This years fire season has already started and so far the score is showing the fire fighters in the lead with several large fires under their belts in California, Nevada and Arizona. So far in 2005 we have not had any huge or “Mega Fires” yet, cross your fingers that our luck continues. If you are worried about your community after the very wet season of Winter 2005 and the tremendous growth you may want to consider starting an Arson Watch Program. If you decide to go for it and set up a team of volunteers to watch out for arson there are a few things you should know about. I have written a free online 21-page E-Book, which you are welcome to read if you are thinking of starting such a group. It is available:

http://www.lancewinslow.org/arsonwatch.pdf

The most important thing when setting up a community arson watch program is to involve the local agencies such as the fire department, police and any nearby Federal Agencies for instance the USDA Forest Service and/or BLM; bureau of land management. Here are some quick pointers to assist you.

FIRE DEPARTMENTS

The Local Fire department will provide a Community Relations person to explain to participants the need to report arsonists and simple things you can do to minimize the potential exponential and aggressive natures of small containable fires until the fire department arrives with the proper tools to fight the fire. They will explain how to set up roadblocks and secure easy access for fire vehicles to arrive. When to get out of there and which direction to go. They will also explain what the reality of your limits are based on the type of equipment in your vehicle.

USDA FORESTRY SERVICE

The USDAFS will explain what is being done, why the importance, water tables, this years potential exposure. They will provide handouts and safety tips and what to do, where to go and where to tune in; Prevention, communication and nature. Every year the USDAFS does extensive research in prevention and data collection. This is information everyone should know who lives near forested areas, parks and mountainous area. The can provide the education that may help save the lives of you and your family.

POLICE DEPARTMENT

The Police department will provide a Community Relations person to explain to participants the need to report crimes and what is actually a crime. Arson is a crime, one of the worst possible crimes. The police can explain how to detect suspicious behavior from a potential arsonist. They will explain that if someone cuts you off on the Highway it is an unfortunate situation but not a crime and to limit phone calls to important things. Most importantly, they will explain that the participants are the eyes and ears of the Police, not vigilantes. The Police will also ask participants to have the police departments phone number programmed into their cellular phones and to only use the 911 feature only for accidents involving arson activity, accident injuries and very serious things. The Police department will also give the certificates to participants once they have completed the seminar, which will be signed by police chief or local Community Relations Officer.

CITY HALL

City Council members will very likely endorse the project at a city council meeting and give a proclamation to the President of The Chamber of Commerce for the Chambers and local businesses service to community. Most cities or towns can allot at least $2,500.00 towards the project for the signage. Donations for the remained can often be obtained large companies in the area. By announcing it at a city council meeting the program will receive the publicity it needs to get quality participants.

Please think on these things and see what you decide. You may find setting up a Community Arson Watch Program to be a lot easier than you think and rather than living in fear of the “Big One” fire you can be proactive and prevent it instead.

Is your family ready for the big one? If not you should be and do not for a second believe that Earthquakes only happen in California. There are seismic faults all over the world and in some places you might not even think of. You might be surprised how close you live to one and realize with a big Earthquake damage can occur up to a 100 miles away and that’s only from the shaking, not even thinking of Tsunami wave action. One thing you must remember is simply because there has been a large quake does not mean there will not be many aftershocks which follow. The bigger the quake the larger the aftershocks and the longer they can continue. After the Indonesia Quake the aftershocks continued for nearly a year.

After an Earthquake, check to make sure there are no leaks, if you smell gas, shut it off.

You need to have some sort of plan for your family, workplace and household. It is always wise to have a family member or contact point out of state that you can call and check in with to communicate messages to your local family. It is smart to have shoes, extra set of clothes and a jacket in your car in case you can’t get into your house or find yourself with glass all around. Battery operated flash lights are important as well as transistor radio. Make sure to have a small medical kit for cuts and burns, which are common minor injuries, which do occur in Earthquakes.

Do not eat all your food supplies the first day, ration out your supply it could be days until you can get to a store and looting can get you hurt or shot. Also be sure to have spare food for your pets. After you see your family is okay fill up your bathtub with water, as there maybe water lines broken this could be your last chance. Do not fill it completely to the top as after shocks could spill it.

You should have enough food on hand for 5-7 days and do not expect the government to come give you food, you have to look out for yourself. Also if you take medicine always have two weeks worth. Don’t assume you can go on a free shopping spree, when people start looting the store shelves empty in less than a couple of hours. A Wal-Mart maybe a day, but food will go fast, do not counting on joining the looters. If you run out of water there is usually 40 or so gallons in the average hot water heater and you can drain it out, assume you will need 1 gallon a day per family member for drinking water to keep you alive.

I hope this helps get you thinking of the types of things you might need. There are some valuable resources online as well as government websites with more information, which can assist you in setting up your family disaster plan. The purpose of this article is to get you to think, do some research and not procrastinate; you never know when an Earthquake will happen.

After an Earthquake you need to do an immediate damage assessment. First go turn off the gas if you smell anything, a leaky gas line could explode and take out your entire home and your cats nine lives. Look for cracks in the slab or any areas where the house carpet is lifted up. Then walk around the exterior of the house, what do you see? Do you see downed fences, retaining walls, support structures holding up the garage at weird angles or any areas where your house was knocked off its foundation? Look also for water pipes which have been broken, if so shut off the main water line coming into the house. If there is extensive damage then that means the other neighbors have also and the entire area.

When entire neighborhoods are damaged and cities you have to worry about chaos and riots, form a group with your neighbors and block off the street with cars if you live in a culd-a-sac. Expect more after shocks. Instruct your family to ration water, fill up your bathtubs with water now incase main water lines to the city have broken. Join in with your neighbors to form a support group and access all damage and get with other neighbors near by and find out what is going on. In the event of power outages, instruct all neighbors to turn off all appliances so it does not spike the system when everything turns back on. If the power is still out after several hours; figure out a plan for food and BBQs and have a street party, but do not waste your food; stick together and ride it out. Also plan what to do incase of huge fires or forced evacuation. Have a care package ready for your entire family for 5-days food and have it easily portable incase you have to pack up the SUV to get out of dodge. The best time to plan home security in the event of an Earthquake is before it happens, so think on this.

Did you know that fire is the third leading cause of accidental deaths in the United States, yet most people ignore it. More than 150 workplace fires occur every day. So many of theses untimely deaths could have been prevented if they only had a plan.

The number one tip any family can have is, make sure all family members know what to do in the event of a fire. In a fire, timing is very critical. Don’t waste time getting dressed, don’t search for pets or valuables. Just get out! Set up a way for everyone to sound a family alarm. Screaming, pounding on walls, yelling “fire”!

If a fire happens in your home, you have to get out fast! Prepare for a fire emergency by sitting down with your family and agreeing on an escape plan. Be sure that everyone knows at least two escape exits, the doors and windows from every room. Decide on a meeting place outside where everyone will meet after they escape the fire. Have your entire household practice your escape plan at least twice a year.

Smoke detectors can alert you to a fire in your home in time for you to escape the blaze, it’s esp. useful when the family is asleep. Install smoke detectors on every floor of your home, including the basement. Test detectors every month, following the manufacturer’s directions, and replace batteries once a year, or whenever a detector “chirps” to signal low battery power. Make sure your alarm works at all times! A non functional smoke detector can’t save your life or your family’s. Replace detectors that are more than a years old. Careless smoking is the leading cause of fire deaths in North America. Smoking in bed or when you are drowsy can be extremely dangerous. Provide smokers with ashtrays and soak butts with water before discarding them. Before going to bed or leaving home after a smoker has been smoking, check around and make sure there aren’t any lit buds.

Never leave cooking unattended. Keep cooking areas clear of combustibles. Turn pot handles inward on the stove where you can’t bump them and children can’t grab them and burn themselves. If grease catches fire in a pan, slide a lid over the pan to smother the flames and turn off the heat. Leave the lid on until cool. For more safety tips and products visit www.safetyrus.com

In my experience, there are three basic kinds of people. Wolves (a.k.a. the bad guys) are the first kind. They are the human predators, the ones that prey on the weak. The Sheeple (sheep + people) are individuals that believe it is society’s duty to protect them. These people blindly submit, even if it means death because they cannot bring themselves to use force. The third type of person is the Shepherd. Shepherds are those people who are strong and alert. They can protect themselves. Shepherds protect the weak because it is right and because they care. Police, Firemen, Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines are shepherds, but they are not the only ones. You don’t have to be one of those ready professionals in order to be a shepherd. Protecting your own family is enough. You don’t even have to carry a gun to be one; just stepping up and doing what needs to be done is all it takes. A shepherd knows that all wolves understand is force, and against someone like that sometimes force needs to be applied.
 

Force should never be used lightly. It is the province of serious individuals. People who use force must make sure that what they are doing is justified. Your mental state should be that while it is not desirable to hurt or kill another human, anyone that uses force to get you to submit to their will has probably done it before and will probably do it again. Is it better to do what a wolf wants and risk death simply because he wants no witnesses, or risk death and fight back? That is a decision only you can make based on the situation. Think about this, what good is it to submit to violence if the aggressor commits a similar crime next week to someone else?
 

The FBI’s uniform crime statistics suggests that there is a connection between submitting to the will of a criminal to avoid injury and being injured. However, before you decide to resist, you must seriously consider all available options. If all the criminal wants is something you can buy, borrow, or replace, then just give it to him. It is not worth your safety to fight over the twenty bucks in your wallet. If he wants to force you or a loved one to go with him, or if you truly believe he has another motive besides theft, then fight. You have to! Ask yourself is it better to be shot in a parking lot where people can get you medical attention, or to be found six months later in a shallow grave because you submitted to a kidnapers demand?
 

Remember it is not just yourself that you are protecting. On a practical level, you need to be alive for your loved ones. Your family needs you. If you are not there, who will be there for your family? On a larger level, in the equation between you and some criminal scumbag, the world is better served by you, not them, surviving the encounter.
 

Above all, you must never give up. You will be hurt, and you will probably be alone. Fear is a given, just don’t allow fear to paralyze you. Train hard and remember your training. Studies have shown time and time again that you fight like you train. Visualize different scenarios so that mentally you will be ready to survive and go home to your family. They need you.

Personal preparedness means different things depending on who you are and what your situation is. To an inhabitant of the Florida Keys, preparedness means having items to outlast a hurricane. To a city dweller, preparedness might be having a can of mace in her purse. To a survivalist, preparedness might mean having a semi trailer loaded with M14 rifles buried in the back yard. Depending on the situation, any of these definitions might be appropriate.

Personal preparedness is simply knowing what dangers are likely to befall you and taking reasonable precautions to avoid or survive them. In today’s modern world, insurance is a required item. No one laughs at a car owner that buys a full coverage policy for his or her car. As a matter of fact, a driver that fails to insure their car is looked upon as irresponsible, sometimes even criminal. The same thing can be said about homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, life insurance, and health insurance. Today people take out money for retirement in the form of IRA’s, 401K’s, mutual funds and the like. No one faults them. Why is it then that someone who has a pantry of stored food, candles, a rifle or two, and ammunition for them is considered crazy or dangerous? Isn’t it a logical extension of the doctrine of insurance? After all insurance is merely a device to lessen the extent a disaster has on your life. If having an extra insurance policy for break-ins is smart, then the idea of someone breaking into your home is possible. If it is likely that someone might break into your home, then having a means to protect yourself is justified.

Each year natural disasters occur in the United States. When these occur, the news media rushes to the scene. It never fails that they show a relief organization van at the disaster site. Usually there is an interview with someone who is standing in line looking for help. The site is common; a desperate parent with a hungry child waiting for someone to give them some milk for their infant. Ratings soar and people feel sorry for this poor child. Consider this, areas prone to natural disaster are known. Floods happen on a regular basis. Places like Tornado Alley have been recognized and named. If the choice is made to live in an area like this and the basic precautions are not taken, then pity is not the logical emotion. Irresponsibility on the part of the parent caused the child’s pain; it only takes a few extra seconds to grab a couple extra bottles of formula. Why didn’t they take this simple precaution? They probably paid the cable bill. Does that expense outweigh the measly cost of a gallon of bottled water?

Organizations like the American Red Cross and the Office of Homeland Security suggest that each family have a few days of essential items to get them through an emergency. Doing this is not hard nor does it have to be expensive. No one says that preparedness means having a years supply of freeze dried steak in a concrete storage bunker. Simply buying a can or two of extra food every time you go shopping is enough. Buy an extra box of garbage bags, some extra toilet tissue, or any item you have to have. Store it in a box under the bed, or in the closet. In hardly any time at all, you will soon have a store pile that will give you not only an added measure of security, but also a sense of well-being. Rotate this stock out. As you eat a box of macaroni, buy another. Forget that you have four boxes on your kitchen shelf. This causes you not to feel over burdened financially to support your prepared lifestyle. It also keeps your store fresh. An added benefit is that your safety net is familiar to you. In the stressful time of disaster, you don’t have the added stressor of eating unfamiliar foods chosen not by your appetite, but by their shelf life.

It is easy to lecture on what items are needed. Lists of essential items depend on lifestyle and location as much as physical needs. It would be irresponsible to dictate what equipment your family would need to survive without knowing you or your situation. You must sit down and decide what are your family’s priorities, and from that list correlate your family’s needs.

It is not important what others say or think of you. It is not even recommended to tell your neighbors you find the need to be prepared for life. Does it matter if they think you are crazy for stocking up added groceries? Will it matter if your children or spouse suffer because you want to keep the good graces of the people 2 doors down?

Preparing to buy your first handgun can be quite daunting. They aren’t cheap. New handguns range in price from $250.00 to $2,500.00. And to complicate the matter even further, there are many different manufactures and choices. I tell people in my carry permit course that there are as many different types of handguns as the manufacturers can talk people into buying. What is probably most confusing to someone new to this field is the fact that for every make and model of handgun, there are 3 gun magazine writers telling their readers that their particular brand or caliber or gizmo is the best, and 4 others saying that the gun in question will get the reader killed.

Yesterday I was asked my opinion about Glocks. I said that what I thought didn’t matter; it wasn’t my money or my safety on the line. My preference does not matter in the decision to buy your gun. My wife likes Glocks; I feel the same about revolvers. Our preferences differ. As long as you know your gun, why you chose it, and it fits your needs, then it’s the best gun for you. Now, that being said lets discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the two main types of handguns, semi-automatics and revolvers.

Revolvers are a type of pistol that has a rotating cylinder containing a number of firing chambers. They typically hold 5 or 6 rounds, each held in its own firing chamber. They are generally cheaper to purchase than a semi-automatic, with a new one from a major manufacturer such as Taurus or Rossi being in the neighborhood of $250.00. The major benefits of this type of handgun include:

They are easier to learn to manipulate, because there is generally fewer functions than a typical semi-auto.

They are normally easier for weaker handed persons to operate. This is due to the lack of a slide.

They are generally more reliable.

There is more choice of ammunition.

Revolvers are not as training intensive as a semi-automatic pistol (more about this later).

I prefer revolvers for home defense, as a home protection weapon will be stored loaded for an extended period of time. This is because they have fewer moving parts, which in turns makes them less sensitive to a lack of cleaning and maintenance than semi-automatics. I also recommend them for someone who is not going to train as intensively as recommended because this type of handgun has fewer functions to remember. In order to manipulate a revolver, one only has to operate the trigger and the cylinder release, whereas a semi-automatic pistol generally has a trigger, a magazine release, a slide lock, and at least one safety lever.

Revolvers do have disadvantages, and it is because of these disadvantages that police departments around the county have changed from them to semi-automatics. These disadvantages should be understood if the reader wishes to make a decision; therefore I will list them:

Revolvers are slower to reload than the typical semi-automatic. They are sometimes harder to conceal, due to width of cylinder. Revolvers do not normally hold as many rounds (5-6rds compared to 8 or 10rds in a semi-automatic.

Because a revolver contains separate chambers for each round, to fully load a revolver, the operator must put a round in each chamber (6 actions for 6 rounds). To fully load a semi-automatic the operator has to insert a single magazine into the pistol (one action for multiple rounds).

Semi-Automatic pistols fire a single cartridge each time the trigger is pressed. It automatically extracts the spent casing and prepares to fire another round. A semi-automatic is sometimes called automatic, but the difference is a true automatic can fire multiple rounds per trigger press. This seemingly small difference can cause tens of thousands of dollars in fines and years of time in federal penitentiaries, so be sure to know the difference. A semi-automatic holds its rounds in a single device called a magazine (it is possible to offend some hard-line gun enthusiasts by calling a magazine a clip). This magazine is normally inserted into the grip of the handgun. These handguns are the most popular, and they are that way for many reasons. Some of the most recognized reasons are:

Semi-autos can hold many rounds compared to a revolver. Normally a semi-auto magazine holds 8 to 10rds, but there are magazines capable of holding 15 to 30. They allow faster reloads. Due to popularity, there is a wider choice of accessories such as holsters available. They are easier to conceal due to thinner action than a normal revolver. It is easy to carry spare ammunition via preloaded magazines.

Iyt is because of the amount of rounds easily carried in magazines upon one’s body and the amount of rounds in the pistol that caused the semi-automatic to replace the revolver in the arming of our nation’s police. What has kept it there is the different features that are possible in a semi-auto. A police force or a private user can decide the type of safety devices or modes of operation that they want in a firearm and buy a brand that has those features. While this is a benefit, it also can become a drawback. The reasons for this are:

They are very training intensive. Before one begins to carry a semi-automatic for self-defense, it is recommended that the user fire 2 or 3 thousand rounds of the type of ammunition they intend to carry in their firearm in order to fully understand the function of their firearm. Semi-autos are more complex. This means more prone to fail. While modern firearms and ammunition can fire thousands of rounds without malfunction, it can and does happen. They are more expensive than a revolver. Firing them can be harder for people suffering from arthritis or of weaker stature to manipulate slide. This type of handgun is more sensitive to ammunition type. Some types of semi-automatics are more prone to jam with certain types of ammunition, which is another reason it is suggested to train with the type of ammunition you intend to carry.

The semi-auto type of firearm is very well represented in the world of guns. Because of this sales popularity, there are many different functions and characteristics. Comparing this is like comparing pickup trucks to cars. There are many brands of pickups (revolvers), but generally they all are basically the same. In the car (semi-autos) world, they have sedans, sports cars, wagons, convertibles, limousines, economy class, and luxury designs. You can buy a vehicle or a firearm based solely upon an arbitrary reason such as looks, popularity, or what the marketing hype in a gun magazine tells you. You may also buy a tool such as this by deciding your needs and weighing your options.