It is that time, unfortunately. Is your kit ready?
Since this is turning out to be a urban event with a smattering of suburban incidents, I believe that being impeded to get home using your vehicle or being caught outside during curfew are the strong possibilities. Besides your bags, I would recommend to have a list of hotels in your area of operations memorized or noted down. Obviously it depends on the local Quarantine orders, but if your area is open, you may need to find shelter fast. A piece of advice: Don’t arrive at the hotel kitted up like you are going to Fallujah or more than likely they will flip the NO VACANCY sign on you. If you are a reward’s member of a particular hotel chain, the manager will try to find a spot for you to stay even if the hotel is full.
Your kit may vary with your needs and locations, but I figure 2-3 days of food, water and underwear plus any meds you may need.
Thoughts, additions?
I live in the country. Nearest riots are 50 miles away. So far all is peaceful and normal here. If needed I can shelter in place. Plenty of supplies in the house.
Prepaid burner cell phone was recommended in Facebook
Just remember, a lot of times those have to be “activated” before you can use them, and they have a minimum number of “minutes” to use every month. So you can’t just buy one and throw it in the car and start using it two years later (except 911….911 always works, regardless of whether the phone is activated or not)
Why use a burner phone? I can understand that if the government goes to h*** and you need to be low observable. But as a riot preparedness tool, why not your regular cell phone?
Another option, if you have the necessary paperwork/training, is a ham radio handheld transceiver.
I don’t know the reasoning from Facebook, but I can see the logic in a phone that is cheap, has a very long battery life (especially if left turned off), and maybe on a different carrier than my main phone, as an emergency backup.
Living in Germany so I’m not in immediate danger but the short barreled AR or AK I wanted for a while now seems long overdue 😀
For hunting, of course, lot of mangy foxes in our area.
A medium sized backpack, around 20-40l, packed with the “essentials” and a bandolier or decidedly NOT-tacticool looking rig filled with loaded mags might be a good alternative.
Sure, the kitted out vest is nice and all but in times of tension you don’t want to look like Beardy McOperaterface so everyone remembers you – but the average joe with the backpack and the windbreaker? Plenty of those going around.
A drinking bladder filled with conserved water in the backpack leaves room for other stuff – because rigid drinking vessels are bulky – and cereal bars are a great way for lightweight and compact food. Sure freeze dried food is nice but you need water, more often then not hot or boiling to use these and while that is not that difficult (a small solid fuel or ethanol stove goes a long way) it takes time to prepare and forces you to stay in one place.
Clothing depends on the person and so do medical supplies – but Miguel wrote a lot about that.
Rule of threes:
1) 3 minutes without air. Make sure you have your medical kit with you. Both in the vehicle size and something that you can take with you. We use a 3 stage system, something that is attached to me, something that is attached to the edc/bag, something stored in the vehicle. Make sure you have a weeks supply of all your meds. And mole skin, another sheet of it.
2) 3 Hours without shelter. Your vehicle makes great shelter, but if you can’t stay with your vehicle, make sure you have some sort of option. I love my army poncho liner and poncho, but way to tactical right now. Space blanket, sleeping bag, tarp, something to keep you sheltered from the elements, make sure you include a hat, socks and more unders than you originally thought.
3) 3 Days without water. To much water is a self correcting problem. If you don’t already have it, pick up a case of bottled water and throw it in your vehicle. That’s good enough. Have a water bladder in your get home bag, top it off if you have to leave your vehicle.
4) 3 Weeks without food. Food is heavy, we are carrying lots of spare food (at least this old fat man is). Everybody wants the food, if you think you need more food, add some more water. 72 hour rations taste bad but that will work. An MRE if you can carry it. For my small EDC it is 3 or 4 packets of the flat pack tuna fish. Keeps for ever and is an easy pack. That along with a high quality plastic spork and we are good.
5) 3 Months without hope. Not a real issue in a get home situation, but think about a deck of cards or something fun to do while waiting. A paper back book for example.
Security I leave up to you, regardless of what you have, you need to be able to carry it if you have to leave your vehicle. Have you tried walking a mile with your weapon on your belt? Maybe you should add some suspenders to your bag to hold up your gun belt while hiking.
You have that beautiful PC9 which takes nice glock mags. You have a couple of extra mags for it. Do you have a good sling on it? As one of the Youtubers says, “Think of your rifle sling the same way you think of your holster.” Make sure it is good and you can carry your rifle comfortably.
And as that sort of stupid thing, do you have a pocket sized cleaning kit. Not so much for cleaning, but if you get a squib or a stuck case, having something you feel comfortable pushing down the barrel to free up the obstruction or to get the case out might be the difference in keeping that firearm up and running.
Yeah…
I recently put a ConsoleVault (https://www.consolevault.com/) in the pickup. I can send a mini-review if anyone’s interested.
I’m also changing my regular carry from a Sprindfield XD-S (6 rounds of .45 ACP in the standard magazine) to a Sig P365XL (12 rounds of 9mm in the mag). Only 60% area per hole poked, but able to make twice as many of them, seems a reasonable trade to me.
Now I’m working on practicing with it – very different trigger, grips and sights from the XD-S – and locating a holster I actually like. Thinking about putting a red dot on it, but we’ll see.
One thing many people forget with a compact .45 – they are friggin loud.
Of course any gun is loud but the concussion out of a compact or subcompact .45 is positively deafening.
And while one wears hearing protection while going shooting you wont wear it when the shooting comes to you.
9mm is also loud in a vehicle. I’ve accepted that I will loose my hearing if I have to shoot, unprepared in a vehicle. On the other hand, part of my EDC, on me at all times, is foamy plugs to shove into my ears. If I have time, I’ll use them.
Look for aluminum pill bottles on amazon. They hold two or four foam ear plugs nicely. They are water proof and keep the plugs from getting gross in a pocket.
Just be aware that those that like to toke a little are using those self same pill bottles to hold their pot. I found this out when a much younger friend was visiting and saw my pill bottle for ear plugs and went “I didn’t know you toked up!”