices just that the products will be what they are sold as.
Personally I used APMEX for a long time and have heard good things from Zero about Montana Rarities.
Personal transactions vary from boringly easy to the wide open wild west. I have purchased silver from a family member. I had some cash and they had some silver and we swapped. Online type purchases of PM's from private folks have, at least IMO an uncomfortably high likelihood of fraud. I have been burned in a small way on Ebay and will not make that mistake again. Also there is just so much fake gold floating around. In the last few years some really legit looking stuff has came out of China.
Face to face transactions would have the same risk of counterfeits. I would need to be a lot more competent at testing gold, have calipers to take measurements and a scale to consider doing this. To make matters worse there are also security concerns. Remember that Marine who got shot trying to sell a gold necklace? If conducting such a transaction would meet somebody in a pretty public place, ideally with obvious cameras and carry a gun. If it was a significant transaction I would wear soft body armor and bring a couple friends with their own guns. No need to show up like gangsters, two guys at the next table sipping coffee would go unnoticed but could be very helpful if things went sideways.
Unless somebody you know and trust is selling what you want to buy I am not a big fan of personal transactions there are just too many issues involved for the couple bucks you might save.
Well I hope this gives some insight on my thoughts about getting into PM's and helps you make some informed choices about purchasing PM's.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Interesting Video
Tam linked to a video. Two young women are walking down the street and a staggering drunk spits at them, seeming to hit one. They walk off camera and her friend comes back to presumably yell at the staggering drunk who then KO's her with an elbow to the face. Warning, the video I am about to link to portrays real life violence, namely a chick getting KOed by a jerk. You can watch the video here if so inclined.
The gal really messed up by coming back and yelling at him. Of course I am not saying she deserved what followed but it could have been avoided. When the other person is clearly aggressive and a lot bigger/ stronger than you escalating a situation is not smart.
The legitimate options would be to A) call the cops, B) just leave, which only makes sense if you want to avoid interacting with cops due to warrants, being 18 drinking on a fake ID or have a pocket full of designer drugs, or lastly C) violence. I won't debate this one, I would send the guy to the ER for sure. However that option isn't so available for gals. Unless she wanted to shoot the guy or fastpitch a brick to the back of his head fighting with a drunk (even as drunk as this guy) jerk like that is a bad option for most women. It is worth noting that cops look for someone that shoots a guy or cracks a skull with 50 mile per hour brick a lot more aggressively than for winners of late night fisticuffs.
Note that none of the options involved talking to this guy. Even a big healthy guy would be stupid to do that. You are not going to have a rational conversation so it is better to just act if you are so inclined. As Wifey said "you don't talk to crazy."
The gal really messed up by coming back and yelling at him. Of course I am not saying she deserved what followed but it could have been avoided. When the other person is clearly aggressive and a lot bigger/ stronger than you escalating a situation is not smart.
The legitimate options would be to A) call the cops, B) just leave, which only makes sense if you want to avoid interacting with cops due to warrants, being 18 drinking on a fake ID or have a pocket full of designer drugs, or lastly C) violence. I won't debate this one, I would send the guy to the ER for sure. However that option isn't so available for gals. Unless she wanted to shoot the guy or fastpitch a brick to the back of his head fighting with a drunk (even as drunk as this guy) jerk like that is a bad option for most women. It is worth noting that cops look for someone that shoots a guy or cracks a skull with 50 mile per hour brick a lot more aggressively than for winners of late night fisticuffs.
Note that none of the options involved talking to this guy. Even a big healthy guy would be stupid to do that. You are not going to have a rational conversation so it is better to just act if you are so inclined. As Wifey said "you don't talk to crazy."
Friday, March 16, 2012
Street Robbery and You
Kit AKA Commander Zero's better half tells a very interesting story.
Be aware. Be armed, ideally with a gun, even a small one and if not with the best available alternative. I am not going to tell you how to live your life but consider (admittedly hard if you are a smallish woman or in a wheel chair) being scary looking, jacked and generally not a person folks want to mess with. Lastly discretion is the better part of valor so don't do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people.
Be aware. Be armed, ideally with a gun, even a small one and if not with the best available alternative. I am not going to tell you how to live your life but consider (admittedly hard if you are a smallish woman or in a wheel chair) being scary looking, jacked and generally not a person folks want to mess with. Lastly discretion is the better part of valor so don't do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
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