Monday, June 04, 2007

Hurricane season upon us! My reccomendations.

No, I am not going to repeat the same old hurricane preparedness list we read everywhere. I did see that some important and official sites still have the old Supply-For-Three-Days mantra when the new one is for five at least. So make you corrections accordingly.

Of course I am going to mention guns. They are not in any official list, but we know we need them. During the aftermath of Katrina here in South Florida, I was well served of having my loyal WASR 10 handy when three youyng fellers drove by at the wee hours of the and thought my house was easy pickings. They were kinda in a hurry after a quick display of my Romanian Devil.

So, you are now a thoughtful member of society or you might have suffered or saw poeple being abused by gangs of looters and has decided that is time to upgrade your hurricane kit with some firepower, What should you get? Two considerations: Money and Disposition.

Before we continue, if you are the type of moron that thinks "I just want a gun to scare them off or maybe shoot them in a leg. I don't want to kill anybody", please leave this blog by clicking here. If you are still undecided, click here.

First: The Four Rules of Gun Safety.

ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED.
(It means don't trust anybody (including yourself) who says "don't worry, it is not loaded because it will be.)

NEVER AIM AT ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY.
(It is obvious, no? if you point a gun accidentaly or otherwise, you better be sure you won't mind losing it. That includes belongings (yours and other people's), Limbs (Yours and other's), Human Life, Animal Life, etc.)

KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOU ARE READY TO SHOOT.
("I swear it just went off" is 99% of the times BULLSHIT! You were fingerfucking with the trigger till you killed something. It is your fucking fault.)

BE AWARE OF YOUR TARGET AND WHAT'S BEHIND IT.
(Make sure your target is a target and not grandma taking a crap on the woods. Also, bullets and stuff like that may tend to overpenetrate and keep giong so somebody standing behaind your intended target may also get hit.)

The idea of a firearm is to defend your Castle A.K.A. your home. So we are going to look for something that it is easy to use and intimidating: The pump shotgun. You can't go wrong with a 12 gauage smoothbore pump shotgun for home defense. Be ready to spend at a minimum $300 between the shotgun, the FFL transfer, a good sling (tactical prefered. more confortable) and ammunition. You may also want to add a light and a clamp to hold the light for those nocturnal situations. Once you get the shottie and the ammo, go to the frigging range and practice! Watching waht Bruce Willis or whomever does it in the movies is not training enough. You have to learn how to operate the shotgun, how it recoils, how the pattern spreads (or where the pellets goe depending how far you are from the target), etc. If you can, get trained, it will be worthwhile.

As for the ammo, I (as my very particular taste) keep it between #00 buck and slug. My shotgun will spread #00 buck pellets in a two-fist size up to a chest-sized target at 15 yards, anything farther than that I'll be switching to slug to make sure the target goes down. 15 yards is a perfect shooting distance for my house, yours may differ so plan accordingly!

Remember to keep the shotgun out of the hands of Children (and idiots that wanna play with it) and keep it always close to you while the emergency is running. Check your local laws for any regulation that may apply.

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