New Year’s Resolutions for Your Family’s Security

Dear Fellow Survivalist;

The New Year is upon us, a time when people practice the custom of making resolutions, so that they can break them within the week. Yes, we’ve all done it at one time or another; quite possibly several times over. But does that mean we quit? Not on your life. This is the year that we’re really going to keep those resolutions… or so we think.

Actually, the idea of New Year’s resolutions is a good idea. We all need to improve things in our lives and making a firm decision to make those changes is beneficial. The key though is making it a firm decision, rather than a wishy-washy one that we’ll break the first time things get difficult. If we want things to improve in our lives, we’re going to have to change something, and this is a good opportunity.

Here are a few New Year’s resolutions you can make, which will be beneficial to your family’s security.

Go to the Range Regularly

Now this one shouldn’t be hard to do at all. After all, who doesn’t enjoy going to the range and punching some holes? But the reality is that most of us don’t go to the range anywhere near as often as we should, honing our shooting skills. Should we ever need those skills, we’re going to be wishing that we had spent more time on the range.

In any active shooting encounter, we should expect that our shooting skills will be severely compromised. As the adrenalin courses through our bodies, our shooting skills will degrade by about 80%. In practical numbers, that means if you can normally shoot a 4-inch group, you’ll be shooting a 20-inch group instead. On the other hand, if you can normally shoot a 2-inch group, you’ll be shooting a 10-inch one. That gives you a much better chance of hitting your target.

Stay in Condition Yellow

The couple of seconds that you lose, when caught by surprise can be deadly. Criminals count on that surprise, which allows them to take control of the situation. It leaves everyone else in the position of having to overcome their surprise, before they can evaluate the situation and come up with a plan to respond to it. In most cases, that means it’s actually too late to react, without putting other people’s lives at risk.

Staying in condition yellow means keeping aware of the situation around you, including where you are, where potential cover and exits might be and what other people are doing. It means evaluating those other people, to determine which ones might be risks. Then it means to keep an eye on those potential risks, watching to see if a dangerous situation unfolds.

It’s much easier to move from condition yellow to taking action, than it is to move from a passive state known as condition white. The criminal may still have an advantage; but you’ll have taken most of it away. All it takes is practice to make it so that you live in a constant state of condition yellow.

Improve Your Home’s Passive Defenses

Being ready to react to a criminal’s actions isn’t the only thing to do, in order to keep your family safe. It’s one thing to deal with criminals once they get into your home; but it’s even better to keep them out to start with. The best defense is not having to defend yourself at all.

Most of our homes are not as secure as we think they are. Even worse, there’s a good chance that you have doors and/or windows which aren’t locked, giving easy access to any criminal that wants to come in. Not only do we need to develop the habit of keeping our homes locked up, we need to make sure that the locks we have are doing the job they’re supposed to. A deadbolt that just goes into a ¾” thick pine doorframe isn’t as much keeping your home secure, as it is giving you the impression that it is keeping your home secure. Add a security striker plate, so that if someone kicks the door, the deadbolt won’t come through the door frame.

Drive Safer

I’m not saying that you don’t drive safe, as much as I’m saying that others don’t. There are always people on the road who do stupid things. Your job, as a driver, is to avoid them and not allow them to cause you problems. That may be impossible, but hopefully you can keep them from getting you in an accident.

Keeping your family safe involves more than protecting them from criminals. Dangerous drivers can be just as much a danger to your family, as any criminal. Worse, there are more dangerous drivers out there, so you’re much more likely to encounter them. Resolving to drive safer, with an eye on what other drivers are doing out there, could very well save a family member’s life.

So, there you have it, my list of recommended New Year’s resolutions for 2024. Which one or ones work best for you? Where do you need to up your game? Like keeping your powder dry and your survival gear close at hand, it’s all about keeping your family safe. After all, your family is depending on you.

Dr. Rich