Increasing global, national, state, and city tensions... change your Tactics?

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leadcounsel

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You can't watch the news anymore without daily and nightly videos of war, death, violence, riots, looting, violent and property crime, home invasions, etc.

Is this perceived downfall of the US and the world a perception due to the 24 hour news cycle, or is perception reality?

If you see it as reality, does it change your overall outlook on S&T?

Have you started keeping loaded guns around where you wouldn't otherwise? Have you started carrying as a result? Have you stopped traveling, or changed your travel habits or locations as a result? For instance, maybe you no longer travel to states where you cannot carry? Or maybe instead of the foreign trip to Greece or Mexico, you now drive to a gun friendly state or maybe a National Park?

Are you pessimistic about where the world and more importantly the country is headed, and have ramped up your preps, guns, ammo and training as a result? Or has it always been this way?

Resources are possibly drying up, or maybe perceived to be drying up or unfairly allocated... oil, $ allocation, power, etc. This leads to frustration, crime and violence. And unlike yester-year, people are more mobile and communication is instantaneous unlike any time in history. People can mobilize and move almost immediately... Look at the mobilization, violence and cost and unpredictability of these demonstrations in major cities. I don't have an issue with 1A demonstrations (they are a right)... but look at the threats and violence and mob rule. Maybe this is a sign of a downward spiral. Or just another road bump in a free democracy.

Keep in mind there has been violence in the US since our dawn... revolutions, assassinations, riots in the streets, etc. Maybe we are no more violent and at a situation of discourse, but we just see it more now.
 
Fear sells, no doubt.

(As does sex.....)


And there are certainly those for whom the sky is continually about to fall.

On the other hand, if you are an investor and you look at national and international economics without a healthy respect for the trends that the data support, you're engaging in "What, Me Worry?" denial.

Some degree of financial crisis may not be imminent, but its certainly plausible.
 
I've carried legally since 1980. I always try to be vigilant no matter where I'm at. For me personally, nothing happening now has changed anything re: my carrying, number of guns I own, amount of ammo I have stored up, etc. I'm on retirement-disability from a career in LE. My training & experience has formed a solid foundation as far as being vigilant but not paranoid.

I do, however, expect things to get worse in our world, not better. And I'm not a negative thinker. I have, thank the Lord, a very happy & blessed life. But it doesn't take a genius to see that there's a lot of uncertainty ahead.
 
None of it changes how or why I do things. None of it makes me do things I wouldn't normally do. I'm not any more cautious than I used to be, nor more prepared for chaos. Most of what's going on affects me indirectly, and in small ways. I'd like to think I had a steady way of thinking and planning before this "downward spiral". I feel like too many people jump at the idea of Martial Law, arming and fortifying their locations, or stocking food like it's the end of civilization. It's not the Apocalypse just because the news or some religious group/nut wants you to believe it is.
 
Step 1 don't watch the news or watch the news and realize its mostly bunk and perceived truths skewed to advance someones agenda.

One person can see a riot other see a peaceful demonstration while looking at the exact same situation. Camera angles and scope can make things seem much different then they really are.

The economy is bad for many people but that does not turn them all into mindless swarms of looting criminals. As an LEO we always said 90% of the calls were for the same 10% of the population. I think that holds true for most of these situations.
 
Plus one to what Jason Iowa said.^

Take a two week news break. The world won't end and the economy won't collapse during the two weeks but if you go back and check the newspapers you'll see they durn near predicted it three or four times.
 
You can't watch the news anymore without daily and nightly videos of war, death, violence, riots, looting, violent and property crime, home invasions, etc.
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Actually you could never watch the news without daily and nightly videos of war, death, violence, riots, looting, violent and property crime, home invasions, etc.

The Bulls won the NBA championship and some people it turned into a riot :(

I do think that the sluggish global economic growth and the recession in the U.S. has led to frustration that does get translated into a desire for the ability to carry a firearm.

Attitudes are changing in Chicago among demographic groups that were typically bastians of anti-gun sentiment.
 
You can't watch the news anymore without daily and nightly videos of war, death, violence, riots, looting, violent and property crime, home invasions, etc.
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Has there ever been a time when that wasn't true?
 
Has there ever been a time when that wasn't true?
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It will always be true and it will occur more and more often as the population of the world continues to increase. Eventually drinkable water will outweigh all other reasons for conflict with the possible exception (as always) of religion.

I am not a tree hugger but I do need trees.. My point being that there are only so many resources in the world to go around and with a world population going north of 7 billion all resources are impacted. The "Ganges River" area is likely the start area for the next world war and within the next 20 years as the water cannot support all the people that use it.

These types of resource fights will happen more and more as population soars.... If you dont like what you see now just wait.... I guess the only up side for our nation is the Ganges is on the other side of the planet and we wouldnt have a lot of reason to participate in a fight over it.
 
I have kept guns readily available for many years as did my father before me. I do believe that the likelyhood of having to defend yourself from the "Thug Culture" has increased greatly because of Political Correctness and our collective inability to deal with problems quickly and directly. Of course, years ago we would not have been shoping at Walmart at 2 in the morning so our exposure to potential victimhood was much more limited, less food for rats, fewer rats come out at night. Used to be if they wanted to victimize you they had to come out to the farm at night and get past two or three dogs and the 12 gauge behind the door.

Lax immigration policies, a revolving justice system, and a generation of young people that as they used to say, "aint had no bringen up". Add to that, a Ho Hum economy and a perception of having nothing to look forward to, sprinkle in some political manipulation by both major parties as well as several special interest factions with dubious intent, and you have the recipe for a very unpredictable social stew, we had better all be watching our backs.

I saw true violence in Viet Nam in the early seventies, its nothing new. It has been happening in various places around the globe forever. We see it everyday now because of the 24 hour news availability and because people with an agenda want use to see it over and over again until we demand that "someone do something about it". For every sick,starving, sad looking child we see on the news there are millions more around the world who get no attention. If we feed them, we are interfering with another contry's soverienty, if we don't, we are heartless. I think the best we can do is try to take care of our own families and our communitiies. :confused:
 
the best we can do is try to take care of our own families and our communitiies
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Sage words. The current civil unrest, know as "The Occupy Movement", is so far contained to urban environs. Once it leaves those, then "those people" living back in the hills clinging to their guns and their religion will have a crack at the protesters. It'll be different from down at the park with the cops. :eek:
 
Violence has actually gone down worldwide in the last coue hundred years. We're killing ourselves less and less.
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Please cite your source.... I m sorry and I mean no insult but I dont believe what you have said is true. We produce more efficient means of killing every year and the wars of the last 200 years have had large number of lethal weapons with better technology than any time previous...

The numbers of wars may be less as nations become larger and more stable but the quantity of death and destruction is higher than ever... We also tend to forget that much of the world does not have our adverision to casualties and death.

If we lost 5000 or more troops in a day like happened in WWI or WWII our nation would surrender we have no will to fight a large scale high intensity fight anymore..
 
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secret_agent_man wrote: The current civil unrest, know as "The Occupy Movement", is so far contained to urban environs.
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I don't know about te US, but the Occupy Movement in the EU is a protest demo, not civil unrest. And they are demostrating against irresponsible financial practices by the big institutions that have left countless people in the fiscal lurch.
People exercising their right to protest: long may it continue, IMHO.

As for the state of current events, well, as some have said the News should be called the Bad News as there is never anything positive in its content, although positivie things happen every day. People like to read about disaster and so that is what the media provides.
Having said that, I do think things are going to go downhill, certainly before they get better:

Never mind 7 billion people now, try 9 billion by 2050. At current rates you'd need to triple production to meet that demand. I don't think that anywhere in the world will be particularly immune to whatever may befall the Ganges Delta or the like.

Unfortunately, most of the western world has sandy ears, living in denial of these facts. Those being that we have to change our lifestyles if we want to preserve anything of the way we live now.

Most don't want to... so we'll need to live with the social consequences of that stance in the decades to come...

I pity the next few generations.
:(

In response to the initial query, I think I am definitely more focussed on SD and HD in the current climate. I've never felt particularly threatened, and I've not gone looking for trouble and hence it hasn't come looking for me, but if things get worse and crime rises, then I'd rather be ready...

Now... where the heck did I leave my RPG? Never leave home without it...;)
 
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I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something, something I can use
People love it when you lose, they love dirty laundry

Well, I could've been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear, give us dirty laundry
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and it will always be so.

During the NAM years you could see soldiers taken off the battlefield on the 6 oclock nightly news.

Why even Simon and Garfunkle did this tune in the early 60s.

This is the early evening edition of the news.
The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing
section of the Civil Rights Bill.
Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the
measure without the votes of their strongest supporters.
President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination
by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start
and everyone in Congress knew it.
A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee.
In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an
overdoes of narcotics.
Bruce was 42 years old.
Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open
housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero.
Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the
police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out
if it is held.
King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.
In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought
before a grand jury today for indictment.
The nurses were found stabbed an strangled in their Chicago apartment.
In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the
House Committee on Un-American activities continued it's probe into anti-
Viet nam war protests.
Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting
anti-war slogans.
Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial
increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward
to five more years of war.
In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York,
Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single
weapon working against the U.S.
That's the 7 o'clock edition of the news,
Goodnight.

Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/s/simon+and+garfunkel/7+oclock+newssilent+night
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There are many more links I could cite. Crime and violence in the US is clearly down. I believe the perception that it isn't is due to the programming on the 24 hr news channels that we didn't have 25 years ago. Nancy Grace for example.
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Crime may well be down here in the US over the last 25 years but war is not down in the last 200 years....

Violence is violence and is not confined to crime or war.
 
<Rant>
Re: The Nightly News

Try this sometime if you have multiple TVs or Picture-in-Picture TV.
Wait for the evening news shows to come on. Select one of your local channels to view. Now, on another set (or P-in-P) select a competitive local channel and view it along with the first one.

You'll notice that the majority of the time, which stories lead, which stories follow and which get the most air time are almost in sync. That is, if the lead story on Channel 5 is the "Occupy Wall Street" then it will also be the lead on Channel 3. It is likely they will follow that lead with the same story in the #2 slot. There will be differences, such as if one channel is in the metro area (e.g. Dallas) and the other channel covers a suburb or nearby city (e.g. Ft. Worth). Air time differences on secondary stories depend on whether the local station covered it directly or relied on an affiliate or couldn't send their own reporter.

There's very little difference in what gets covered and what gets thrown in the garbage. Editors have been taught the phrase if it bleeds, it leads for decades. Likewise, less known is The world in the sewers brings in viewers, alluding to showing riots, insurrections and violence.

"Occupy" Movement
The nightly news is unlikely to tell you how much some the occupy-movement has, and is being, staged by the far-left. With rare exception, they won't tell you that some activist organizations have paid people (jobless, homeless) to carry signs at these protests. They won't tell you that some folks were given public transit tickets or transfers and paid to get to protests on the west coast.

One local radio station here had a reporter ask members of the occupy movement what changes they wanted. Besides generalized claims, almost no one could name a law or solution to be implemented. An "organizer" claimed we should limit CEO compensations, cap interest rates banks can charge, force banks to pay higher interest on deposits, raise the minimum wage and lower university tuition. Yeah, like that works in a free market society. :rolleyes:

Here in California, protesters at the State University system are voicing their displeasure with the cost of tuition. We can all understand that. However, the [broke] State of California wants to limit pay increases of university professors and chancellors (some of whom earn more than the Governor and President combined). Now they are joining forces to protest together, demanding higher wages for professors while simultaneously demanding lower tuition. *sigh* Obviously we're not teaching economics 101 in high schools.

The Future
Gone are the days of the U.S. living on the gravy train that resulted from using our industrial might to win WW-II and not having to spend billions to repair war damage. Congress, for at least the last 50 years had gone on a spending spree that makes a drunken sailor look like a tightwad. It's going to be painful to force them to stop.

Other countries are already feeling the bite of overspending. Greece, Spain, Italy, etc. France is certainly going to get "snake bit" too, I believe. All of these countries have had socialist governments with large spending on social programs, worker pensions, shorter work weeks, generous vacation and/or medical coverage. On top of that, their legislators add in massive works projects for transit (rail), new government backed buildings (museums, theaters, offices, etc) and vote themselves raises. Then wonder where the money went.

In the US, we need to seriously curb Congressional spending at all levels. Chopping off $3 billion here and $5 billion there isn't enough. Focus needs to be given to reducing the government payroll. That means pay cuts, eliminating duplicated efforts and repealing many laws that mandate the existence of unnecessary agencies, boards, commissions and their subordinates. To do it, some big corporations will get hurt which will mean layoffs. IBM, GE, Lockheed, Boeing, Bell, etc. Forward thinking suggest creating incentives for these companies to turn their knowledge and skill sets into new civilian use products where possible. Closing many foreign bases and cutting foreign aid to countries that can support their own defense (Korea, Japan, Germany, etc) will gain us a little time.

Congress should focus on legislation that directly creates jobs -- repairing or upgrading the infrastructure we have (highways, bridges, power grids), tapping our own oil reserves, redeploying military units to secure the borders and perform port inspections with CBP. It should repeal the health-care act to allow businesses to start, grow and become sustainable without the burden it imposes. Use misdemeanor convicts to clear brush and weeds in fire zones or build drainage for flood plains. Use low-risk felons to build pre-fabricated building components that can be used for lower-cost housing or similar projects.

I've long thought that the main business of the federal gov't should be limited to providing national defense, defining national standards -- weights & measures, safety (food, medical, consumer products, etc), transportation (highways, rails, air), education standards, securing the borders and dealing with foreign affairs. Programs for the arts, education, shelters for homeless, women and similar programs should be funded by the states and communities. Donations to charities for public benefit should be fully deductible to encourage giving.

I'm stopping before my blood pressure gets too high. Every congress-critter should be forced to publish how much money they authorized for what programs every time they return to their district. This includes those cute little "earmarks" inside huge omnibus bills ... like $430,000 to study whether hummingbirds fart or how a Frisbee flies.

</Rant>
Thank you for tolerating...
 
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