Microaggressions, cultural appropriations, “fat/gay/trans/etc.” shamings. “Up” is a pejorative that insults the vertically challenged. “Down” is code for racism/sexism/homophobia. Breastfeeding “… might inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments.”
Political correctness is well on its way to locking this country up. If you can’t say anything without offending someone, then you’ll end up not being able to say anything at all. Case in point is a graphic tweet by presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that attacked Hillary Clinton and contained a six-pointed red star containing tightly packed text.
OMG! A Star of David! What an insult to Jews/Muslims/atheists/Christians/… !
Sigmund Freud
Folks, for more years than I’ve been alive, my local sheriff has been wearing a six-pointed star on his chest. And as far as I can tell, no one has ever accused him of being either pro- or anti-Israel. But for crying out loud! Snowflakes are hexagons. What group do you suppose they’re attacking?
Let me break this down. The Donald didn’t create that graphic. He has people for that. The designer used a star because it is an action graphic (as opposed to a circle or a square). The designer used a six-pointed star because it gives a lot more interior area for text than a five-pointed star.
That’s it. Or, Sigmund Freud once famously said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Preppers understand that speech can be a powerful tool for liberty or a tyrannical bludgeon.
And that’s one of the reasons we prep.
The mailbox
There was some good (and not so good) advice in the comments from last week’s column, but one in particular needs a bit of amplification. A poster expressed his displeasure with this and previous columns, suggesting that it might be a good idea to get a real “weapons expert.”
I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment. The purpose of my column is simple. I believe we are in a time of high opportunity and great danger. In roughly thousand-word weekly blocks, I’m trying to guide people – who’ve been taught all their lives to bow their heads at the alter of Big Nanny – that a day is soon coming when the state won’t be able to feed them or clothe them or protect them. I’ve owned guns for 40-plus years. I keep up on the latest advances and I do a lot of my own repairs. I’ve bought and sold a lot of guns over many years. But I’m no gun expert.
I’m a prepper expert.
I’m a generalist, a family practitioner, kindly old Doc McLene. If you need a bone set or an infection treated or a baby delivered, I’m your man. But if you need brain surgery, the best I’ll be able to do is point you to the right specialist.
So don’t blindly take my advice on anything. There are some real gun experts out there, guys who can tell you really important things that I frankly don’t care all that much about. As a proud prepper, the guns I want to own should be inexpensive to acquire, easy to use and repair, and capable of firing common ammunition repeatedly and accurately. And that’s my main prescription.
In the past few weeks, we’ve reviewed handguns and shotguns as tools for the prepper and I made the suggestion that the first gun for a new prepper should be a handgun. Despite my personal love for the roaring might of a shotgun, my opinion remains unchanged. Simply put, a handgun, backed by extensive practice and tactical understanding, can do pretty much anything a shotgun can do – with one additional virtue.
Try stuffing a shotgun down your pants and you’ll see what I mean.
There are places in our nation where it’s against the law for free men and women to carry the means of their own defense. Now I’m not advising anyone to break the law, but if you decide that being judged by twelve is better than being carried by six, you’ll find that hiding that handgun on your body is considerably easier than stiff-leg driving or walking into the grocery store like Frankenstein.
Nevertheless, there are a number of reasons to own a shotgun or two, and we covered some of those last week. But here’s another great reason: you can get a new (or preferably privately-owned) good quality shotgun for often far less money than a handgun.
As an example, I recently purchased two Rock Island Armory M5 shotguns in practically new condition from a prepper estate sale for under $400, including a hundred rounds of buckshot. Take out the cost of the shotshells and that’s getting pretty close to $150 each.
Rock Island Armory M5 shotgun
Now as to the semi-auto/double-barrel/pump varieties: last week I suggested that due to availability, the smart prepper should stick with the 12ga. For the same reasons, if you’re looking for reliability, ease of maintenance and repair and the greatest chance of finding spare parts, go with the pump. Semi-autos are fun and I own one, but with practice a pump can be plenty fast.
If you’re buying for home defense, get a shorter barrel. Not because a shorter barrel will cause a wider shot pattern – it doesn’t (that’s another shotgun myth) – but a shorter barrel is more maneuverable around tight places. If you’re thinking shotgun for hunting, a longer barrel gives you an extended sight plane and can increase your accuracy.
There are a lot of good 12ga. pump-action shotguns out there, the Remington 870 and the Mossberg 500 variants being some of the most common. But whichever you ultimately end up with, a shotgun can fill an important place in the hunting and self-defense needs of the prepper.
The next gun category I’ll survey will be the most contentious of all: the rifle. However because it’s such a controversial and combative subject, I think next week I’ll take a break from gun talk and cover a less hostile question: the prepper difference between men and women.
Until then, keep your powder dry and get prepared.
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Pat McLene is an avowed country boy by way of a stint in the military, working in a foundry, a degree in a field of hard science, small business owner, and small farmer. He’s been a hands-on prepper for more than 20 years with experience in food raising and preservation, water supply, off-grid communications, building and construction, tool-making, and more. He currently resides in a rural area of the American Redoubt. Read more of Pat McLene's articles here.
