Thursday, October 8, 2015

Whats in your closet?

You found your piece of heaven, a quaint house in a small town that is a short drive from the "big city" where you work. It is close enough that you don't mind the commute, but far enough that the riff raff don't make it out there. You know the neighbors, they are a great bunch. You volunteer for neighborhood projects, and go to the high school ball games on Friday night.
All is well.
Then, one day as you are leaving work, you flip on the radio, and your world collapses around you. The elderly widow who live two houses down has been attacked in her home. She has been beaten and robbed. No broken bones, no life threatening injuries, she will recover in due time.
Her attacker is another matter. You recognize his name immediately. He was a promising running back in junior high, used to mow lawns in the neighborhood, but got into drugs, dropped out of school and into a life of petty crime.
The local constable happened by as he was exiting Mrs McGinty's house, and instead of surrendering and gong to jail, he opted to fight, and was killed on the spot with Mr McGinty's old pistol clutched in his fist. Neither he nor the officer knew it was a replica incapable of firing, but now he is dead, and the vultures are swooping in.
In short, he was black, his victim and the officer were white, and your humble town is now the latest Ferguson. Don't think it could happen? Think again. We are living in a nation turned upside down by the lack of substance and ailed policy that permeates Washington today.
Are you ready? You don't have a bug out location, this was your bug out location. Now it is set to become the scene of epic riots, looting and mayhem. Are you ready?
AR-15? Check. Shotgun? Check. a Glock for you and the Missus? Check and Check. Enough ammo to fight and win the battle of Khe Sanh? Yes, and a pile for the reenactment of Bastogne as well. When the rioters storm your block intent on burning it to the ground, you will be ready.
Unfortunately, you are NOT. What you have is over kill. When your block becomes a killing field, the houses arround you will not protect your neighbors from your fire, and assuming they are equally armed, you will be in mortal danger from them.
What? Abandon ship? No, not in the game plan. Fighting smart is though.
Behold the humble .22. Yes, that .22, the one at the back of the closet, the one you used to take hunting squirrel and rabbit, and the mighty tin can. That 22.
Don't under rate the rimfire, it claims more lives each year than any other caliber excluding war. Used properly, it can stop a man in his tracks with out killing him.
Better off dead? Not always. In the confusion of a riot, the bark of a .22 rifle might go unnoticed. The screams of some one who has just been shot in the groin will grab every ones attention, and they will be all too happy to take their social(ist) justice to some other venue. The odds of the next rioters being armored like the Umpqua shooter are a real possibility. Most body armor covers vital organs, the head, heart lungs, and upper torso. Arms legs, and often the family jewels are exposed, and easy picking for a rifle that fells rabbits at 150.
A .22 is lethal beyond its effective range. With a little practice, that effective range can stretch beyond what you might imagine. A mile? No! but 250 to 300 yards against a human size target is possible and easy. A soda bolle and duct tape will quite it down to a throaty cough, and when the rioters don't have a clue where the shots come from, they will not want to remain in the duck gallery for long.
Back before Obomunism swept the ammo off the shelves, I advocated having a good .22 for training. If you still have it, it can be a great supplement to your battle plan as well.
So dust it off, clean it up, site it in, and be ready to defend your castle.

5 comments:

Old 1811 said...

Heard a story. Don't know if a word of it is true:
During the intifada in Israel a couple decades ago, the IDF's secret weapon was a scoped, suppressed Ruger 10/22 loaded with subsonic ammo. A rifleman so equipped would find a good hide, and when the first oppressed youth picked up a rock or a firebomb to throw at the police, he would get shot in the, um, sensitive parts. After he went down, the next guy to pick up a rock or firebomb would get shot in the same place. It didn't take long until the youths all seemed to hear their mothers calling them for dinner.
Of course, it's just a story. In the United States, the only reason to shoot someone is to stop a violent crime, and deliberately shooting someone there constitutes aggravated battery.

JeremyR said...

The IDF does that as a form of less than lethal. Quite effective too.

Old 1811 said...

I know. My point is, it's illegal to shoot someone with the goal of "less-than-lethal." You can't shoot to wound, no matter what Mayor Daley said in '68.

JeremyR said...

My point is that when things fall apart here you may need some means to protect your life that is outside the box. And yes, you can shoot to wound. It is still considered deadly force, and those rules apply.You can't do it unless your life is in danger, or if state law allows, your property. If a mob coming down the street is destroying property as the move through, you have a right to protect yourself. As I see it, once SHTF, all the rules by fools go out the door, and the law of the jungle becomes the law of the land.
If by chance, law and order are restored, you have the right to remain silent, and should always do so. Never admit you were shooting to wound if that is the case. From a personal standpoint, shooting to wound is better on the conscience. It demoralizes the mob, and may keep me from having to kill more. One wounded vs five or six dead?

Old 1811 said...

Not arguing your logic. In fact, I agree with it. But the law doesn't follow logic. I don't know of a jurisdiction in the U.S. where it is permissible to use deadly force with the intention of wounding someone.
"If a mob coming down the street is destroying property . . ." You can't shoot to protect property in most jurisdictions, and the fact that "you have a right to protect yourself" does not translate to "you have a right to protect your property."
"As I see it, once SHTF, all the rules go out the door . . ." But as you see it doesn't count. Once order is restored (and it will be), the deciding factor is how the court sees it, not how you see it, as many people found out to their sorrow after Katrina.
I'm not going to tell you what to do. But you have to look at reality. And if, say, three people are shot in the same nonvital place on your street, you can't very well claim that you jerked the trigger.