No pictures this time, just a story that illustrates the need for situational awareness, the need for mental preparedness, considering how your actions look to others and something about not giving away an advantage.

In the days before cellular phones were common my friend Kevin and I were having pizza with our girlfriends in a bar off Pioneer Square. We had finished eating and in the course of after-dinner conversation I noticed a man with a nylon tactical bag in the parking lot across the street. He stopped at my girlfriend’s car, set the bag on the hood and knelt behind the car. Kevin looked to see what I was looking at and we exchanged a look. Our girlfriends sensed something was wrong and I explained, saying that Kevin and I would investigate. I flipped open my cell phone, dialed 911 and handed it to my girlfriend with the instruction to hit ‘send’ if anything bad happened.

At that time Kevin and I were pretty much of a piece, both 6’4″ and about 220, though we had different features and hair color. We were both veterans and moved athletically. We were both in nice casual clothes and had well trimmed goatees and ponytails.

The bar was on a street corner with the parking lot on the corner across from us. I quietly said ‘Laugh like I said something funny’ as we crossed the street and he did. I signaled Kevin to turn right on the sidewalk and then cut in. We exchanged cheery goodbyes before he turned right and I went straight.

The car was about twenty feet into the lot, and at the entrance I abruptly turned in, striding forward purposefully. Keven arrived 90 degrees away from the street side as the man stood up. He was medium height, solidly built, dark hair and mustache. jeans, flannel shirt and down vest. He saw me approaching, then caught Kevin out of the corner of his eye. I saw the look on his face. It said Oh God I’m screwed.

As I approached I extended a hand and with casual friendliness said, “Hi, I’m Mike Pearce.” There was a flash of relief on his face as he automatically took my hand. I gripped his hand firmly and stepped closer and the look of relief instantly morphed into sick realization. That look said I’m screwed and I just gave him my gun-hand.

Keeping his hand I said, still in a relaxed tone, “This is my girlfriend’s car, and we were sort of curious as to what you were doing.” Looking at me warily he raised his left hand slightly, then carefully used two fingers to pull back his down vest, exposing the badge clipped to his belt.

I released his hand and his relief returned. “I was wondering who had me boxed in!” he admitted. He went on to explain he was waiting for his ride and needed to change the batteries in his radio. He didn’t want people to see so he’d knelt down. At this point he was shaking a little from the adrenaline dump.

Kevin assumed a friendlier expression and moved closer. The poor officer was almost babbling from released tension, and I didn’t blame him. We chatted for a moment, then wished him a pleasant evening and started to move away. He finally said, “Who are you guys?”

I smiled and said we were just concerned citizens. Kevin and I returned to the bar and let the girls know everything was OK. After a few minutes a sedan pulled up, the officer got in and it rolled away.

Call it a Teachable Moment

His first assessment of the situation was correct: he was screwed. If we had been bad guys that wanted him we’d have had him. He was between cars; he could not move forward or back. If he moved left he would be fully in my fire lane. If he stayed where he was or went right he was in Kevin’s field of fire. Kevin and I were ninety degrees apart from him, we both had clear fields of fire and he could not engage both of us. Trying would have been very foolish; he had two alert, athletic men who were significantly larger than him who were already too close. We also pushed the pace of the encounter and kept him off-balance, giving him no time to panic and no leisure to come up with anything clever.

Fortunately for him we were not bad guys. Let’s look at some of his mistakes.

1. He drew attention to himself by acting suspiciously. His actions in setting a his bag on the hood of a random car then kneeling was not within the bounds of expected actions. He could easily have waited for his ride and changed the batteries in the car. Instead his behavior stood out and provoked the incident.
2. He compromised his situational awareness by engaging in an activity that required his full attention. He didn’t see the situation developing until it was too late.
3. He allowed me to control him by giving me his strong-hand. It was a natural reaction, but if you don’t know what’s going on physical contact is a mistake. Once I had his hand Kevin could have gunned him down and there would have been nothing he could do.

He very much did something right though. He didn’t panic. Yes, we tried hard not to give him time to panic, but it’s still to his credit. Bear in mind we did not know who he was or what he was doing. If he’d panicked and tried to draw without identifying himself he’d have been shot. The next thing he did right was that once the situation developed he moved slowly and kept his hands in plain sight. He had no idea who we were or what was happening and he had no good options. Sometimes all you can do is wait for your moment. The situation resolved itself well before that moment came, which was very much the best thing for all of us.

There are more lessons here, but those are the high points. Most important is that if he had not acted suspiciously none of this would have happened. Had it occurred to him to think about how his actions would look to others he could have saved himself a lot of discomfort.

We all get distracted. I mean, we’re only human. Most of us occasionally act thoughtlessly. But if you are in a vulnerable situation you cannot afford it. This officer found himself in deadly peril because he wasn’t thinking, and he was damn lucky we were men of good will with no desire for violence.

Mindfulness is key, and situational awareness isn’t just paying attention to what’s going on around you; you need to pay attention to what’s going on in your brain as well and keep your head in the game. Bad people look for people that aren’t paying attention or are distracted. If you are surprised they get to control the encounter and you really do not want that.

Anyway, it’s just some food for thought. Stay safe and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 12 may 2023

My background check was approved today and I trotted my butt straight over to Rain City to pick up this RIA 9mm 1911. A buddy of mine offered it in trade for a custom knife and that was a deal we were both happy with.

It’s a pretty GI-looking thing but that’s not entirely accurate. The first thing that might jump out at you is the flat mainspring housing, which you would not have on a GI 1911A1. Then when you get into the innards you find a ramped barrel with a full-support chamber. That’s all to the good of course, and saves me from putting in a flat mainspring housing and cutting the frame for a ramped barrel. Thank you RIA!

I suspect they may have tweaked the geometry of the grip-safety and hammer a bit too; this is the first GI-style set-up I’ve fired where the hammer didn’t chew a hole in the web between my thumb and fore-finger. Not going to complain about that!

The gun is well made. I mean, it’s a base-model RIA with the standard Parkerized finish; it’s nicely done but it’s not an exemplar of the gunsmith’s art. It’s smooth, no conspicuous tool-marks inside or out. Fitting is better than you might expect; it’s all decently tight. Trigger is good for a stock service-type pistol, breaking decently cleanly at around 4 to 4-1/2 pounds. Sights are authentically awful.

How’s It Shoot?

It’s fine. The original owner told me it’s reliable and shoots a little low and left. I tested this, and it was reliable and shoots consistently a little low and left.

1911’s in 9mm are cheat-mode in the recoil department; every one I’ve fired has been a pussycat and this one is no exception. It’s very pleasant and entirely met my expectations.

So then, Ditch the Tasteless Grips and Leave it As-Is?

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Have you met me? Of course I’m not going to leave it alone! What a silly thought. I mean, the gun has been in my possession for hours. You can’t expect it to stay pristine forever!

First things first. I detail-stripped the gun, pulled the firing pin etc from the slide and flat-topped it using my 2×72 belt grinder initially, then moving to my big Diamond-Hone sharpening stone to get it really, really flat.

Naturally I’ll have to cut dovetails for the sights, but that’s a job for another day. Next I moved on to the frame. I undercut the trigger-guard, then got started on the checkering. I cut deep enough to get it well-established, but stopped before fatigue set in. 20 LPI on the front of the grip-frame and under the trigger guard.

Checkering is tiring and I’m not as young as I used to be so I stopped when my shoulders start tightening up too much. I like to use an engraving ball-vice to hold the gun. This lets me turn it and tilt the work-piece any way I need to, but the trade-off is that I have to hold the vice in position while I am cutting. Like I said, fatiguing.

When I’d done about as much as was prudent I moved on to the flat-mainspring housing. It’s flat and has vertical serrations already, but that’s not good enough. I ran a scribe down the edges, then went back to the belt sander to start blending the edges to the frame. After a little grinding I moved on to files, then hand-sanding until is was nicely blended.

This isn’t just for looks; with the mainspring housing blended I can cut nice, aggressive checkering without having a saw-like edge at either side. This is something Tim Bacus showed me many, many years ago and I’ve always liked it. Anyway, I was already done checkering for the night, so I left off there.

Anyway, it’s a start on what is likely to be a long process of converting this into the gun I want it to be.

Where to From here, Tinker?

Well you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you? Trust me. I, Tinker, have a Cunning Plan. Stay tuned for further developments.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 10 May 2023

For us a SHTF scenario is pretty simple to prepare for; we won’t survive through most of them so there is little point in prepping for them. What we might experience here in Natural Disaster Central is a ‘protracted loss of services;’ a period of several weeks where water, power, food and public services (like Law Enforcement) are unavailable. Our realistic option in this case will be to hunker down, band together with neighbors and try to ride it out until order is re-established. This is at least potentially survivable for us, so it makes sense to prepare.

Under a scenario like this it is very likely that criminal activity will rise sharply, not merely from criminals being emboldened by the lack of legal consequences but also from people desperate to provide for themselves and their families. This means firearms will be essential. I think we’ve got that covered, probably for the entire neighborhood.

But I got to thinking; if we were fit enough to survive and could reasonably evacuate under more serious circumstances what firearms would be essential? What would we want if we did not expect services to be restored indefinitely and could evacuate to a place and a situation where we could survive long-term?

Here’s a list of firearms I think it would be good to have in such a situation. This is just my opinion about a hypothetical situation, not a ‘must-have’ list or a recommendation. Think of it as food for thought, and apply the ideas you find valuable to your own life and circumstances. Needless to say you should absolutely choose firearms you shoot well under the circumstances under which you anticipate using them.

Naturally you should comply with all local laws before the fact. Your odds of surviving these scenarios drop substantially if you are in prison.

# 1- Defensive Firearms

If you are responsible for your own defense against what can only be considered high-threat conditions these head up the list because if you don’t live you don’t need any firearms. Ideally you will have a rifle and a pistol, and the rifle can double up as a hunting weapon. To me the choices are kind of a no-brainer in a long-term scenario:

An 5.56 x 45mm AR-15 platform rifle or carbine and a high-capacity 9mm pistol, ideally a Glock. They are the most common defensive firearms around, so parts, magazines, ammunition etc. are going to be the easiest to find, scavenge or appropriate in the long term. They also tend to be quite reliable in use. Yes, there are arguments for a PCC and or other handguns but these make sense for a lot of reasons. An argument can be made for a .357 Magnum revolver based on versatility, the fact they will reliably run any ammo that fits in the chambers and ammo is common, but higher capacity may be a deciding advantage.

#2- Hunting/Foraging Firearms

If you are lucky to live long enough it is likely that either you or the community you settle with will do some subsistence-hunting. I think the absolutely essential weapon for this is a rifle or carbine chambered in .22 Long Rifle. Any rifle or carbine. Ammo is cheap so you can be well practiced and with good shot placement there are few game animals in North America that can’t be taken with a .22 at close enough range. In a pinch it can also flex into self defense, especially something like a Ruger 10/22 or other semi-auto .22s that have or accept high-capacity magazines. Ammo is also light weight, so you can carry a lot of it.

The second one I think deserves consideration is a 12-guage shotgun. It’s the most common gauge, and with the right ammo it can take any game in North America. A pump-action shotgun or semi-auto also flexes well into the self-defense role. If any of a number of constraints- budget, weight etc. forced me to choose between a defensive rifle and a pump shotgun I’d be hard-pressed not to choose the shotgun because it’s so damned versatile. I don’t know I would choose it owing to the primacy of the self-defense requirement, but there would be a mighty temptation to do so.

Other Firearms?

These are firearms that circumstances allowing might be useful to supplement rather than replace the ones listed above.

*A hideout/pocket pistol. Things will be chaotic and unpredictable, and in extremis any firearm is better than none. Ideally it should be genuinely small: a Ruger LCP Max might be the upper limit. Caliber commonality etc. really is less a consideration than with your other firearms; it’s a last-ditch backup that does not flex into any other roles so if you’ve got one box of ammo that’s probably a lifetime supply. One way or another.

*A .22 LR handgun. By this I mean a full-size handgun; something that can cover small-game hunting and flex into self-defense. Not insignificantly it takes the same ammo as your rifle or carbine. Rugers are good for this; they’ve been around forever and magazines interchange between most of them. They also hold ten rounds and the magazines are reliable. There are a lot of choices besides the Rugers, and most aren’t that expensive.

Travelling Light?

The defensive firearms are the priority because you have to live first and foremost. Start there and add as much as is reasonable and prudent, and don’t kid yourself about what your limits are. On the other hand I would under those circumstances seriously consider the .22 rifle and pistol. They can be used for defense, have commonality of ammo and you can carry a LOT of ammo.

General Thoughts

*Extra Magazines. Not because you’re likely to be in a pitched battle where you’ll survive long enough to need them (though you might,) but because you may need to reload under circumstances that don’t allow you to recover the empties and you’ll want replacements.

*Guns. Lot’s of guns. Take with you every firearm it is genuinely practical to bring along. These aren’t just back-ups and replacements; they are trade goods and allow you to arm allies met along the way if it is reasonable and prudent to do so. Long-term survival is going to mean becoming part of a community, and some of them may need to be armed or have their armament upgraded. It is in your best interest to have them able to do their part when you are all in it together. The ‘genuinely practical’ stipulation is important; if you are evacuating in a vehicle that will mean more might be reasonable. If you are on foot it might only be practical to take your defensive firearms. Do what seems best in the circumstances and be realistic.

In Conclusion…

…YMMV. Circumstances, individual requirements etc. vary. I think this is a reasonable plan overall, but budget constraints, physical limitations and your unique situation will affect things.

I don’t expect an absolute SHTF event to occur and one we, my wife I, can potentially survive long-term is in the minority among the scenarios that could happen. For me this is more of a thought-experiment so take it for what it’s worth. Hopefully this was useful for you the whole thing will remain hypothetical.

Stay safe and take care.

Michael Tinker Pearce, 8 May 2023