Something conspicuously missing from the media survival lists

[Tim May]

Here in war-preparing America, reports are running on CNN, CNBC, CBS, and presumably other networks about the importance of some basic emergency supplies for all good citizen-units. This is mostly good advice, of course.

Being a paranoid and a kind of survivalist, I already have first aid kits, spare water, batteries, flashlights, warm clothing, duct tape and plastic sheets, spare eyeglasses, and the other items being recommended by the experts. In fact, I have a _lot_ more than this.

The idea is that the some attack by the Evil Doers in the Axis of Evil may come after the U.S. begins carpet-bombing Baghdad or Tehran or Pyongyang. Unspoken is the possibility that one of the various powderkegs may lead to a larger war. Disruption of supply lines, even civil disorder, could occur.

The news channels are right in spending a couple of minutes a day talking about basic preparedness for a several day disruption. However, there's one basic item they conspicuously neglect to mention.

That Item Whose Name May Not Be Spoken on Television: a gun.

If there's disruption, looting, a breakdown in what now passes for civil order, a gun is just about the most important thing to have. Probably not necessary to use it, for 99.5% of everyone, but then most of the emergency things like plastic sheets and medical supplies probably won't be needed, either.

But in postmodern America mentioning guns is simply NOT DONE. Not even on the Fox Network, a more rightward network than the others. (Being right no longer means mentioning guns, as Ashcroft and Cheney and the like would prefer that guns be in the hands of der polizei. There's a reason Hitler confiscated guns held privately by Germans.)


--Tim May
"The great object is that every man be armed and everyone who is able may have a gun." --Patrick Henry
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." --Alexander Hamilton