Self-Defense Tip: Don't Shoot Perps In The Back

The example today is from an article in the Daily Mail entitled, "South Carolina gas store owner, 58, is charged with murder for shooting armed teen Cyrus Carmack-Belton, 14, in the back because he thought he'd stolen bottled water." The headline is wrong: the owner didn't shoot sweet, innocent Cyrus in the back because he thought Cyrus had stolen water, but because Cyrus was armed with a handgun. Nevertheless, that did not stop the owner, Rick Chow, from being charged with murder. 

    The basic story is that Cyrus went into the convenience store owned by Chow located in Columbia, South Carolina. Chow and his son thought Cyrus had shoplifted a bottle of water and confronted him about it, which resulted in Cyrus fleeing the store with Chow's son in hot pursuit and Chow following up behind. Chow's son shouted out that Cyrus had a gun after which Chow shot Cyrus, striking him in the back and killing him. I'm sure that Chow shot because he thought that Cyrus was going to harm his son.

    Police are seemingly incurious why 14-year old Cyrus had a gun, although they were quick to point out that he had not, in fact, stolen any water. The local black community was similarly swift in organizing to vandalize and generally destroy Chow's business. 

    We have seen instances where there were perfectly legitimate reasons why a suspect might get shot in the back, including the suspect shooting at an armed defender while running away or simply due to the slight delay in mental processing between acquiring a target and shooting which allowed the suspect enough time to turn and present his back to the armed defender between the time the defender decided to take the shot and when the shot actually went off. We don't have enough information to determine if either might be the case here. But that is neither here nor there because, even if it were the case, the shooting occurred after the suspect had exited the store. 

    Which brings me to the self-defense tip for today: if the suspect is running away, just let them go. If you want a more legalistic analysis, it is this: if the suspect is running away from you--left the building in this case--he (or she) is no longer an imminent threat.  

    There is obviously the complicating factor of Chow's son chasing the suspect and the possibility that Cyrus might have shot Chow's son. The pedantic will be able to come up with additional exceptions--e.g., a kidnapper making off with one of your kids. But as a general rule, when a criminal runs off it is like dropping your keys in molten lava: you just have to let them go.  

Update: It has now been confirmed that Cyrus was black.

New Defensive Pistolcraft Post

Jon Low has a new Defensive Pistolcraft post up as of May 24, 2023. It took me longer than usual to go through it because it was chock full of good information and links, which is why I am so tardy on reporting on it. As usual, I have attempted to pick out a couple things to whet your interest.

    One aspect of self-defense that is often over-looked from the defense side are what one source termed "psychological weapons" which essentially boils down to demoralizing or otherwise intimidating an opponent. Thus, it is common in historical periods, to see armor with garish designs or plumes to make the person look scarier or bigger. Cannon were sometimes cast to resemble some creature so that when it fired, it looked like a monster belching fire. Troops would yell and clash weapons to shield. In more modern times, we see close support aircraft painted with mouths filled sharp teeth and eyes like some beast of prey. 

    One of Selco's pieces mentions his encountering a man from the siege of Sarajevo who went around with a crazed look and demeanor and a machine gun hanging from one shoulder. According to Selco, no one messed with this guy because he was heavily armed and absolutely crazy and ruthless. Except, as Selco learned, the man wasn't that way. It was an act. And the machine gun was just something he gotten from a museum that didn't even operate. 

    While the "psychological weapons" discussed above has to do with military combat and warfare, the idea of intimidation carries over into self-defense.  Massad Ayoob recently had an article discussing the intimidation of criminals at gun point and whether the choice of firearm matters. Specifically, he was looking at choosing something big bore (i.e., .45 ACP) versus a medium bore weapon (.38 Special). He also discussed the advice (myth?) of racking a shotgun to scare away a criminal. Ayoob concluded that the weapon might intimidate someone, but not to count on it. Rather, he concluded, in the end "[t]hey fear the wielder, not the gun."

    Low gives some tips on making yourself a bit more intimidating--i.e., ready to do something violent to a criminal--and that actually do help you be better prepared to preemptively attack, counter attack (i.e., using the fencing definition of the term which is to attack before your opponent can complete his attack) or defend from an attack. He writes:

     What if you are not armed or have decided that you are not going to use a weapon yet?  How do you convince the enemy that you are ready, willing, and able to fight?  Body language.  

     Look at the enemy's hands and waist line.  

     Shut up.  (Idiots talk.  [Dirty Harry was a Hollywood character, not a real anything].  Operators strike silently, preemptively, without warning.  But you're so confident, you haven't decided to strike yet.  You're going to give this schmuck the opportunity to save his life by leaving.)  

     Stand up.  (If you can.  If you can't, move forward to the edge of your chair and prepare to push off from your toes and balls of your feet.)  

     Shoulders down and relaxed.  

     High chest.  (Imagine someone is pulling your nipples up.)  

     Tuck your chin and pull your head back, so your ears are above your shoulders as they should have been if you had good posture and weren't slouching.  So you will be looking at the enemy out of the tops of your eye sockets.  And your chin won't be sticking out to invite an uppercut.  

     Tilt you body forward if you are standing.  Tilt torso forward if you are sitting.  

     Shift your weight to the balls of your feet and your toes.  (Even if you are sitting.)  

     Flex your knees, if you are standing.  Prepare to push off, if you are sitting.  

     Practice doing this until the action is smooth and automatic, while looking at the enemy and surroundings.  

     The wimp may take a step back and raise his hands.  The hardened criminal may give you a hard look and flare his nostrils, clench his fists, or something like that.  If you don't get a good reaction from the enemy, time to acquire a weapon.  Lots of field expedient weapons all around you that you noticed upon entry.  Because you were paying attention.  

    One of the articles to which Low links has some important information on an orderly (or tactical) retreat. The article is by Hock Hochheim and discusses how to safely retreat (i.e., remove yourself) from a violent situation. Why would you want to do so? The biggest reason is that in many jurisdictions, unless you are in your home, you are required to retreat if you can safely do so before resorting to force. You might want to retreat to gain a tactical advantage such as cover, the ability to approach from a flank, and so on. You might want to retreat because what is going on isn't your fight. Low writes:

     Are you competent?  If not, your smart move is to leave.  Deciding to get involved, when incompetent, is effectively deciding to commit suicide.  What would your spouse and kids think of that?  

     "I won't be a coward."  

     Protecting your family's income and health is not cowardice.  

     "I have a duty as a citizen and human to defend others."  

     No, no, you don't.  The victim has a duty to defend himself.  His negligence, in not maintaining situational awareness, not acquiring a pistol, not carrying the pistol, not getting training, and not practicing is his sequence of choices that lead to his victimization.  He chose to be a victim.  Why would you interfere with the consequences of his choices?  (Well, if the victim is smoking hot, maybe.  Though in my experience, the damsels in distress that I have rescued, haven't given me a second glance.)  Remember, his choices were intentional.  Just as smoking, doing drugs, driving while texting will eventually kill a person, so the victim's past decisions will eventually kill him.  You can't save him.  You have no duty to try to save him.  Your imagined duty is from reading too many "knights in shining armor" stories.  

     "I am competent."  

     As Andrew Branca says, when you get involved, you take on the risk of death, serious injury (which means disabled, wheelchair, bed ridden, drooling on yourself in the nursing home, etc.), and spending the rest of your life in prison (with violent agressive persons who will eventually kill you, oh it's true that some people thrive in prison, get degrees and such, but not good people like us).  And you don't take on the "risk" of spending more money that you could possibly have; no, no, you will definitely spend that money because you don't want to spend the rest of your life in prison.  And if the first trial ends in a mistrial, you'll have a public defender for the second trial, because you won't have any money.  You're not Bill Cosby.  You don't have money for a second trial and appeals.  In America, you get as much justice as you can afford.  

     I have had real training in the Marine Corps.  I was a military policeman for a time in the Marine Corps.  I have had lots of training in civilian gun schools and conferences.  I practice a lot.  I have had combat experience at the individual level.  An objective observer would probably consider me competent.  I do not consider myself competent, in the sense that I am not sure that I can incapacitate the assailant and escape unscathed.  (Because that is my purpose, to escape, preferably unscathed.)  

     I know that getting involved will not end well for me.  CNN will label me a White-Asian (just as they labeled George Zimmerman a White-Hispanic), gun nut, and extremist (maybe a White Supremacist, because that's the label they used on the Mexican (not Mexican-American, just illegal alien Mexican) in Texas who shot up the Allen Premium Outlets north of Dallas, TX).  The local prosecutor, Glenn Funk, will prosecute me (remember Andrew Delke).  Black Lives Matter will be protesting in the streets.  So I have to be absolutely certain that shooting the young black male with a long violent criminal record (because statistically, that is the assailant) is the only way to protect my loved ones and myself.  As Andrew Branca says, after 20 years in prison, you have to be able to think to yourself, "Ya, it was worth it, I would do it again."  

     Oh, do you find this reality disturbing?  

     So even if you're competent, the smart move is to walk away.  

     And another good tip, this one on using cover/concealment:

     Your target area decreases as the reciprocal of the square of the distance from the threat. You may not be able to hide your entire body behind a telephone pole if you're standing right behind it, but take a few steps back and the 2-dimensional angle (measured in steradians) subtended by your body decreases and you are completely covered and concealed by the telephone pole.  (The closer the enemy is to the telephone pole, the worse it is for him, because the telephone pole will subtend a larger angle, obscuring more of the enemy's field of view.)  

     If the enemy moves left or right to shoot you, you will be able to see him at the edge of the telephone pole and shoot whatever part of him first becomes visible.  (Prefer the enemy's foot as opposed to the elbow or shoulder, as that will reduce the chance of hitting innocent bystanders in the background.  Ya, your bullet may ricochet, but ricochets have less energy than direct hits.)  

     Finally, I apparently missed one of Low's posts from earlier in May in which he had some comments about my article on disposing of dead bodies after SHTF. After linking to my article (thanks for the link, BTW), Jon adds:

     My experience working in hospitals and the morgues in those hospitals was that bodies start to stink within 4 hours of death.  

     In the Marine Corps we bring our dead home.  We search and then leave enemy dead.  No souvenirs, no desecration.  

     If you want to quickly eliminate the body, thermite.  Thermite is easy to make, aluminum powder and ferric oxide (rust from iron).  Thermite is available from welding supply stores.  Thermite blocks (12" X 12" X 3") for destroying the engine blocks of abandoned vehicles are available in most supply units (you pull a cord to ignite them).  If you don't have a 55 gallon drum, a hole in the ground will work, or any confined space (the trunk of a car, especially if the gas tank is under the trunk).  Or phosphorous grenades.  

In this most recent post, he addresses a reader comment about why he didn't address gasoline, essentially noting that in his experience using gasoline to burn things, gasoline can be dangerous and he doesn't have experience with gasoline. 

    I will make a quick observation about my article and sources from which I obtained the information: it was intended for survivors of a major SHTF event, most probably a major disaster or a major economic collapse combined with social upheaval, not military units in a war zone. The authors of the books from which I drew my information recognized that burning a body (cremation) was a possible means of disposal but dismissed it because it would use an ungodly amount of fuel--i.e., scarce resources that could be put to better uses--just to dispose of one body. Why would I waste a scarce resource (gasoline) to burn a body when I could put it to better use to power a vehicle or generator? 

Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 87 (Streamed May 24, 2023)

VIDEO: "Bombs & Bants Live! Ep 87" (39 min.)

I wasn't able to make it for this episode, so no pet care tips from me this week.

Active Self Protection: Lessons Learned From Analyzing 40,000 Gun Fights

 At one point, John Correia notes that it is extremely rare for video to come from inside a home, so the videos he has reviewed are for encounters in businesses or public areas. Anyway, you can download the slides used in the presentation here. Below are the presentations from the videos:

VIDEO: "Lessons Learned From Analyzing 40,000 Gun Fights - Part 1" (9 min.)

VIDEO: "Lessons Learned From Analyzing 40,000 Gun Fights - Part 2" (11 min.)

VIDEO: "Lessons Learned From Analyzing 40,000 Gun Fights - Part 3" (11 min)

Pre-Colombian Iroquois Armor

 As my LDS readers are aware, a significant portion of The Book of Mormon is a history of the many wars between the Nephite people and their enemies, collectively referred to as the Lamanites. Consequently, there are references to various weapons, armor, and battlefield tactics. Thus it caught my attention when I came across a couple videos recently concerning Iroquois armor, helmets, and shields, and which discuss how they would form up in military order. The author has tested his armor and it proves effective against the Pre-Colombian weapons even though it was formed from slats of wood bound by cording. But you can see why the Native Americans were so anxious to form military alliances with the early European settlers who had firearms capable of piercing the native  armor. According to the author, with the advent of firearms in North America, the Native forces quickly abandoned their armor.

    Unfortunately, information on the armor is limited: a few written descriptions, a single woodcut based on a sketch, and a couple examples in museums made well after the fact. So, much of the author's recreation also includes a lot of experimentation.

    The first video describes the historical references and the authors' experiments with reproducing the armor. In the second video, he demonstrates putting on and taking off the armor, as well as exercises to demonstrate its mobility. Although not shown, he describes some tests against Pre-Colombian weapons.

VIDEO: "Iroquoian wooden armor. Pt 1. Introduction"--Malcom P.L. (15 min.)

VIDEO: "Iroquoian wooden armor. Pt 2. Overview."--Malcolm P.L. (14 min.)

    As someone that is increasingly leaning toward the Heartland model for locating where The Book of Mormon takes place, I find the videos particularly intriguing because they probably would closely model the armor developed in the Book of Mormon period.

    A came across an article just on armor in The Book of Mormon entitled, appropriately enough, "Armor in the Book of Mormon" by William J. Hamblin. Although armor is referenced in The Book of Mormon and played a key part in battles, it was not described in very great detail. Hamblin indicates, for instance:

The two most complete descriptions are found in Alma. ln Alma 43:19, “Moroni had prepared his people with breastplates and with arm-shields, yea, and also shields to defend their heads, and also they were dressed with thick clothing.” On another occasion, Moroni “fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins” (Alma 46:13)

Hamblin ignores the comment about Mormon "gird[ing] on his armor about his loin," apparently taking it as a general reference to putting on the armor rather than a reference to specific armor for the waist and lower body. But as we see from the video above (as well as other historical examples), troops generally wore armor specific to that region of by body. 

    In any event, there are a few other notable points from Hamblins article. First, he found eight distinct terms for armor mentioned in the Book of Mormon: breastplate (11 times), shields (10 times), armor (9 times), 8 head-plates (7 times), arm-shields (2 times), animal skins (2 times), thick clothing (2 times), and bucklers (1 time). 

    Second, he notes that metal armor must have been extremely rare or non-existent among the Nephites. For instance, although there are many references to armor being made of "plates," there is only a single reference to metal armor: a passage in Mosiah 8:10. As you will remember, King Limhi had sent an expedition to search for the city of Zarahemla, but instead they came across the remains of the Jaradite civilization, at that time utterly destroyed. Hamblins notes that their discoveries included “breastplates, which are large, and they are of brass and of copper, and are perfectly sound” (Mosiah 8:10).  The fact that the narrative goes out of its way to describe the material of the armor suggests that it was, at least to the Nephites, very unusual. Moreover, Hamblins also observes that "from all the things they discovered, Limhi’s expedition chose to return with only three items: the twenty-four gold plates of Ether, brass and copper breastplates, and some rusted pieces of swords, implying that they were scavenging for metal and that metal was therefore something unusual and rare — even a piece of rusting metal was worth recovering." 

    If not metal, than what? Hamblin suggests that the use of the term plates and the descriptions of how they would sometimes fail (described as splitting in the case of head plates) suggests that some other hard material was used: probably bone or, as with the Iroquois armor, wood, worn over thick clothing.

Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 86 (Streamed May 17, 2023)

More fun and games with the gang:

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 86" (52 min.)

The Coming Tribulation

A couple videos on destabilizing forces/movements that are on the horizon. Couple this with the invasion of third world immigrants into Europe and the United States, and the complete disdain and hatred exhibited by the ruling elites and their Pretorian guards and it has the potential for some interesting headlines.

VIDEO: "The Coming Far Right Backlash"

Whatifalthist (51 min.)

VIDEO: "Why INCELS are a THREAT to WORLD PEACE"

Black Pigeon Speaks (17 min.)

VIDEO: "China doesn’t have 1.4 billion people. Its population is under 1 billion."

As you are probably already aware, China keeps much of its internal data secret and/or lies about conditions in the country. One of these areas seems to be its birth rates and overall size of its population. I've posted before that even using official Chinese statistics, the country's death rate has exceeded its birth rate for the last couple of years, but I've come across various articles and videos on this topic that have suggested the population has been shrinking for longer than that, perhaps far longer.

    In the video below, the presenter uses various statistics of items that are probably less likely to be faked by the Chinese government to try and come up with an estimate of the actual current population of China and concludes that the real Chinese population may be less than 1 billion--perhaps as low as 800 million.

VIDEO: "China doesn’t have 1.4 billion people. Its population is under 1 billion."

Lei's Real Talk (1 hr 6 min.)

Judge Strikes Down Age Restriction in 1968 Gun Control Act

Starting with the 1968 Gun Control Act, Congress started placing age restrictions on the purchase of firearms, including requiring a person to be 21 years old to purchase a handgun, while only needing to be 18 years old to purchase a long arm. (Prior to the act, there was no age restrictions and you will often come across stories from that time period of youths purchasing and/or carrying firearms while tweens or young teens). A federal judge in Virginia has struck down the requirement that someone needs to be 21 years old to purchase a handgun as being in violation of the Second Amendment.  Bloomberg Law provides some additional details:

    The right to purchase a handgun falls under right to “keep and bear arms,” and young adults are among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment, Judge Robert E. Payne of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at Richmond said Wednesday.

    Restricting the right of 18-to-20-year-olds to buy handguns, via an interlocking collection of federal law and regulations, isn’t supported by the nation’s history and tradition, Payne said. The government presented numerous militia laws from around the time of the nation’s founding, but they showed that 16 or 18 was the age of militia service then, he said.

    The government did not present any evidence supporting “age-based restrictions on the purchase or sale of firearms from the colonial era, Founding, or Early Republic,” Payne said.

    The earliest age restrictions for buying guns the government pointed to were laws passed in Alabama and Tennessee in 1856, Payne said. But none of the antebellum laws provided a definition of “minor” and “it is unclear to whom exactly they applied,” he said.

    Prohibiting 18-to-20-year-olds from purchasing handguns also isn’t presumptively lawful under the US Supreme Court’s growing Second Amendment precedent, Payne said. Though the Supreme Court allows some restrictions on gun sellers, the prohibition here is a blanket prohibition on buyers, “rather than a mere condition or qualification,” he said.

It also noted that the case is: Fraser v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives, 2023 BL 159607, E.D. Va., No. 3:22-CV-00410-REP, 5/10/23.

Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 85 (Streamed May 11, 2023)

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 85" (47 min.)

Schlichter: "We Must Defend Self-Defense"

I've written before of the contraction of the right to self-defense over the past several decades, so I was pleased to see Kurt Schlichter's article on the same issue. Key bit:

There’s a war going on against our sacred right to self-defense, and we need to defend that right, ruthlessly and vigorously against the communists who want us living in fear. And they do want us living in fear – sheep are easier to shear than sheepdogs. If you look what happened in New York City, where some mutant bum decided to threaten a bunch of people on a subway car, and then some heroes subdued him, and then he vapor-locked, and then the usual cast of liars and race-pimps screeched, you can see what they are doing – not merely trying to disarm us but trying to make us fear to defend ourselves at all. They want you terrified and impotent in the face of their unofficial militia, the criminals. The right to keep and bear arms means nothing if you are going to get jammed up whenever you have to use hot lead to stop the latest trans shooter, or junkie with a knife, or carjacker, or schizo hobo, or whatever. Which is the idea.

Most of the rest of his article is on how to stop the spread of this disease--mostly by paying attention to the elections of district attorneys and prosecutors for our particular city and county. Read the whole thing.

    The reason for all of this is two-fold: to make the populace dependent on the government and, perhaps more importantly, make the populace helpless in the face of the urban mobs. Fred Siegel, writing in the fall of 2015 at City Journal, warned of what he termed "The Riot Ideology, Reborn."

    In the summer of 1966, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach warned that there would be riots by angry, poor minority residents in “30 or 40” American cities if Congress didn’t pass President Lyndon Johnson’s Model Cities antipoverty legislation. In the late 1960s, New York mayor John Lindsay used the fear of such rioting to expand welfare rolls dramatically at a time when the black male unemployment rate was about 4 percent. And in the 1980s, Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry articulated an explicitly racial version of collective bargaining—a threat that, without ample federal funds, urban activists would unleash wave after wave of racial violence. “I know for a fact,” Barry explained, “that white people get scared of the [Black] Panthers, and they might give money to somebody a little more moderate.”

    This brand of thinking, which I have called the riot ideology, influenced urban politics for a generation, from the 1960s through the 1980s. Perhaps its model city was Baltimore, which, in 1968, was consumed by race riots so intense that the Baltimore police, 500 Maryland state troopers, and 6,000 National Guardsmen were unable to quell them. The “insurrection” was halted only when nearly 5,000 federal troops requested by Maryland governor Spiro Agnew arrived.

    In the years since 1968, Baltimore has proved remarkably adept at procuring state and federal funds and constructed revitalization projects such as the justly famed Camden Yards and a convention center. But Baltimore never really recovered from the riots, and the lawlessness never fully subsided. What began as a grand bargain to avert further racial violence after 1968 descended over the decades into a series of squalid shakedowns. Antipoverty programs that had once promised to repair social and family breakdown became by the 1990s self-justifying and self-perpetuating.

    In the wake of the 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri, and the 2015 West Baltimore riots, a new riot ideology has taken hold, one similarly intoxicated with violence and willing to excuse it but with a different goal. The first version of the riot ideology assumed that not only cities but also whites could be reformed; the new version assumes that America is inherently racist beyond redemption and that the black inner city needs to segregate itself from the larger society (with the exception of federal welfare funds, which should continue to flow in). This new racial politics is not only coalescing around activists claiming to speak for urban blacks—represented publically by groups like Black Lives Matter—but is also expressed in the writings of best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. And Baltimore is once again center stage.

He then explores the grift and corruption that resulted from the money extorted--that is the correct word--from whites ostensibly to keep blacks from burning down the city. Then, he continues:

    The riot ideology of the 1960s had been about cadging federal funds under threat of violence; the riot ideology of 2015 is about the smoldering resentment that led the underclass and its media and political enablers to argue that racist cops produced depraved urban behavior. David Simon, the idiot-savant creator of HBO’s award-winning The Wire, which glamorized Baltimore’s black drug “crews,” blamed the legacy of O’Malley’s quality-of-life policing for the riots. Simon described Baltimore police officers as “an army of occupation.” He unintentionally had a point. The police, despite their vices, impose a modicum of conventional values on a polity where the culture of gangsta rap projects the illusion of a revolutionary alternative to “bourgeois white values.” An MSNBC host plausibly compared inner-city Baltimore with the Gaza Strip, where the failure of repeated self-destructive assaults on Israel hasn’t diminished the illusion that the Jewish state is but a passing phenomenon of settler-colonialism.

    After the Ferguson riots of 2014, disdain on the street for Baltimore’s integrated but often less than professional police department became combustible, and Gray’s death lit the powder keg. Economically marginal residents—in a city home to Johns Hopkins University and financial firms Legg Mason and T. Rowe Price—perpetrated Baltimore’s spring 2015 riots, which destroyed 200 businesses and injured 98 cops. The trouble began at the James Rouse–constructed Mondawmin Mall. Students, angry at the way they were “disrespected” and inspired by the sci-fi movie The Purge, which described a day of seemingly emancipatory anarchy, gathered outside the mall’s transportation hub. Flyers called for the Crips, the Bloods, the Black Guerrilla Family, and the Nation of Islam to unite and join the action. Students cornered by cops reportedly began taunting police, who had gone on alert after receiving what the department called “credible information” that a coalition of gangs wanted to “take out” law-enforcement officers. Rioting ensued.

    Reporters took little notice of these gang elements, since the liberal media operated on the principle of “implied suffering”—that is, people acting badly is de facto proof that they have been mistreated. The persistence of poverty in West Baltimore supposedly demonstrated pervasive white racism and black powerlessness. Yet the same Black Guerrilla Family was powerful enough to have run the Baltimore City Detention Center until Maryland governor Larry Hogan shut it down.

    As the violence unfolded, Mayor Rawlings-Blake told police to stand down. “I’ve made it very clear that I work with the police and instructed them to do everything that they could to make sure that the protesters were able to exercise their right to free speech,” she explained. “It’s a very delicate balancing act, because while we tried to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.” And, she said, “we worked very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to deescalate, and that’s what you saw.”

He wrote this in 2015, and it has only gotten worse. We saw countless examples of people prosecuted for trying to defend themselves during the riots under the absurd theory that a person can't display a firearm against a mob of rioters because there might be some in the mob that weren't technically threatening that person. 

    The ultimate goal is to make the populace at large (and we know of whom we are talking) defenseless against the mobs intended to strike fear into the population and, thereby, more willing to cough up more money to appease the angry blacks (or other so-called victim groups). Our only collective self-defense is to defend the individual right to self-defense. 

VIDEO: "Top 5 Guns for TEOTWAWKI"

 

VIDEO: "Top 5 Guns for TEOTWAWKI (Short Version)"

Paul Harrell (21 min.)

He also has a long version (2 hours long) which I have not yet watched. Most of the videos or articles I've seen on this topic either deal with too general of categories (e.g., you should have a rifle, a pistol, a .22 rifle, etc., without any more detail) or suggest very specific choices. Harrell seems to strike a middle ground, offering up a few categories of weapons (a medium to large handgun, a carbine/rifle of some sort suitable for combat, and a pocket pistol of some type for deep concealment), but also providing some context and requirements to help you narrow down your choices, and then, finally, noting some of his choices and why he chose them. 

    For instance, as to your primary handgun, his chief criteria is that you be able to shoot it accurately, which he considers far more important than magazine capacity or caliber. He gives the example, for instance, that if you are very good with a revolver, but not so accurate with a semi-auto, that you should pick that revolver over other handguns. 

    Some other points he goes over are that: he believes that you need at least 15-rounds capacity in your magazines for both carbines and your primary handgun; he wants to minimize calibers so, for instance, he recommends a pocket pistol be the same caliber as your primary handgun, nor does he believe it important to have different calibers to maximize your probability of successfully scavenging ammunition; he discusses some issues particular to .22 LR weapons; and he explains why you should comply with your jurisdiction's firearm laws. I would note that it seems an unspoken assumption in his video that you would be limited in the number of weapons and supply of ammunition. I'm not sure if this is because he assumes issues of bugging out or having to relocate, or if he is approaching the issue from the point of view of someone that doesn't have any weapons yet and is trying to figure out what to buy. 

    He mentions in the video that he would provide some tips if you lived in a jurisdiction that restricted you to only 10 rounds, but other than noting that there sometimes exceptions for .22 rifles with permanently affixed tubular magazines, he doesn't revisit this topic. I can only assume that it is dealt with in the longer video. 

 

    The only real criticism I had dealt with his discussion on .22 LR weapons, because he seemed to assume that you would be carrying both a rifle and a handgun in .22 LR. I have thought long and hard on this, mostly in the context of the issue of what if you could only have two weapons, and concluded that you are better off mixing a .22 in one type (a rifle or pistol) with a combat/hunting caliber in the other: e.g., a .22 rifle with a combat pistol in 9mm or larger, or a .22 pistol with a carbine or rifle suitable for combat and hunting small to medium game. My reasoning is that this allows you to tote a lot of ammunition in .22 LR, and allow you to take small game (rabbits, squirrels, larger birds), but still have an option should you need something more effective. 

VIDEO: "Survivalist Reacts to Canadian Prepper Bug Out Bag"

 

VIDEO: "Survivalist Reacts to Canadian Prepper Bug Out Bag | INSANE Survival Kit"

The Survival Outpost (23 min.)

There are some things the host of The Survival Outpost liked or found intriguing, but there were other things that made him question whether Canadian Prepper had actually tested the kit under realistic bug-out conditions. For instance, the placement of the survival knife on his pack's shoulder strap and the amount of equipment hanging off the pack that could get tangled in brush. (Frankly, to me, the gear looked too new and clean to have seen much use at all). 

    Of course, there were some criticisms of The Survival Outpost that I thought unwarranted. Specifically, he was critical of the inclusion of freeze dried meals because of the difficulty of finding water, although the Canadian Prepper video showed him near sources of significant amounts of water. It all depends on where you are and your route. For instance, in my area, lack of water would definitely be an issue if I were to cut across the desert, but probably not an issue if I were following a river. 

Disposing of Corpses Post-SHTF

 

Source: The Feral Irishman

    Earlier this year I attended a funeral for a deceased relative who had died of old age after a long and fulfilling life. The corpse was hygienically handled by trained people. The body, itself, was picked up from a nursing facility by the funeral home and delivered to its facility where it went through the funeral home's preparations and refrigerated for storage until the time of the funeral. 

    Although members of the family dressed the body prior to burial, this was completely optional and the funeral home would have performed the task if desired. Because the family did not wish to hold a viewing, they were not required to have the body embalmed; but if they had, the embalming and application of makeup to the body would also have been done by the funeral home. 

    Prior to the funeral, the body was placed into a commercially manufactured casket made of steel to be lowered into a concrete burial vault at the proverbial "6 feet under" (probably a bit more). The digging of the grave was done by other professionals retained by the cemetery, undoubtedly using a backhoe. The casket was lowered into the burial vault using specialized equipment. Lowering of the casket, emplacement of the burial vault lid, and covering it all with more earth was also done by employees of the cemetery. The engraving of the headstone was yet another task contracted out to specialists.

    In short, as emotional as a death can be, families are mostly physically separated from the actual handling, preparation and burial of the body. Moreover, in our modern, civilized world, death generally comes to loved ones due to natural causes and is only rarely due to accidents or violence. Even in the event of a accident or violence, however, the handling and disposal of corpses are handled by people trained for the task and with appropriate tools. Ditto for victims of natural disasters. For instance, the armies will have burial details to collect and bury corpses.

    In fact, in most industrialized nations, personal disposal of bodies is frowned upon. Licenses may be required and there are a laws and regulations governing how corpses are handled and buried. And if the law and circumstances would have warranted an investigation into the cause or nature of the death, moving or handling of a corpse could result in being charged with a crime such as interfering with an investigation, destroying evidence, mishandling a corpse, and so on.

    But after a major disaster--particularly if rescuers are unable to reach a location quickly or are overwhelmed--or if there should be widespread economic breakdown and violence--survivors may be forced to deal with moving and disposing of dead bodies, even if professionals will ultimately be called in to exhume, examine, and re-intern the bodies. 

    Unfortunately, this seems a little discussed topic in the prepping and survivalist literature. The only survival books I've read that deal with this topic are Cody Lundin's When All Hell Breaks Loose and Don Shift's Suburban Warfare. This isn't to say that other survival or prepping books haven't covered the topic, but these are the only two of which I am aware.

    In this article, I plan on combining and summarizing the information Lundin and Shift provide, starting with dispelling some myths or misconceptions that people may have about handling corpses, and then discussing the actual steps and procedures they recommend. 

    Please note, however, that this information is being provided for entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed medical professional or funeral worker. Handling and burial of corpses, whether or not victims of violence, are governed by laws and regulations that can vary by jurisdiction; and moving, interfering with, or mishandling of corpses may be a crime depending on your specific circumstances and jurisdiction. This article is not intended as legal or medical advice, nor should it be substituted for legal or medical advice. I am not your lawyer. Please consult an expert or a lawyer familiar with the laws and procedures for handling or burial of corpses in your jurisdiction.

Infection Risk

    Both authors emphasize that the infection risk from a dead body, in and of itself, is low because after death the body temperature declines and the body typically begins to dry out, killing most viruses and bacteria. Lundin quotes from a WHO report that stated that dead and decomposing bodies generally do not create a serious health hazard unless they are polluting sources of drinking water with fecal matter, or are infected with the plague or typhus, in which case the bodies may be home to fleas or lice that can spread those diseases. 

    Obviously there are exceptions. There are other diseases which could also spread via dead bodies, such as cholera, streptococcal and gastrointestinal infections, hepatitis B and C, and tuberculosis (TB). However, the person must have been infected prior to death to pass these on.

    But those are the exceptions. Lundin writes, for instance, that "[r]egardless of scant exceptions, evidence supports that death caused by blunt-force trauma, drowning, or other nonepidemic scenarios ... will not result in bodies that spread disease," further noting that diseases and putrification are caused by different microorganisms. And  he specifically warns about unnecessarily wasting scant resources to burn bodies; and advises avoiding mass burials because of the emotional trauma it can cause to the deceased's loved ones.

    Lundin warns that if TB is suspected, a piece of material should be placed over the mouth and the body should only be handled in open, well ventilated areas. Lundin also points out that the HIV virus can be active for up to 16 days after death.  In fact, care should be taken whenever a person is suspected to have died by a disease or illness spread through bodily fluids. For instance, Ebola outbreaks are often tied to handling of the bodies of the dead in preparation for a funeral. 

    In any event, though, a dead body will evacuate itself by releasing urine and feces as the muscles relax, so good hygiene should be practiced when handling the body. 

Decomposition and Putrefaction 

    Some key points:

• A body will continue to bleed after death due to residual pressure in the circulatory system. Hair and nails will continue to grow for some time following death.
• Body temperature will fall by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour until the body reaches ambient temperature.
• Because of the lack of circulation, blood will pool in the lower parts of the body (i.e., those closest to the ground) causing those areas to appear to be reddish or purple (post-mortem lividity or livor mortis). Skin will turn white (or blanch) as the blood drains away. But as the body continues to decay, the body can turn green or, even, black. 
• Because it may take hours or days for blood to coagulate, blood may leak from wounds when the body is moved.
• The muscles will relax upon death resulting in the bladder and rectum emptying. 
• Rigor mortis will begin to set in 2 to 4 hours after death and be complete in 6 to 12 hours, depending on the ambient temperature (i.e. it is faster to set in and slower to release in colder temperatures). It begins to disappear after about 36 hours and disappears after about 72 hours. Rigor makes it difficult to reposition or move bodies.
• Bloating will occur within two to six days of death depending on the amount of bacteria in the the intestines and temperature  (warmer temperatures will cause bloating faster than colder temperatures). A body can bloat to twice its normal size, and the bloating of the face can cause the eyes to protrude. The gases causing the bloating will take 5 to 12 days to release, and if the pressure is intense, it can release quite suddenly through body orifices. Fluids will begin to drain from the body during this process. Because decomposing flesh is so weakened, the gas may also cause the body to burst--especially if the body is roughly handled--and spray fluids over anyone nearby. The bloating can also cause stomach contents to be forced out through the mouth. 
• The skin will begin to separate from the layers of tissue below and slough off under handling. As the body continues to decay, it will increasingly turn fluidic. In that case, the body will blister and fluids will leak from the entire body, not just from orifices and wounds. 
• Bodies will begin to smell between 24 and 72 hours after death, although this is faster if there is an open wound. Thus, Shift remarks, bodies with bullet wounds may begin to smell almost immediately.
• Depending on season and locale, a corpse may quickly become home to maggots and other insects that feed on rotting flesh.

Disposing of the Body

    While there is generally going to be little risk to handling a dead body, you will want to dispose of dead bodies as soon as possible, even if it is a temporary burial prior to final internment of the body. There are many reasons to do so but some of the most important are:

• Dead bodies left to the elements will putrefy--quite quickly in hot weather--and the stench will be quite unpleasant, maybe even sickening.
• The sight and presence of dead bodies will negatively impact morale.
• As the body decays, it will attract unwanted scavengers and vermin: everything from dogs or coyotes that will eat and scatter parts of the bodies, to flies and maggots. 
• As the body decays, it will bloat and it will release bodily fluids and fecal matter that can spread disease or contaminate water sources. In fact, you will definitely want to move fast to remove bodies from water sources. Rotting bodies can act directly as disease vectors to contaminate water because the body will be home to or promote the growth of potential pathogens. Indirectly, they may attract animals that may, in turn, contaminate water. And even if a decomposing body does not spread disease in a water source, it can impact the smell and taste of the water.
• As the body decays, it will become more problematic to move the body as the skin can slough off when handled or body parts can separate--e.g., hands or heads can detach if they are used to hold onto or lift the corpse. This can especially be a problem if the body is in water.

Shift also points out that you may want to dispose of bodies for purposes of operational security (OPSEC) or to avoid showing "disrespect" to the dead of a raiding group. In the former case, there are many reasons for removing bodies, but the most basic is to hide your losses from potential enemies. The idea behind the latter is that if bodies are treated disrespectfully, it might prompt a further retaliatory attack; at a minimum, removing the corpses of enemy dead means one less thing to draw attention to your group or locale. On the other hand, displaying corpses of dead enemy have also historically been important psychological weapons.

First Step: Document, Document, Document.

    I am assuming that if you have time to move and bury a body, you are not in a dynamic situation that prevents you from recording at least a bare minimum of facts. Thus, before you start moving anything, you will want to document what you can because there likely will be an investigation and questions once order is restored. 

    At a minimum, you will want to document as much as possible the who (the identity of the dead person), what (cause of death), where (this includes not only where the body was located and its general condition, but also to where the body is being buried or otherwise disposed of), when (date and time of death, date discovered, date interned), why (why you are moving the body), and how (cause of death if known). Make note of general physical characteristics of the deceased as well as anything special or unique like birthmarks or the such, scars, and tattoos, and catalog his or her personal effects. You may even consider burying the body with personal effects (separately wrapped in plastic) with the body to aid in identification later.

    If possible, photograph the body at the location and condition it was found (including taking in surroundings) as well as additional photographs, if necessary, to help with identification, including a clear photograph of the face. If the body is that of a victim of violence, you will also want to include injuries to the body and evidence concerning the perpetrator(s) (e.g., graffiti made by the responsible group or person, photographs or samples of shell casings, items left behind or abandoned by the attacker(s), witness statements, and so on).

    Don't forget to get signed statements from survivors or witnesses, if any, even if the death was due to natural causes. This will be important to not only protect against changing stories, but it is possible that those survivors and witnesses may not make it through the disaster! If possible, have one or two other persons witness the signing of the statement, and make sure to get their names and addresses as well. This is probably as close as you are going to get to a notarized statement.

    Finally, if there are surviving relatives of the deceased, have them provide written and signed permission to remove and bury the body. 

Special Considerations When Dealing With The Bodies Of Attackers

    If you are dealing with dead looters or raiders, you will want to look over the body and search clothing and bags for anything of intelligence value such as maps or other documents, as well as examine any equipment or items they might have. Things to look for are commonalities between the attackers (skin color, tattoos or other body modifications, similar items or color of clothing), signs of their health or nutrition, the type and condition of their weapons (e.g., are they a rag-tag band or do they appear well-supplied and disciplined).

    Shift also suggests that if you are concerned about the identification of the bodies later being used against you (e.g., to prevent a gang from identifying their dead and linking them to your group), to sanitize the attacker's corpses as best as possible by removing any documents, personally identifiable items, and any clothing or equipment.

Protection Against Infection

    Make sure that you follow precautions against exposure to blood and bodily fluids. This means:

• Wear disposable latex, vinyl or nitrile gloves at all times. Nitrile gloves are cheap and you should have a box or two as part of your general preps in any event. If you don't have disposable gloves, you can use rubber cleaning gloves or fashion substitutes from plastic sheeting or plastic bags.
• Wear masks and protective eyewear, or face shields, to prevent keep blood or other body fluids from getting in your eyes or mucus membranes. If you don't have medical masks, you can use construction or hobby equipment. Although the fabric hospital masks we have all worn at sometime in the past few years do nothing to spread viruses in the air, they do work well at catching fluids and droplets.
• Cover all cuts or abrasions with waterproof bandages or dressings.
• Do not eat, drink, or smoke while handling bodies and avoid touching your mouth, nose, or eyes.
• Wear gowns, aprons, coveralls, and coverings over your footwear if you are doing anything that is likely to result in your being splashed with blood or other bodily fluids. If you don't have specific PPE garments, you can use ponchos, rain suits, galoshes or rubber boots, or improvise from plastic sheeting or garbage bags. Be sure to wash and thoroughly disinfect reusable garments and foot coverings afterwards. Lundin recommends soaking the garments in a 0.1% chlorine bleach solution (1:50 dilution) for 30 minutes. If disposing of the garments, make sure they are wrapped security in a plastic bag and discarded in a safe place or buried.
• Thoroughly wash all parts of your body that comes in contact with blood or bodily fluids. You should be washing your hands afterward anyway, and Lundin also recommends dipping your hands in a chlorine disinfecting solution as well.
• Disinfect all equipment that came into contact with the body or fluids using the 0.1% chlorine bleach solution noted above; spilled blood or fluids should be wiped up using a 1% chlorine bleach solution (1:5 dilution).
• Use body bags when possible, but otherwise wrap bodies in multiple layers of plastic secured tightly with duck tape. This actually impairs the decomposition of the body, but since the goal is to prevent contamination and/or odor, this doesn't matter.
• Try to clean up any blood, urine, feces, or other bodily fluids from the body. Spray down the area with a pressure wash and disinfect if possible. If not, use something like cat litter or sand to soak up as much of the material as possible and then remove. Then leave a thin layer of the litter or sand over the area until all stains have disappeared. 

Although not necessary to protect against infection, Shift recommends rubbing some Vick's VapoRub (or other similar Mentholatum product) on the upper lip to help mask odors, although full filter respirators can also be used to protect against odors.

Security

    If there are concerns about attacks from looters or raiders, Shift recommends that for every person involved in the burial detail (i.e., those actually moving the bodies, digging the graves, etc.) you also have one armed person providing watch. Thus, for example, if you have two people on a burial detail, you should have two people charged with protecting the burial detail. Obviously, the people on these details can alternate between burial detail and security. 

Moving The Body

    As noted above, skin can slough off or parts separate as the body decomposes. Thus, Shift recommends grasping the clothing and using a two-man lift when lifting or moving a corpse, and then wrap the body as quickly as possible. Specifically, bodies should be handled using two persons at each end of the body to avoid strains or injury or putting too much strain on the corpse and causing it to rupture or come apart.

    If using plastic sheeting to wrap the body, Shift instructs putting the body in the center of the sheet and folding the ends inward. Corners should then be folded over and taped up to prevent fluids leaking. The opening should also be face up to, again, prevent fluids from leaking out. Then tape or tie the opening shut.

    If you have to transport a body any distance to a burial site, he recommends using wheeled transportation--preferably large two wheeled carts that can handle a body lengthwise and be tilted to dump the body--but anything will do. He notes that bodies should not be transported long distances by hand due to possible disintegration and psychological issues. Try to only transport bodies after they have been covered and, where possible, out of sight of others to reduce psychological issues.

    As with other equipment, the carts, wagons, trailer or truck beds, should be washed down and disinfected after use.

The Grave

    While cremation may be preferable for disposing of bodies, it takes a lot of fuel (wood or whatever) to burn a body--fuel that you may need for heating or cooking. Shift relates, for instance, that over 600 pounds of wood is required for effective cremation outside of a crematorium. Thus, the best option post-SHTF is to bury corpses. 

    If you can't immediately bury the body because the ground is frozen, the body can be left in the cold (covered of course) for preserval until the ground thaws enough to allow burial. (Historically, the bodies of those that died in winter would be stored in special structures, in their coffins, until the spring thaw). Burial should be conducted as soon as possible, however.

    Burial sites should be selected by consensus and should be isolated from development, but adaptable to use as a burial site. Fields away from the outskirts of a town or neighborhood that will not be cultivated would be ideal. Parks or sports fields can be used, but locate the graves away from playgrounds and homes. 

    Lundin states that graves should be placed at least 100 feet from any surface water sources and be at least 5 feet above the water table with a 2 foot unsaturated zone. Shift indicates that burial grounds should be located at a minimum of 150 feet from the nearest water source and a quarter mile from homes, preferably further. He specifically urges that burial grounds be located as far away as feasible to make discovery or investigation of corpses by an enemy less likely. I would think that it would make investigation easier, but it might make it less likely that the corpses would be tied to your community. For that reason, dead enemy should not be buried in the same location as members of your community.

    According to Lundin, standard graves are 8 feet long by 3 feet wide and 7 feet deep; but he also points out that the 7 feet is to account for a casket and you can probably get by with a shallower grave without a casket. Obviously, however, you should dig the grave the necessary size to accommodate the body, which means that it might be larger or smaller. Nevertheless, you want the corpse to be buried at least 3 feet below the surface and the earth tamped down over it. You should also mark the location as a grave even if you don't know the identity of the deceased.

    Particularly if the grave is to be shallow, you may want to cover the corpse with thorny brush or a layer of rocks to discourage animals from digging up the body.

    In most cases you will want to have only one or two persons to a grave to minimize trauma to kith and kin, and make it easier for the body to be exhumed and reburied after the disaster has passed. You don't owe the same consideration to raiders, so a mass grave may be acceptable in those cases.

A Funeral Service

    Both Lundin and Shift emphasize the importance of some ceremony or funeral rite for survivors--especially for family members of the deceased--in order to provide closure and keep up morale. Obviously no such accommodations need to be made for looters or raiders killed while attacking your group or neighborhood.

David Canterbury's Minimal Survival Kit

 

VIDEO: "Minimal Survival Kit based on the 5C’s Mentality"

David Canterbury (21 min.)

Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 84 (Streamed 5/3/2023)

VIDEO: "Bombs and Bants Live! Ep 84" (45 min.)

Just Get The Hell Away

Andy Ngo tweets: "Graphic video from Oakland, Calif. at a street occupation on April 30 shows a mob beating a victim on the ground until he is unconscious. The man’s car was hit & he got out of the vehicle before being jumped. The mob then continue performing street stunts." It appears from the video that the attackers and their supporters were all black. The victim appears to be a white man. 

    Fox affiliate KTVU reported that "[t]he victim's car was hit from behind, and after he stopped his car and got out, he was attacked by a large group of people, police said." The San Francisco Chronicle adds:

    Video shows that before the attack, the [victim] attempted to use a bucket to hit a car doing stunts in the intersection of 34th and Adeline streets. 

    The vehicle then stopped and various men chased the victim before punching and kicking him. He is seen flat on his back on the ground, bleeding from the face as he is kicked in the stomach.

    I would again remind readers that one of Farnham's rules of self-defense is don't go to stupid places, which includes places where young blacks are congregating. Especially street occupations (what the media is calling a "sideshow") where the groups are already participating in doing stupid things. Just turn around and find a different route if you encounter such a situation.

    You definitely don't want to aggravate the situation, as apparently happened here, by jumping out and confronting the feral animal driving the other vehicle and throwing stuff at his car. 

    The video below reports on this incident as well as the more general problem of "sideshows". 

VIDEO: "Man frustrated by Oakland sideshow gets attacked by crowd"

KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco (2 min.)