Kill or Be Killed – Preparedness

In a number of states across the country, particularly Massachusetts, weapons are considered scary and evil. Guns are thought of solely as murder machines and their owners are treated like dangerous criminals, even when their intentions and practices are completely innocent. Society as a whole is comprised of pathetic people, made soft by the illusion of safety created by the entity that we call law enforcement.

Let me paint a scene for you. It’s around midnight and you’re getting ready to go to sleep. You hear a noise downstairs, followed by a muffled voice. Everyone who should be home is home already. You try to rationalize these sounds for a second. You think maybe the TV turned on somehow. Maybe it was the dog bumping something, and you imagined the voice. Then you hear another sound. Your heart starts racing.

This is a home invasion. Every family’s worst nightmare. There are two armed men in the house. They could be delusional and on drugs. They could be professional thieves who are used to doing this. Maybe they thought they were robbing an empty house and would run away at the sight of home occupants, or alternatively panic and take lethal action. You don’t know.

Preparedness – noun – possession of adequate armed forces, industrial resources and potential, etc., especially as a deterrent to enemy attack.

Proper preparedness in any situation in life, means being armed with the appropriate tools, knowledge, and mental state to accomplish your goal or task. For that reason we will assume the worst. We will assume that your home invaders are armed and prepared to take malicious action against you. The naive amongst you may now ask, “But don’t we have gun laws that would prevent them having firearms?” Sure. The flaw there is that the criminals don’t care about those laws, as they are going to be breaking them anyway. It is no secret, and there are plenty of public facts to support the fact, that criminals don’t have a hard time procuring illegal firearms when they want them.

Now there are two armed men in your house who will likely kill, or attempt to kill, you and your family when they discover you. You call the Police and hang up, not wanting to speak and alert the invaders of your presence. If you’re smart you turn off your cell phone, knowing the Police will call back and if you don’t pick up they will dispatch a cruiser immediately. Now it will be three to twelve minutes before the Police arrive, depending on where you live. Nationwide, the common average response time is in the 7-10 minute range.

We’ll assume only five minutes for the sake of argument. Now you are trapped in your house with two potential murderers for five minutes. It’s not going to take them five minutes to find you or one of your family members. What do you do?

If you are moderately prepared and have your wits about you, maybe you have a baseball bat handy. I’m sorry, but that’s not going to do much against a gun. Furthermore, if the intruders are on certain drugs, they may not even be bothered much by a strike with a baseball bat. PCP would be a good example of such a drug. Maybe you have a kitchen knife you can grab. Now you’re back to that old saying, ‘A knife to a gun fight.’ Bad news. You have to fight fire with fire.

If you are going to defend yourself and your family against a malicious attacker with a firearm, you need not only a firearm, but a cool mental attitude, practice, and some training. Even with all that, you’re still going to have to engage in a firefight, in which bad things can happen. The difference is that you can at least have a chance at defending yourself.

I should also mention what happens if you are most people (that is, without even a baseball bat at the ready). You die in this scenario… You and your family are killed by gunshot, by a shit head that wanted to take from you, the material wealth that you’ve worked hard for.

Now you may argue that the chances of this are so slim and that you live in a good neighborhood. Do a little research. These things may not be common but they happen in all areas. It is short-sighted and foolish to simply assume it will never happen to you. Would you rather be unprepared for the unlikely home invasion that kills you, or prepared for the one that never happens.

Think about it.

A personal note: I for one have every tool that I can possibly have under Massachusetts law and the rules of my mother, whose house I live in, to defend myself in the event of an emergency. When I move out I intend to immediately procure a shotgun for home defense, followed by a pistol and more.

I presently have ready access to a large baseball bat, a variety of large knives, and more. I also have dead bolts for my door to buy me more time in the event of a home invasion. If my mother is too short sighted to allow me a home defense firearm, I do not plan on taking a knife to a gun fight to defend anyone. I would hole up in my room and wait for the law enforcement that I despise relying on.

It is an unfortunate fact that I am the eldest, strongest male in my house and I am the only one with an iota of tactical defensive combat sense, yet I am not allowed the necessary tools to defend the house I live in.