I haven't really talked about guns very much. This is mainly because
when people think of "preppers", they think of gun toting whack jobs.
There are many prepper's who collect guns as a hobby, but there are
many who claim that all they need for the end of the world is a bunch of
guns and ammunition to take necessary supplies from others. The fact
of the matter is that guns are a necessary tool for security. There
are many opinions regarding guns and gun ownership, but in this
particularly blog, I'd like to focus on licensing. This is written
based on the laws of the State of Washington at the date this is
written.
This subject comes up now because I just re-applied for my Washington
State Concealed Pistol License (CPL). I say re-applied instead of
renewed because I allowed my license to expire greater than 90 days by
accident. I don't carry concealed very often, even less so now that I
have a
toddler. Because of this, I didn't even realize that my license had
even expired. I stumbled across it by accident. I actually was
checking to see if my Utah Non-Resident Concealed Firearm Permit had
expired. It does not until this November. When I was placing the Utah
Permit back in my wallet, I thought "well I'd better just check and see
how soon my WA license expires." Much to my chagrin, it had expired last Dec. Ugh!
The first thing I did was research what is required to get a
new license. In WA, you are required to apply for a new license if your
old one is expired greater than 90 days. All that is required is money
(government always gets their cut) and the applicant to submit to
fingerprinting for a background check. Nothing else is required. This
is a bit counter-intuitive to me, because I would expect a state as
liberal as Washington to have very strict gun laws. That does not seem
to be the case. See this website for more information: http://www.dol.wa.gov/business/firearms/faconceal.html.
Also, in the course of research, I found that my wife, who is a
Canadian citizen with US residency can have a CPL. I decided to
encourage her to apply for a CPL as well. Her first question to me when
I suggested that she do so was "Why"? She said she does not have
access to firearms (my guns are locked up), nor training to use them,
therefore she should not have a CPL. I pointed out to her that
obtaining the CPL wasn't about either of those 2 things. In my mind,
there are 2 reasons for her to have the license.
The first
and primary reason is that it protects her if I ever inadvertently
leave her illegally in possession of a firearm. An example of this
would be me carrying concealed while we are out running errands. If I
need to enter a building that does not allow guns (a bank for example), I
would have to leave the gun in the car. More than likely, I'd just put
it out of sight in the center console. That would be perfectly legal
in this State if I locked the car when I walked away and no one was in
the car. However, if Barb is in the car, she would suddenly be in
possession of a concealed pistol when I walk away. Her having the
license would completely remove that issue.
The second is that it makes it much easier (more convenient
really) for Barb to purchase a pistol should she desire to in the
future. In this state, a person purchasing a pistol (not true for
shotgun or rifle) without a CPL is required to wait for a background
investigation and approval by the local law enforcement agency (LEA),
which results in around a 5 day delay. Inconvenient, but not really a
big deal (hence reason 2 instead of reason 1).
The reason I
have a Utah Non-Resident Concealed Firearm Permit is because it is most
widely recognized by other states in terms of reciprocity. I drove
around the US quite a bit, and I wanted to be able to carry concealed
while on the road. For more information, see this website: http://publicsafety.utah.gov/bci/concealedfirearms.html.
I first applied for my CPL shortly after 9/11, but I did not
actually purchase my first firearm until 2004. At the time, I wasn't
sure I wanted the responsibility of possibly killing while owning a
firearm. This is a very real issue that everyone must resolve for
themselves prior to purchasing a firearm. The purpose of a firearm is
to kill, therefore owning a firearm is accepting the responsibility of
possibly killing.
Nothing I've said here precludes getting
proper firearm training and following good firearm practices. I highly
recommend getting formal firearm training prior to purchase or use of a
firearm. I have received training both in the military and through the
NRA. I personally feel that when it comes to firearms, no one can have
too much training, education, and practical experience.
Monday, June 4, 2012
What I've Done Lately To Prep 6/5/12
As you can see, it's been a while. Insert usual excuses here.
Since I last posted, we have done a few things to continue our preparations. We've continued to grow our food storage. There have been lot's of canned food sales lately in our area. Most of the sales have been driven by the fact that Safeway just opened a brand new store and QFC has decided to compete for business head to head with them. That's to our benefit and we are taking full advantage. We've grown our canned stock of food quite a bit in the last month, all with items that we regularly eat anyway. We've started paying much closer attention to the sales ads for the grocery stores, and simply circling the deals we want from each. We also have been paying much more attention to coupons lately. We make a list of the items we are going to by and then we just make the rounds of the stores during the week.
In conjunction with paying more attention to sales and coupons, Barb has created an inventory spreadsheet which she and I have been adding pricing information to as well. We've stored the document on what was formerly Google Documents, but now is called Google Drive. This allows us both to access the spreadsheet from our smart phones, Ipad, or home computers to see pricing. We enter pricing as a price per unit from each store so that we are able to compare apples to apples and know when we are getting a good deal. As you know, this is necessary to be able to judge Costco products against regular grocery store products. We have found in 90% of the items we compare, Costco is hands down the cheapest source for a lot of the foods we use on a regular basis.
As we bring home the food and increase our storage capacity, I've been clearing off shelves in the garage to make room. We've developed a habit of rotating the food immediately as we stock and marking the food with month and year with a Sharpie pen. Our immediate goal is to get 6 months of food on the shelves. I think we're probably at 2-3 months of food on the shelves right now (includes 30 days worth the freeze dried food we have for emergency rations). I think this is a conservative estimate based on the rate at which we currently eat food. There is certainly room for improvement by lowering our daily calorie intake. Since we are aren't particularly storing food for SHTF, we will continue to base on our current intake rate. We're mainly storing food to help leverage cheap costs of food when we can and also to act as a cushion for us if either Barb or I lost our job. It also seems to us that huge inflation must be on the horizon based on the continually deteriorating economic conditions of the world.
I completed 2 fiction books ("Prepper Porn") in the last few weeks. Both were EMP SHTF scenarios. I intend to write a review on both of the books as a separate post.
Barb and I both applied for our CPL (Concealed Pistol License) in the State of Washington. I intend to discuss in more detail in yet another separate post.
The biggest achievement of the last few weeks is that Barb and I got our garden plants into the ground. Hopefully, we didn't put them into the ground to early. We had unseasonably warm weather the first couple of weeks of May, which turned out to be deceptive in indicating the last few weeks of weather. Although frost hasn't been occurring, the mornings here are still starting in the 45-50 deg F range and topping out around 65 deg F. It's been cloudy a lot, but not as much rain as we might expect for this time of year.
We started by transplanting our strawberries that have been growing in pots on the front doorstep for the past 2 years into a new garden bed we've created along our fence line. We divided 2 large pots into 4 plants. We planted them along with 4 blueberry bushes we purchased at Costco, staggering strawberry then blueberry. Our only logic in doing this was that we think the strawberries will fill in the ground around the blueberry bushes as time goes on. In this same bed, we planted 2 asparagus starters, which won't be up to full production for at least 2 years. We have more room in this bed, so we're considering adding raspberries and possibly rhubarb (I tasted rhubarb for the first time yesterday and I quite liked it).
We planted 2 zucchini and 2 straight neck yellow squash in our main raised beds. Along with that, we've added pole beans and Romain lettuce. We've still got an enormous parsley bush (only way I can describe it) surviving from last year in one of the raised boxes. We've cut it way back. Barb also took a large amount off of the bush and has dried it. I think she will use it to make Tabouli, though we haven't tried yet.
We are trying something new with our tomatoes this year. We haven't had much luck in our front flower bed in the past 2 years, despite the fact that they were getting full sun. We think it pretty much has to do with the mild temperatures here. We've elected to try the tomatoes in pots on the deck this year. We've got 4 total plants and we are trying them in 2 different locations on the deck, up against 2 different walls to try and use the reflected and stored heat of the walls to keep the plants warmer longer. To this, we've added 2 sweet pepper plants and 4 corn plants.
Finally on the discussion of the garden, we planted several different herbs in pots and raised containers. We have cilantro, basil, peppermint, spearmint, and thyme. I'm thinking that next fall/winter, I may bring in all of the pots of herbs and put them under grow lamps in our back room. We're planning on having a new fire place insert installed this Aug for use this winter, so that room should stay very warm. It would be nice to be able to have fresh herbs for cooking with year round.
Yesterday, we had a group of 16 people over to our house for a prepper meeting. Our goal has been to get people together every 6 weeks or so, have a meal, catch up with friends, and then have some sort of "class" on prepping. We started out by just hanging out and chatting about various subjects, both prepper and non-prepper related. We then got the food going and continued our conversations. This meeting, we had an Italian potluck, which I think turned out very well - no one went hungry anyway. After our meal, Trace (http://tracemypreps.com/) gave us instruction on pressure dressings and tourniquets. The training was about 45 minutes long and included hands on participation from the audience (learn by doing). I thought it was excellent training - I learned several things I did not know and dispelled a few "myths" of things that I thought I did know.
I think it's important to "network" with like minded people as often as possible, not only for ideas, but just to confirm that what your doing makes sense and is worth doing. It gives a sense of community and also allows you to develop some friendships with people you can turn to when times turn tough.
Since I last posted, we have done a few things to continue our preparations. We've continued to grow our food storage. There have been lot's of canned food sales lately in our area. Most of the sales have been driven by the fact that Safeway just opened a brand new store and QFC has decided to compete for business head to head with them. That's to our benefit and we are taking full advantage. We've grown our canned stock of food quite a bit in the last month, all with items that we regularly eat anyway. We've started paying much closer attention to the sales ads for the grocery stores, and simply circling the deals we want from each. We also have been paying much more attention to coupons lately. We make a list of the items we are going to by and then we just make the rounds of the stores during the week.
In conjunction with paying more attention to sales and coupons, Barb has created an inventory spreadsheet which she and I have been adding pricing information to as well. We've stored the document on what was formerly Google Documents, but now is called Google Drive. This allows us both to access the spreadsheet from our smart phones, Ipad, or home computers to see pricing. We enter pricing as a price per unit from each store so that we are able to compare apples to apples and know when we are getting a good deal. As you know, this is necessary to be able to judge Costco products against regular grocery store products. We have found in 90% of the items we compare, Costco is hands down the cheapest source for a lot of the foods we use on a regular basis.
As we bring home the food and increase our storage capacity, I've been clearing off shelves in the garage to make room. We've developed a habit of rotating the food immediately as we stock and marking the food with month and year with a Sharpie pen. Our immediate goal is to get 6 months of food on the shelves. I think we're probably at 2-3 months of food on the shelves right now (includes 30 days worth the freeze dried food we have for emergency rations). I think this is a conservative estimate based on the rate at which we currently eat food. There is certainly room for improvement by lowering our daily calorie intake. Since we are aren't particularly storing food for SHTF, we will continue to base on our current intake rate. We're mainly storing food to help leverage cheap costs of food when we can and also to act as a cushion for us if either Barb or I lost our job. It also seems to us that huge inflation must be on the horizon based on the continually deteriorating economic conditions of the world.
I completed 2 fiction books ("Prepper Porn") in the last few weeks. Both were EMP SHTF scenarios. I intend to write a review on both of the books as a separate post.
Barb and I both applied for our CPL (Concealed Pistol License) in the State of Washington. I intend to discuss in more detail in yet another separate post.
The biggest achievement of the last few weeks is that Barb and I got our garden plants into the ground. Hopefully, we didn't put them into the ground to early. We had unseasonably warm weather the first couple of weeks of May, which turned out to be deceptive in indicating the last few weeks of weather. Although frost hasn't been occurring, the mornings here are still starting in the 45-50 deg F range and topping out around 65 deg F. It's been cloudy a lot, but not as much rain as we might expect for this time of year.
We started by transplanting our strawberries that have been growing in pots on the front doorstep for the past 2 years into a new garden bed we've created along our fence line. We divided 2 large pots into 4 plants. We planted them along with 4 blueberry bushes we purchased at Costco, staggering strawberry then blueberry. Our only logic in doing this was that we think the strawberries will fill in the ground around the blueberry bushes as time goes on. In this same bed, we planted 2 asparagus starters, which won't be up to full production for at least 2 years. We have more room in this bed, so we're considering adding raspberries and possibly rhubarb (I tasted rhubarb for the first time yesterday and I quite liked it).
We planted 2 zucchini and 2 straight neck yellow squash in our main raised beds. Along with that, we've added pole beans and Romain lettuce. We've still got an enormous parsley bush (only way I can describe it) surviving from last year in one of the raised boxes. We've cut it way back. Barb also took a large amount off of the bush and has dried it. I think she will use it to make Tabouli, though we haven't tried yet.
We are trying something new with our tomatoes this year. We haven't had much luck in our front flower bed in the past 2 years, despite the fact that they were getting full sun. We think it pretty much has to do with the mild temperatures here. We've elected to try the tomatoes in pots on the deck this year. We've got 4 total plants and we are trying them in 2 different locations on the deck, up against 2 different walls to try and use the reflected and stored heat of the walls to keep the plants warmer longer. To this, we've added 2 sweet pepper plants and 4 corn plants.
Finally on the discussion of the garden, we planted several different herbs in pots and raised containers. We have cilantro, basil, peppermint, spearmint, and thyme. I'm thinking that next fall/winter, I may bring in all of the pots of herbs and put them under grow lamps in our back room. We're planning on having a new fire place insert installed this Aug for use this winter, so that room should stay very warm. It would be nice to be able to have fresh herbs for cooking with year round.
Yesterday, we had a group of 16 people over to our house for a prepper meeting. Our goal has been to get people together every 6 weeks or so, have a meal, catch up with friends, and then have some sort of "class" on prepping. We started out by just hanging out and chatting about various subjects, both prepper and non-prepper related. We then got the food going and continued our conversations. This meeting, we had an Italian potluck, which I think turned out very well - no one went hungry anyway. After our meal, Trace (http://tracemypreps.com/) gave us instruction on pressure dressings and tourniquets. The training was about 45 minutes long and included hands on participation from the audience (learn by doing). I thought it was excellent training - I learned several things I did not know and dispelled a few "myths" of things that I thought I did know.
I think it's important to "network" with like minded people as often as possible, not only for ideas, but just to confirm that what your doing makes sense and is worth doing. It gives a sense of community and also allows you to develop some friendships with people you can turn to when times turn tough.
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