MAIN INDEX SALES INDEX GUNSMITHING TOOLS AND JIGS SHOTGUNS AND ACCESSORIES RIFLES, MAGS PARTS AND ACCESSORIES HANDGUNS, PARTS MAGS AND ACCESSORIES COMMO GEAR NIGHT VISION, LASERS AND BINOCULARS SCOPES, SIGHTS, AND WEAPON LIGHTS TACTICAL NYLON, FIELD GEAR BACKPACKS BUTTPACKS AND STRAPS MEDIC KITS KNIVES, POCKET TOOLS AND MEDIEVAL WEAPONS VESTS AND LOAD BEARING GEAR BODY ARMOR AND HELMETS
WHY ARMED SURVIVALISM?
The National Rifle Association (of America) has traditionally been one of the most powerful defenders of formal government recognition of the rights of private citizens to own firearms. In more recent years, the political battle has turned international, with most of the former British colonies locked in losing political battles over the rights of private citizens to have weapons for defense of their persons and property. In today's world where national borders mean less and the various social and political movements against personal freedom coordinate their efforts internationally, the NRA has proven woefully inadequate in protecting many rights. No small part of this is that the burden of preserving liberty as a virtue of popular government has fallen upon unpopular and often vilified "fringe" elements of society.
Western Europeans have traditionally accepted strict gun control; much of this rooted in early papal bans on such evil weapons as the crossbow. This established that the morality of the use of some weapons was superior to the morality of the use of other weapons. That concept carries forward to the establishment of restrictions on the use of various weapons in warfare and population control. Political philosophers like Niccolio Machiavelli recognized that a loyal and armed population would be strongest asset a prince could have, yet the biggest threat to a cruel despot or foreign invader.
Several west European countries have a tradition of sport hunting and competitive marksmanship but with the end of the cold war, few West European governments have seen the desire to shine as beacons of firearms liberty. In comparison, citizens of many former Communist Bloc nations now enjoy considerably more private ownership of small arms as they demand liberties formerly denied to them. African states have a hodgepodge of laws and realities that are not necessarily compatible or even rational. The armed often dominate the disarmed and laws are little more than the paper they are written on as long as the laws are interpreted and changed at the whim of government and the well-connected live above the law.
Most sociologists and political scholars will agree that the majority of laws and government actions serve not people, but government itself. Even human rights organizations recognize that violations of basic human rights, like the right to live, are violated in almost every country by the government of that country. Disagreement usually surrounds the propriety of resisting crime and human rights violations through the use of armed force. Most of the human rights organizations aligned with the UN will not support the distribution of small arms among a 'civilian' populace, but they cannot deny the basis for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is based largely on the writings of America's Founders in the Bill of Rights. For more details on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Click here.
For most of the last century, governments have dominated the venues of power and the projection of power through the use of coercive force. Thus, it is ultimately governments, the often morally questionable creations of the minds of men, that determine who has the "right" to own or use weapons. The framers of the American Revolution challenged humanity to see this in a different light, one that respects certain natural and undeniable realities as rights.
In Latin America, illegal guns often spell the difference between liberty, dominance and submission. Laws are plainly written and enforced in the name of the rich. The criminals rule by fear and the poor commonly grasp for a slice of power in the coattails of aspiring Communist demagogues. In the mix is no shortage of subterfuge, death squads, terrorism and old fashioned blood vendettas. At the heart of this is the Latin inclination toward socially stratified societies rooted in feudalism and superstition where some are more equal than others.
In light of the self-congratulating humanism of the west Europeans and British in particular many regions under their control and influence have suffered terrible massacres in recent history that were carried out with their knowledge and implied consent. Justice has been denied to the victims of these massacres mainly for reasons of national and diplomatic interest. It is these very same reasons that the survivor should consider an arsenal as a means of assuring not only liberty but the oldest of ideological goals - survival.
What lies at the core of demands for population disarmament and the de-facto government control of privately owned is the communitarian concept of citizenship. Under the communitarian concept, the individual must sacrifice concerns and responsibility for the security of themselves and their immediate family to the interests determined by the state. What is conveniently left out is the level of definition and license as to what exactly constitutes the "state". This moral sophistry is what has lead to international tolerance for brutal regimes around the world, where governments will thoughtfully provide instruments of repression to tinpot dictators while denying access to even the most basic small arms to regular citizens. The communitarian paradigm conveniently ignores the influence of transnational organizations and religious bodies, which is why it has been so ill prepared to deal with the international Jihad.
With the internationalization of trade, low cost travel and low cost high-speed long distance communication, we have seen the internationalization of violent crime, especially kidnapping and murder for hire. The motivation for both of these crimes is shifting from political to profit as the trend grows. In many multi-cultural nations with significant immigrant populations, old country hatreds and conflicts carry over to the new land. The elite who have enjoyed high places in government have seen the transparency of nation based political power to be less profitable than amorphous world business corporate power. This means that in the future, we are more likely to see major events brought about by the actions of business rather than the actions of nation states. The nation-states however, will cling to power long after they become irrelevant.
Future wars are more likely to be fought by non-governmental groups with little regard for national boundaries. Ordinary folks find themselves in the midst of a guerrilla war while their own governments deny the existence of any conflict. Even governments who do wish to conduct war with other governments are most likely to do so through the use of transnational groups as surrogates. The reason being that the all important aspect of deniability of direct responsibility keeps large scale weapons of mass destruction from being used openly. These conflicts are religious, philosophical and economic in nature. This is often the case in not-so-distant "third world" countries and even parts of the U.S. and Canada. In 1992, the American City of Los Angeles was sacked and burned by a force that simply could not be suppressed by the conventional powers of government. Hundreds were killed and thousands wounded. The government declared martial law but was unable to control rioters and politically motivated guerrilla fighters who openly robbed, raped, brutalized and murdered people in broad daylight and in front of the international media.
People around the world suffer inequality when it comes to being able to obtain the means of basic self defense. Despite even the most liberal government's official positions on the proliferation of violence and human rights abuses, perpetrators of the worlds most brutal acts against peaceful citizens are facilitated by easy access to weapons. One purpose of this site is to level the playing field in favor of people who want nothing more than to survive. Even the US government under every administration including that of Bill Clinton has supplied weapons and torture devices to known murderers, thieves and drug traffickers. For more information, <click here>. The morally arrogant governments of western Europe are little better, with the British practicing some of the worst hypocrisy.
Situations happen all too frequently when legitimate governments broker deals with not so legitimate organizations for power and control of certain geographic areas or parts of society. In New York City at the turn of the century, city officials and the police department had made a deal to provide protection to the general population for a price. Lower classes and immigrants bought their protection from the Mafia while upper and middle class people bought theirs from the corrupt regime at Tammany hall. They insured the profitability of the racket by passing a ban on handguns known as the "Sullivan Act" thus criminalizing most peopleís means of self-protection. As the people of that corrupt regime passed on, their legacy remains in the form of the restrictive laws they crafted to disarm the citizens of New York.
The Canadian government has occasionally given up day to day governing of territory to various tribal and separatist groups that practice brutality, theft and extortion to maintain control of territory. A part of the brokered deal is usually the government-enforced disarmament of anybody with a legitimate grievance against the group. These groups then force the "redistribution of resources" in their respective areas of control. The manner in which they are dealt with is the venue of political expediency not individual discretion.
In many developing nations, corporate security forces, basically mercenary armies, wield more power than in recent history. This is not a new thing, since in earlier centuries, private armies often conquered nations in the name of empire. The problem is that someday, a private army might be looking to conquer your back yard.
So letís get to the main point of this book right away. Most of a survival arsenal is procured for use against human predators. The secondary purpose of a survival arsenal is for subsistence hunting. Apart from those two purposes are only minor things like the control (or elimination) of dangerous animals and sport hunting.
The bottom line is that it will be you, the individual, who has to bear the results of sufficient or insufficient preparation for some of life's most critical challenges. The idea of "taking up arms" to redress grievances is not something that any rational person takes lightly, but many people in the world will often end up with very limited choices in life or death matters, and it is the survivors who have the forethought to prepare.
For a short video demonstrating some of the motivations for this site, Click here
For a direct link to an organization with information on human rights Click Here
You can also skip to the subsections below
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