By Ourselves, For Ourselves: Part 3

Well, hello there!

My apologies for skipping the week between Christmas and New Years. I figured that I had left you with $200-$1000 in stuff to get taken care of in the first two installments, so we could take a week off and get caught up. Also, I write these things on Saturday night. I�m sure everyone remembers what that Saturday was and I don�t need to go into why I didn�t feel like writing that evening.

For those new to this series, I started writing it because 1. I think the gov’t is doing a crappy job in ‘protecting us’ against terrorist attacks. Which is good, because 2. I don’t know if I’d like to live in a country where the government has that much control over the movements and actions of the people.

I believe that Americans do things best when they do things by themselves, for themselves, hence the title.

It would probably be best for newcomers to start at the first part before going on. Make sure you read the comments section. I am only one guy and, while I would like to be able to think of everything, I can’t, and there are some good ideas there too.

Anyway, today we�re going to talk about putting up a protective perimeter around your shelter (AKA: your house) in times of trouble.

We�re going to stick with the same scenario as in the last one: multiple small to medium scale terrorist attacks in and around your home town have knocked out power and water and killed off or injured a number of first responders.

You are hunkered down in your home with your family (wife and/or kids) and are waiting out the storm until order and facilities are restored. You have enough food, water, etc and armaments to make it for a month or so.

We�re going to go about ten to fifteen days into the problem and there are lightly armed gangs of approximately ten people or so who are hungry and thirsty running about, going from house to house in your neighborhood looking for food.

They are mostly on foot, but a couple of these gangs have managed to keep/get a car up and running and are willing to use it as a breaching ram.

Plausible scenario, agreed? OK then, here we go.

First line of defense is a fencing structure. It doesn�t really matter whether it is a live structure (hedge or row of small trees) or man made (wooden or metal). You want something that will provide a barrier so a person will either have to go around, over or through so as to slow them down and give them a place to be pinned.

After you choose and build your alternative, you will want to do two things; know its distance from various points on your property and put it into your head that you CAN shoot through it. Do not let yourself be fooled into thinking that the cover you provide for your enemy is bulletproof. Let them find out that surprise later. Very few fencing materials can stop a 5.56 or 7.62 projectile or even 00Buck pellets, remember this.

For example, I have 5ft tall chain link fencing surrounding 2/3 of my back yard and 6ft slat wood on the other 2/3.

Along the sides and into the front of my house, I have a 2-5ft earth barrier (going up from my yard at a steep angle) along my driveway, between myself and one neighbor and a 2-3ft earth barrier (going down from my yard vertically with a rockery) on the opposite side, running along my other neighbor�s driveway.

The street in front of my house goes uphill from the latter neighbor to the first one and is 35ft from my front door. 3/4 of the front of my house has a 3ft hedge that runs along the street. In between the hedge and the street is a ditch that is 2ft deep and 2-3ft across. Ditches make excellent barriers but are not looked at very kindly by cities or neighbors. The other 1/4 of the front of is my driveway.

The farthest distance I will have to shoot within my property is diagonally, corner to corner, across my backyard. That distance is 70ft, which is still a good distance for my Remington 870 shotgun with a screw-in Turkey choke. Hence my multiple purchases of 00Buck ammo, totaling more than the wife thinks I can ever shoot (that is a quote).

So, I have 4/5 of my house surrounded by barriers that would slow or stop a person on foot, and � of it would slow or stop a vehicle. Now let�s look at the weak points; my driveway entrance and the 2-5ft uphill barrier. We�ll start with the driveway.

I want it accessible for me in day to day movements, which means I don�t want to put up a permanent fence or other structure, but I want it easily blocked in times of trouble.

I can go two different routes here: Large blocking structure or something strong that can be quickly strung across the entrance.

I can put one of the wife�s cars across the driveway. She�s probably got less than 1/8 of a tank of gas in there anyway and it�s fully insured, so what the hell, right?

But that will give anyone who wants to use it good cover. Yes, a rifle round is able to go through both doors, but I�d rather not pay for their cover.

My other option is a cable or chain fence that is strung across the entrance to the driveway. Trespassers will have to go through or around it, hopefully towards the solid looking hedge, where they can be picked off easily.

To make this idea work, I can do two things: concrete permanent posts on either side of the driveway and have the cable or chain fence made up so that it is quick and easy to install. This is most easily done by putting heavy duty light posts on either side of the driveway. They�ll be more functional than even the neighbors know.

Or, I can just have concreted piping in the ground that I can slip my fence poles into. I just have an extra step in putting the posts in before I string my fencing.

Things to think about for the fence option,

You want to make sure that you are the only one able to take it down. If you use the slip post method, you don�t want someone to be able to come along and pull your posts out of the ground. Think of a way to lock or bolt them in their place.

Or if you are using the permanent posts, you don�t want to use something like carabineers to hold you fence up. The easier it is for you to put up the easier it is to take down. I like heavy duty U-bolts with either over-long threads or a lockable cross-bolt. These will also be strong enough to hold the fence together should fence have to try and hold back a vehicle.

Is your driveway two cars wide? If so, you will probably want to have a support post in the middle to help hold the fence upright. You will probably have to have a hole cut in your driveway for a slip post.

Speaking of post holes, you will want your posts to be at lest 2ft deep in the ground. 3ft would be better. You can decide on how tall you want your fence, but 3-4ft is probably enough. Remember, this fence should be made of at least � inch cable or chain and will not be lightweight.

You want to make the lowest string across within 8-12 inches of the ground and then another horizontal cross section every 8-12 inches. If you can, put a vertical string every 3-4ft so as to make it like a net. It�ll be stronger and harder to get through.

Now onto the uphill barrier, that is my neighbors property and I doubt he�d look very kindly on me digging or putting fence posts in his yard. About my only option here is to use vehicles. The barrier is only 20ft from the front corner of my house, so any vehicle that gets up enough speed could bust through any temporary fencing I could construct and probably end up coming through the window. It is probably just best to put a vehicle on the slope, nose first so as to offer as little cover as possible and hope for the best.

I could also park a vehicle facing towards the street across the top of the slope. At my eye level, that would put me looking under the vehicle at the feet of those trying to use the car as cover. I think a rifle round in the ankle would immediately make them take a position that would be more advantageous for me to stop their threat.

If nothing else, the uphill slope can be used as bait for the trespassers to use an entry lane that will look easy, but will actually be a kill zone. Non-militarily trained folks are quite often unpredictable, but they are also generally easy to lure into traps and ambushes.

Most if not all of this exterior preparation will probably make the house look occupied. The trick is to make the placement of things look random or haphazard. Not an easy thing to do. But if I toss stuff like the patio set, the lawnmower, the trash cans and odd junk from inside the house out into the front yard, people passing by might think the house has already been looted and therefore, less inviting.

The next step is to block up the entrances to your home.

With no power gas or water, you have anywhere from 4-6 unusable lumps of metal inside your house. Your refrigerator, stove, washer and dryer to start with, but you may also have a chest freezer and/or a dishwasher.

While none of these is actually bulletproof, they make good door jams and cover. Just move them where you want them any they become useful once again.

For instance, the stove is probably the heaviest and can go behind the front door so that it can�t be forced open easily. The refrigerator is the tallest and thereby also the longest. It can be laid down in front of a sliding glass door for use as cover. Use the rest of the appliances in the same manor, to block doors and to give you added protection in your firing positions.

Now to any bodies that may pile up. This is a legal question and I am not a lawyer. But I do know that a gang of brigands trying to forcibly invade my home is a damn good reason to open fire.

All I can say is to use you best judgment. Do what you want with the corpses. Stack them up or leave where they fell. DO NOT let their friends come back and get them. You then loose the upper hand in any future legal questions that may arise.

Also REMEMBER to always leave yourself an out.

You may need to just un-ass the area and retreat if the attack is too strong and you don�t want to pen yourself in. Figure out which entrance is the hardest for the trespassers to get to and make that one your escape hatch.

I have door that faces out into the back yard. The back yard has the most fencing and is easily defended. An attack could come from that direction but it would easily be put down as there is very open and has little cover for the attackers. If I make that door my escape hatch, I need to put my truck with supplies outside that door in order to make a decent escape. My truck would not like to drive through the chain link fence, but I know where the weak point is and it would make it through.

Now, after all of this, you might also want to add improvised munitions to your defense arsenal, things such as remote directional explosives (claymores) and booby traps.

I WILL NOT advise as to those here, since I do not want to go to jail.

I would suggest that, if you haven�t as of yet, you look into those. They are oh, so handy.

There are hundreds of reference books out there (the P00r Man�s James B0nd is just one of many you may have heard of) for you to peruse, I suggest doing so. Although I would not suggest you buy them online or use your credit card to purchase them, for obvious reasons.

Now that we have covered this topic, I would welcome any additional ideas in the comments section or my e-mail box.

I would also welcome any suggestions as to book titles and/or suppliers of said book titles.

I know I am not the only one who buys these damn things. Although, it has been over a decade since I have had to make a new purchase.

So help a brother out!

Next week we’ll cover ‘Good Neighbors and Bad Neighbors’.

Also, again, please feel free to put suggestion for future installments in either the comments or my e-mail box.