You bet. Damn right. I also still jog, and it gets me around the ‘hood, eyeballing my male neighbors of a certain ex-military bearing, waving, giving the old hooyah. We kind of know who’s “reliable.” We can put down a field of fire, maybe. I hope we do as well at getting along.
At least, in your own subdivision. You HAVE to be tight. But the problem comes in (historically) when the local/regional/national militia/army rolls in, with orders or an inclination toward ethnic cleansing. And they don’t know or love your neighbors of the wrong background. Nothing breaks up cozy neighborhood camraderie like being ordered to shoot a neighbor, or else you will be shot as a traitor/coward.
Not to mention what happens to your wives and daughters, if the “other” militia/army rolls in.
Cities get REAL ugly when cooperation breaks down and old hatreds flare. There ain’t enough Black Hills match boattails in the world to see you through a decade living along “sniper alley.”
the thing is, a dozen country boys with hunting rifles and good boots wouldnt make it easy for a bunch of weekend warriors.
Sooner or later youde see people on street corners in the country wearing Canadian army boots.
As far as some out of the area militia rolling in, well we've got some contingency plans for those folks. They'll find easier pickings someplace else.
We also don't have a whole lot of 'ethnic' to 'cleanse' around here. And anybody ordering anyone to shoot a neighbor is going to find themselves on their back with a couple of smoking holes in their chest wondering what the hell just happened.
The Mrs. and I have been working on our little group for almost a decade now. I'm not dumb enough to imagine it's perfect, but it'll hold for a while. Long enough for us to get our own private Plan B into operation.
Plan B is mostly getting the hell out of Dodge. LOL So in the last 10 years or so we've put together a little cadre of 10 families all of whom have put back what we call the "Basic Load". That list is a bit long to go into here. Maybe I'll post it someday.
It seems like a lot but it's really not too difficult to put together over the span of a couple of years.
The result is that we can put 20 people on the street all with a common set of weapons, ammo, aid kits, food, fuel, comm gear, etc to last us a couple of months without too much trouble.
We're also fortunate in that we all live on the high ground overlooking the major four lanes going through the area. When we inspected our roofs we spent a little extra time glassing things out, marking routes and points on maps, that sort of thing.
If we really have to deal with Mutant Zombie Bikers we'll make 'em pay for every yard, believe me.
Like I said, it ain't perfect but it's a damn good start and we work on it.
Claires got some good advice here. Other Freepers of like mind would do well to heed it.
Best to you my friend.
L
Jogging the neighborhood is good. Walking the dog and TALKING to people is better. We make a point to stop and talk to our neighbors. A friendly "Hello" and "How are things on your end of the block lately?" goes a long way, especially if you do it regularly and often.
We get some great intel that way and we learn who's worth a damn and who isn't.
We've gone from myself and Mrs. L "running" the NW of over 100 homes in the beginning to having "Captains" running the NW on their own blocks complete with a rudimentary chain of command sort of thing going on.
Most of them didn't even realize they were being trained in it. The ones that did, well they're now part of the cadre.
Is it work? Yep. Sometimes it's a real pain in the ass.
But the upside is that if, well more like when, things go to Hell our little nut is going to be pretty well prepared and a damn sight harder to crack than other parts of town.
And that's about the best we can hope for I figure. The rest of it is way above my pay grade.