Tag: Paul T. Martin

Blueprint for Spooling Up

Guest post by Paul T. Martin

This is a no frills blog post – here’s a list of equipment, skills and mindset you and your family needs right now.  Share this.  It’s a blueprint; it’s not set in stone.  Modify it to fit your situation.

Essential Equipment

Everyday Carry (EDC) Equipment.  This varies from person to person, but it generally involves a choice of handgun, a flashlight, a knife, OC spray and an individual first aid kit (IFAK).  Carry as many of these components with you as often as you can.

Get Home Bag.  Don’t get too worked up on this.  Simple GHBs work fine.  Read the article I just linked.  Get an inexpensive backpack; one that your kid is no longer using for school will work just fine.  Put that stuff in the backpack.

Food.  You need 35,000 calories and 700 grams of protein per person to endure a 2 week emergency.  Don’t be one of these “prepared” citizens who says “I’m good on food.”  Take a piece of paper or spreadsheet and add up the calories and protein in your emergency food supplies; you don’t know how much you really have until you do the math.

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Project: Assess Firearm & Ammo Needs Without Delay

Guest post by Paul T. Martin

Before you get all worked up – I am not pressing the panic button.  I don’t even own a panic button.

But we could be at the early stage of a potential run on guns and ammo.  If you have specific firearms or ammunition needs, I urge you to remedy those soon.

Please note I am not trading on insider information.  I don’t have access to any.  I am basing this recommendation upon past instances where we saw spikes in demand when violent events filled our news feed.

I don’t spend much time on firearms on this blog, because there are a number of people who cover that subject much better than I do.  What most of them (and their loyal readers) spend little time on, however, is the logistics piece of it.

(N.B.: Much of what follows appeared in a blog post from February 2022 and another one from March 2023.  I have added a few updates.)

In March, NBC News ran this piece entitled “Ukraine is running low on ammo. Europe faces pressure to produce more.”  You need to spend the five minutes it takes to read this entire article.  It is well worth your time.  It does a really good job laying out the situation in Ukraine and the efforts of the EU to ramp up ammunition production. Bloomberg has covered this situation as well.

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