I am getting a lesson in emergency preparedness today. My day job is I'm a unix admin/support person for a local IT company. I'm sitting here waiting for this guy to call me and I have this sinking, sinking sinnkkking bad feeling. Like overwhelmingly bad.

So I find my center, put aside any irrational thoughts and clear my mind. I think where should I go to see what's going on and first thing that pops into my mind is a local news site... www.pennlive.com (which I maybe check once a week regularly).

Top story was 2 bank robbers robbed a bank near my house, then one of them is holed in the woods near my house (within 2 miles). Guess I know why I felt weird. Called the wifey, sent her an email, told her to lock the doors and grab the handgun.

Situation still developing but they locked down the school across the street from my house (I'm giving up way too much personal info, I know) ... and a few hours later (like 20 mins ago) took it off lockdown without explaining why while the manhunt is still on.

Good times. So today's emergency preparedness lessons just keep coming. Worst part is being separated from my wife and kid while this is going on by a span of 20 miles and having to calm my own thoughts. I'm usually a cool cucumber but it's vastly different when you're not there in person

I'm also wishing I'd have gotten rid of that *@#$ing glass door on the balcony (which thankfully has no stairs but still)

Ignorance is bliss.

There are so many armed robbers within two miles of my house, the prison probably couldn't hold them all if they were caught and convicted. And I'm not talking about politicians, most of whom aren't armed....

When I walk out the front door I look both ways down the block and if it looks like no one is a mugger, I'm pleased to venture on down the sidewalk.

Yet growing up in a small Oregon town it would have been creepy to hear about criminals two miles away.

Funny (and a little sad) what we can get accustomed to.

Best wishes to you and yours. I hope the perps are apprehended quickly and swiftly prosecuted and imprisoned.

I'm sure everything will be alright. I pray it will.

After this is over, it's time to ask yourself and your wife: Do we know how to use our handgun? Are we well practiced at the range? Can we use it effectively in total darkness (know everything about it by feel)?

Driving to work early one morning, I saw the local police closing down entrances to my neighborhood, with the SWAT team and other units coming in with lights and sirens. This is far from normal where we live.

My wife was home with the baby; I called and told her to turn on the A/C, shut the windows, arm herself, and stay inside.

Unbelievably, she started arguing with me about how it was a nice day, the A/C was expensive to run, and so on. With forced calm, I repeated that the SWAT team was deployed in our neighborhood, asked once again for her to close up the house and stay inside with her gun, and hung up the phone.

When the police helicopter started orbiting our neighborhood a few minutes later she took me seriously. To her credit she called back and apologized.

Now we have a few predetermined action plans that we don't practice often enough, but at least I'm confident that she won't think I'm nuts if we ever have the SWAT team come back into our neighborhood.

The SWAT callout originated from a domestic dispute. The police had been called to a house around the corner for a couple arguing loudly in the middle of the street. When the cops showed up the couple ran inside, and the man told the responding officers that he would shoot them if they didn't go away. The SWAT team used an armored vehicle to evacuate homes within line of sight of the house, and tried to make contact with the couple, who took their phone off the hook.

Eventually, the man came outside to tell the cops to go away and leave him alone, they shot him with beanbags and took him into custody. The woman came out and fought the arresting officers, and was similarly taken into custody. Alcohol was involved.

Seems like a terrible waste of beanbag rounds to me!

Yeah I am sure a beanbag round is more expensive than a real one.

Whoops, did I say that out loud!

we had several of those before we moved. I bought a scanner so we could listen and see just how close they were. One day an unmarked car pulled up to the house across the street so i got the scanner and heard a code 51 (IIRC) as backup came. I looked up <my city> police codes and found that a code 51 was stabbing. Later the police escorted the lady living there and her kids to pack what they could in a trash bag and leave and she had a big bandage on her neck. We got to talk to her, took her kids in our house so she could go pack her stuff and found out that her baby daddy had found them and stabbed her so she had to move to a new place.

In the UK, bank robbers are usually just allowed to say they are sorry, look contrite and then allowed to go and live in the Caribbean or the south of France with their millions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3MkQAgrj8c

Because every drunk blowhard should get shot to death.

you might consider a codeword or pair of codewords that require immediate compliance without question...do it, and I'll explain later

"safehaven" .... secure the home

"armed safehaven"...arm yourself, possible danger from intruder

"flee safehaven to ......"...leave immediately, take firearm,I'll meet you at a predetermined location


educators... you should have a procedure in place to inform your administration and resource officer that you suspect a student is in possession of a firearm.... it needs to be an innocuous statement capable of being spoken in the clear, over the intercom or over the telephone..."this is Mr. Snyder in room 207, I've misplaced my yellow folder"