A SIMPLE, SANE approach to preparedness

[Glenn Bartley]

I'm prepared for a flat tire but it doesn't mean that I have to expect a flat tire, nor does it mean I have to go through life constantly thinking about the possibility that I might have a flat tire at any moment.

In your opening post, you are faulted those who try to stay aware of their situation. Now that I red the above quote, I beleive that you are confusing being aware with suffering from anxiety. Always thinking that you will be involved in a shootout at any moment woud be anxiety not awreness. There is a big difference.

All the best,
Glenn b

[youngunz4life]

I would be lying if the thought hadnt crossed my mind. Pure statistics alone give me a better chance of having a CCW, gun, HD/SD encounter just because I carry. Also, in the back of my mind I wondered if I was self-fulfilling a prophecy or to better describe maybe something would happen because of it all. I do know however and have always known that this just isn't true to the best of my knowledge. It is all preventative or 'just in case'. I am not paranoid and CCWers are not paranoid(or I should say, some are and some are not just like non-CCWers). I do know that at first it heightens your awareness and possibly careful suspicions sort of like the post that mentioned rookie cops above. I noticed this when I we first bought the farm and someone was just banging on the door while I changed the baby. I didn't answer and had a revolver on the bookcase but it ended up being a work colleague who needed my printer. I won't just blindly answer the door. Growing up I wouldn't have thought twice. I still don't know if its my age, my responsibility to my family, the times, etc, or a combination of them.

[Rufus T Firefly]

We work on that.
Were the soldiers prepared at Fort Hood?
Is it a bad thing that Texas will soon approve Carry Permits for College Students?

We have a 30 day food stock. We have a water stock. We can run electrictiy off a car battery, we can convert our gas to LP.

If I could not protect what we have worked for, what good will it do?

[JohnKSa]

In your opening post, you are faulted those who try to stay aware of their situation.

I pointed out that there are people who don't believe it's ALWAYS possible to stay alert and aware and also that there are people who don't WANT to always stay alert and aware, particularly in certain surroundings that they associate with rest and relaxation.

Now that I red the above quote, I beleive that you are confusing being aware with suffering from anxiety.

No, I'm pointing out that some folks believe that ALWAYS being aware and alert is either evidence of, or a recipe for, anxiety. And it's true that some confuse the two. People who fall into that camp then often use that sort of reasoning as an excuse for just dismissing the whole issue.

That's a mistake.

What I'm trying to get across is that one can be prepared by simply not always expecting safety. One need not live with the constant expectation that danger could be just around the corner as long as one doesn't go around corners expecting that only safety lies around each corner.

You do not expect anything bad to happen, yet you do not expect that nothing can happen, but you do not stay aware of your situation and you walk right out in front of a 10 ton truck doing 30mph.

The only way you would walk out in front of a truck would be if you expected that nothing bad could happen while you were crossing the street.

Some folks would tell you that in order to be prepared you need to be expecting trouble or would claim that's what some trainers teach or that some gun owners advocate. We see this debate play out on every "Do you carry at home?" thread. One camp sees it as very logical to carry at home while others claim that anyone who would carry at home must be paranoid, that they must be expecting trouble all the time. They then typically wrap up their remarks saying something like: "If I were that worried about trouble I'd move."

I'm saying people don't need to expect trouble or fear trouble to be prepared and that being prepared doesn't mean that people are worried about trouble or constantly expecting trouble. Being prepared to me just means that I don't fall into the trap of believing that nothing bad could possibly happen. In other words, I'm not constantly expecting trouble, I'm just not dismissing the possibility of trouble.