Situational Awareness - It's Not Just For Girls

My youngest son, Monster, got jumped yesterday.  We got to spend an entire afternoon in Urgent Care getting CT scanned and X-rayed.

We preach situational awareness on this blog.  Being aware of your surroundings gives you the opportunity to avoid bad situations.  But, I think I've been guilty of preaching it more to females than males.  Obviously, I did it with my own kids.

I told Ashinator, from the time she was little, to listen to her gut.  If something doesn't feel right, it's not, and to get away or don't enter the situation.

I must have missed giving that speech to Monster, because not only did he enter the situation, but he escalated it.  He was cutting through a field from his grandma's house to 7-11, there were a couple of older kids (18-19 years old) in the field who started yelling and taunting him.  At this point, I would have turned around and gone home or given them a wide berth.  But that's me and I'm old and I don't really want to fight anyone unless I have to.  Monster, on the other hand, wouldn't take getting yelled at and taunted, he yelled back.  They approached each other and he got the ever-loving shit kicked out of him - hit in the face with a skateboard, knocked out, kicked a couple of times in the gut, got his left hand stomped on (the swelling on that was impressive) and had his $20 "jacked" (<-- that's teenager-speak for stolen).

I failed on two accounts with him: I didn't impress the importance of avoiding situations like that, nor did I get it through his thick skull that maybe he shouldn't anger so easily, which escalated the situation.  So they called him names, so what?  They didn't know him, how on earth could he take it personally?  But, at 17, I guess you take it personally.

It could have been so much worse than it was - nothing was broken (except my bank account when the bills come due) and really the only thing injured was his pride.  The bruises will go away, but I hope that he learned a lesson about being aware of his surroundings and not escalating a situation.  Just walk away, or better yet, don't get into a situation like that.

And I hope, by sharing this, that it will be a reminder that we need to teach our children, of both genders, about situational awareness.  They need to know to be aware of what is going on around them at all times - this is getting harder and harder with kids, because they're always plugged into their phones or their iPods.  They form a little coccoon around themselves and block out what's going on around them - a very dangerous situation.

An Invite

I'd like to invite you to check out the new pages we've added.  You can get to them by either clicking the tab up top or clicking on the pictures in the sidebar to the right.

Mrs Mom started her own company, not too long ago, making paracord accessories.  Not just the bracelets that everyone sports, but also custom rifle slings and horse accessories.  You can find her stuff by clicking the "Accessories" tab.

As you know, I've been doing some training with Double Tap and have added him as one of our GunDudes.  Not only is he a hell of a shooter, but he's also a hell of an instructor.  The "Training" tab will give you all of the information you need to take one of his classes.

And no sales pitch would be complete without a reminder that we only have about twenty original GunDiva shirts available.  Get them while you still can - they're great range shirts in that the collars lie flat and don't gape for hot brass to find its way inside.  I wear mine all the time.

OOooohhhh... Aaahhhhhhh... *Survival*

Last month, GunDiva posted about attending a local gun show and observing the reaction of people as they passed by the paracord items for sale. I believe she referred to them as "magic talismans", and wondered if a poll of passers by would know what to DO with a cord item should they need to utilize the cord.

Which got me thinking- how many people out there can take apart and use a bracelet (or other item) should the need arise? What would you use the cordage for? 

Thinking this over caused me to change the way I make things a bit. I went to reverse engineer a bracelet (to reuse the cord for another item,) and let me tell you what. It was A. Huge. Pain. In. The. Rump. It took me a substantial amount of time to get the glue to release and I wound up cutting bits of cord to release it. The trouble I had - from something I made mind you- caused me to reconsider how we make things and completely change things. No longer will we be gluing ends-- oooh no. Now, I thread all ends back through, making it easy to use a pair of needlenose pliers (like those found on pocket multi-tools,) to pull the end free and begin reversing the braid to use the cord. Your goal can be accomplished in less than half the time on the glued items. (Don't even tell me you don't carry a multi-tool!! Those things are darn near priceless. I don't leave home without mine.)


Now- another bit of info- most bracelet braids use one foot of cord per inch of bracelet. For example, if you wear a 7" bracelet, you should have roughly 7 feet of cord to use. Most of the rifle slings we produce contain 80' to 150' of cord. If you have an item with more than one color in the braid, be aware that you will have a splice about midway, so you'd have roughly 3 1/2' of each color (once again using the 7" bracelet example). Which is not a bad thing- you can securely knot the two ends together to assure a solid connection and carry on.

What the heck do you DO with the cord, once you've undone your bracelet/ sling/ thong?

Cord has a vast multitude of uses. From holding a tarp shelter roof up, to helping bind bandages over a wound, the ways to use cord in an emergency situation are countless. The best bet? Buy a couple of items (or make them yourself, they are quite easy to do,) and practice. Take them apart, study how the braid unravels, and look hard around you to see where you could use a bit of cordage in your life. For me, being a horse and dog owner, cord has endless uses around the animals. Right now, there is some snazzy red and white cord holding up our mater plants in the garden. I have used cord to do an emergency catch on a horse who busted out and ran off from his owner. The Locust Brothers use cord to go "fishing". I used cord last Spring to tie a mattress down when my tie down strap went missing from the truck for a few days.

As GunDiva said- your brain is your primary survival tool. Always has been, always will be. When it comes to survival, you HAVE to think outside the box. A good multi-tool, keen observation skills, and an ability to stay calm and think will cover your butt amazingly well.

Think it over and get creative!
~Mrs Mom

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Thoughts on the UN Gun Treaty

What's on my mind, and many of yours, is the UN treaty on small arms.   I've received several emails regarding the apparent signing of the treaty on July 27th.  I've read the NRA pieces, I've read other blogs and even attempted to read the treaty itself to reserve judgment for myself.    Wayne LaPierre told the UN last year "despite claiming that they (the UN) had no designs on civilian gun ownership, had nevertheless made "endless demands for record keeping, oversight, inspections, supervision, tracking, tracing, surveillance, marking, documentation, verification, paper trails, databanks, new global agencies and data centers" without respecting anyone's right of self-defense, privacy, property, due process, or observing personal freedoms of any kind".

Let’s think this through for a moment.   The United Nations is made up of many countries, if not all but two or three,  that do not allow for private firearms ownership.  It’s not a right their citizens have so why would they give a rat’s ass about yours?  They don’t, and you know this.  Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and other bad apples (all UN members) won’t abide by any U.N. Mandate to track arms shipments when it does not work in their interest to track.   These players have long made a priority of supplying AK-47’s and other small arms to almost any revolutionary that opposed a democratically elected Government.    The deck is stacked, the countries of the world do not believe in our Bill of Rights, let me rephrase that statement, the politicians and despots of the countries that make up the UN do not believe in our Bill of Rights, and those countries make up the majority of the nations that make up the UN.   Mexico backs this treaty as well and we know that they want to pin their woes to arms suppliers of our country.

I took a class on the constitution over the spring, a class from Hillsdale College.   I took many ideas away from the class, but several points really stand out.   A Government will enact no law upon the citizenry and exempt itself.   That’s one idea that has been forgotten time again by our Government officials.   Healthcare past and present, Social Security, Insider trading laws are three areas I can think of off the top of my head in which our Government, elected by the people, enacted on us and not themselves.   Secondly, a power once granted to the Government is going to be used at some point.   This points heavily to untended consequences of existing laws.  Laws written vaguely or broadly enough to encompass new methods or technology which was not in existence at the time the law was written.   So, applying this point the UN arms treaty, if they do not intend this treaty to impact civilian ownership of firearms, write it in such a way to expressly exempt civilian ownership.  The UN, not having done this can then exercise the write to enforce registration, tracking, etc… at some future time when the outcry has subsided.   Loss of freedom through incrementalism, we know about that, it’s getting pecked to death by ducks.   Take just these two things away and you can see that our own Government could sell us out to the UN and exempt themselves.   Lastly, the study of human nature, our founders were very smart men for their times and they recognized that man has both good intentions and greed in himself.   The politician believes he/she is helping his/her constituents, but at the same time is always trying to cement his/her own power.   Better believe this point, this is why all politicians fail us in the end, they become more concerned about their own power than our freedom.  

Lastly, I’d like to point out that even if the administration signs the treaty the senate has the last word on treaty ratification.   No less than 57 Senators have written the administration and said they “unequivocally oppose” the treaty that would impact civilian ownership of firearms.   However, they are politicians and they will serve themselves in this area.  Western Democrats will lose re-election on this issue alone and they no know it.    Harry Reid himself gets an A rating from the NRA.   Here comes the plea, call your senators, voice your concerns, email your senators – write your concerns.   Do it daily, write a 10 minute letter and keep it in MS Word, copy and paste it into their form everyday for the month of July– done.  Don’t let those Senators forget, and make sure they know you won’t forget.

Remember Charlton Heston?  Yep – “from my cold dead hands…”

Double Tap

HACKED!

If you received an email from us today, it wasn't really us.  We got hacked :(

I think I've got it straightened out now, but if you get an email from thegundivas at hotmail dot com, please check the subject line.  I will always place a description up there - if it's blank, it's probably not from us.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Not a Long-gunner

I've always said that between Tara and I, we make a really good all-around shooter; she's a natural with her rifle and works hard with her handgun, I'm exactly the opposite.

Pistol shooting pretty much comes easy to me.  That's not to say that I'm an incredible shot or that I can shoot a match-head off at 50 yards (I can't), but pistols are just more comfortable for me.  I understand and handle them easily.

Rifles, on the other hand, take a lot more work for me. I'm okay with rifles, but feel like I don't know enough about them to be very comfortable.  Maybe I should clarify, scoped rifles. Give me open sights and I can hold my own out to 100 yds. I did fairly well in the two 1,000 yd matches I shot (192/200 and 188/200) with borrowed rifles, but I kind of feel like I was cheating.  I was using someone else's gun each time that had already been zeroed in - all I had to do was take into account the wind and press the trigger, maybe make a small altitude adjustment.

This sounds silly, but I'm comfortable shooting at 1,000 yds with their rifles, but I'm not at all comfortable shooting at any closer distances.  Why?  Because I've really only ever shot long distances and I don't know how to make the adjustment to shorter ones.

My husband and I have two Remington 700s, one in .223 and one in .308 and we rarely shoot them.  Now, I know the .308 will go out 1,000 yds (with the right glass, which I cannot afford right now), but we're not looking for long-range type stuff.  We want to be able to hunt with them and I really have no idea how to get them zeroed in.  I know there's a bunch of formulas out there for how to zero for different distances and stuff.  The problem is that my eyes cross and my mind goes blank whenever anyone tries to explain it to me. 

And then you have to factor in the glass, which is a whole other learning curve.  So many different types of scopes and reticles.  MOA, WTH?  It gives me a headache to try and figure it out.

I know to zero Tara's long-range gun in, we zero at 76 meters and we'll be on at 1,000 yards.  I understand the flight path of the bullet and "get" that part.  But to figure out how to do my own rifles for much closer distances?  Not a clue.

Luckily, I have an old shooting buddy, Z,  who can do this stuff in his sleep and has agreed to go out with us tonight and bring his lead sled. I figure I'm not very good at this zeroing in business so if I can take the human error out of it by using the lead sled, we'll be a step ahead.  Plus, Z is a damn genius with this stuff, so maybe I'll learn something.

But, probably what's going to happen is that my eyes are going to cross and my mind is going to go blank. Hopefully it will make sense to hubby.

Wish us luck.  Maybe, some day, in a million years or so I will be able to talk intelligently about shooting with a scope at different ranges.

Gun Lust

I've got it bad.

I came across a deal on one of my wish list items, and I am trying to figure out if the deal is workable. The object of my desire: the Smith & Wesson 627 V-Comp. Here, let me help you visualize it.

(photo courtesy of Smith & Wesson's website)

Eight rounds of .357 magnum revolvery goodness. Performance center tuned action. Removable compensator. Five inch barrel...which I consider to be Goldilocks (not too short, not too long, but just right). I'll be right back...I need a cold shower.

The dealer is offering it at just under MSRP which is not bad considering that there are some dealers attempting to charge more than MSRP...when you can find them in stock. I see a lot advertised for less than MSRP...but, they are on back order. This guy has more than one in stock, and he is willing to take a partial trade AND do layaway. 

It's too much to resist. The shame of it all is that the only way this deal works is if I give up one of the guns currently in inventory...unless a friend comes through on his inclination to purchase a certain junk car currently in my possession. If he does, that covers my layaway down payment and gets me a third of the way to physical possession of my new hog leg.

Decisions, decisions. It will be the single most expensive firearms purchase I've made to date and perhaps ever. But. I. Don't. Care. 

Further updates as events warrant.