Firearms

It occurred to me the other day that someone reading this blog might wonder how, with all of my preparedness efforts, I’ve never once mentioned firearms. There are a couple of reasons for this, and I suppose I should lay them out.

First: As someone who reads a ton of survival blogs (at last count, I had about 30 I subscribed to in my Google Reader), some good and some less so, I find there are already plenty of voices out there talking about self-defense, and, frankly, I question whether I really have anything to add to what is conversation with like a million voices. I actually think that some people seem to over-emphasize this area to the exclusion of other things that are just as important, and even if they don’t, most of the people discussing it know a lot more about it than I do.

Second: My husband is, until now, the one that has been tasked with the firearms portion of our preparedness. We have several at home, and he is well-trained to use them. Because of this, until now I decided to work on other areas that have seemed at least as pressing to me, such as my family’s ability to eat, drink, and cook food in a disaster situation. (For the record, my husband is also pretty highly trained medically, so this is another area – with the exception of my Red Cross training – that I’ve basically left up to him until now.)

Third: Not to put too fine a point on it, I’ve been a little concerned with who would be reading this blog. There are a few people in my family, and in my husband’s, who are kind of anti-guns, and I really just didn’t want to deal with any “discussions” that might ensue from my being open about this subject. Yeah, I know – it’s kind of wimpy, but don’t tell me there aren’t things you avoid talking about with your family…everyone has them. If you really don’t, what can I say? I envy you.

So, that’s it – that’s why I haven’t talked about this before. However, now that my husband will be away for a while, and we will have a new baby, I guess the time has come that I need to think about home defense on my own.

About firearms training, I’ve found it surprisingly hard to find a basic firearms class that works with my schedule, until recently. Saturdays are no good for me, and it seems that most of the classes are on Saturday. I finally found one that is given regularly during the week at a local gun club. I’m excited, even if it will have to wait a little bit. Given that I’m due to give birth in about two weeks, I decided to sit on the class until I am (somewhat) normal sized again (i.e., not the size of a short bus), and my center of gravity of back in its usual place.

That’s it – I will post more about this subject as it comes up. Have a good Friday!