Carry Often, Carry More Than a Gun
So you’ve
decided to carry a gun on a regular basis. Good. Deciding to take
care of your personal safety yourself is one of the most important
decisions you can make, because you are, and always will be, your
own first responder. Carrying a pistol with you, concealed or not,
creates options in defense of your life that you just cannot have
without having a firearm on you.
But a gun is
not enough. In fact, a pistol is just the end of the journey, because
chances are you’re not going to need it, thank God.
So what should
you have with you besides your gun?
- A
Flashlight. We spend half our lives in the dark, a flashlight
isn’t just a good idea, it’s an aboslute necessity.
In the past, I relied on the flashlight app on my iPhone, but
after some testing, I found the flashlight app just isn’t
anywhere near as powerful as even the smallest dedicated flashlight.
After filting around with a few different lights, I’ve settled
on a Streamlight
Microstream, and I absolutely love it. Why?
- It’s
small, which means you’ll carry it with you more often
- It’s
BRIGHT for it’s size, brighter than a AA Maglite,
and bright enough to light up a doorway from across the street.
- It’s
cheap, so you won’t be heartbroken if you misplace it
- It’s
rugged. Mine has survived two trips through the washing machine
and the dryer (don’t ask why) with no issues whatsoever
- It
takes one AAA battery, which means you can find spare batteries
for it everywhere, and if you want the longer-lived (and more
expensive) lithium batteries, they’re
also available.
- A
Knife. Quick! Open up that clamshell plastic packaging
without a sharp object, I dare you! Oh, what’s that you
say, you can’t quite lever out the jammed paper in the photocopier?
And now you’ve ripped the “easy open tab” off
your microwavable entree, and you’re faced with the prospect
of an unintentional day-long fast or a jaunt outside of the office
for lukewarm, lackluster fast food. Knives make too much sense
not to have one on you, and I understand they’re a pretty
decent self-defense tool as well (sarcasm). As I work in an office
and I don’t want to carry something that screams “TACTICAL!”,
I usually have a
CRKT Pazoda unobtrusively clipped to my pants pocket. It’s
small, lightweight, sharp and doesn’t stick up over the
pocket much at all.
- Extra
Ammo. Make a quick list of everything that can go wrong
with a modern semi-automatic pistol. No, go ahead, I’ll
wait.
Done? Good.
Now, how many of the items on your list are related to the pistol’s
magazine? And you don’t carry a spare magazine on you because….?
I use a
Blackhawk! Single Mag Pouch when I carry my CZ P07, and it
works like a charm. I’m not planning on shooting 32 rounds
of 9mm in a defensive situation, but I figure if something goes
wrong with my gun and I have to reload, I can.
- A
Smartphone. We can have the “I just want my phone
to be a phone and make phone calls” discussion some other
time, but the fact is a smartphone allows you to have a
Red Cross First Aid Guide and an
Emergency Radio Scanner and a GPS and a
weather alert radio and a whole bunch of other useful information
at your fingertips. Plus, we now know that when an emergency happens
and the cell phone towers are overloaded with traffic, text
messages can go out when phone calls can’t (pdf link).
A smartphone also has a camera to document what happened for the
police and/or insurance companies, and you can always play Angry
Birds on it while you wait for the other first responders to respond…
What other
items should a well-prepared person have on them besides their gun?
Reprinted
with permission from TeamGunBlogger.com.
March
5, 2013
©
2013 TeamGunBlogger.com
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