Swift | Silent | Deadly


Self Reliance


A Primer on Raising Chicks

Chickens are one of the quintessential preparedness food sources, and for good reason. While it is still fresh in my mind, I’m going to offer some after-action information for those of you who may be thinking of raising chicks. It’s a little late in the season for this, so maybe I’ll repost it early next spring, as well.

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Security Sunday: Weekly Gear Maintenance

All of us have a lot of crap to do. Aside from getting dinner on the table every night, there are all these periodic tasks, like changing smoke detector batteries, paying taxes, backing up our computers, getting oil changes, etc. Most of us are probably tracking most of that stuff mentally. I have been looking for a way to make some of this stuff easier to track, and I’ve found a pretty decent solution: “Security Sunday” (you don’t have to call it that – I just needed a title for this article).

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My Favorite Books Part 2

At the time of writing restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic are easing in many areas. Still, I hope many of you are finding some time to read some books. If you’re looking for something to read, I am going to offer some of my favorite books, and I’ll keep this series going, hopefully well into the future.

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Know a Knot! The Retrace Figure 8

In this installment of Know-a-Knot we are going to build on a knot we already know: the Figure Eight Loop. The Figure Eight has many variations, and this isn’t the last version of the Figure Eight that I will show you. This week is kind of special because we are actually going to learn two knots: the Figure of Eight, and the Retrace Figure Eight.

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Beyond #TQ: The Unresponsive Patient, Part 1

If you’ve followed the self-defense community for ten minutes, you’ve been told you need to carry a tourniquet. And that’s cool – tourniquets absolutely save lives. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit reductive to say, “if you have a tourniquet you’re medically prepared.” A tourniquet is to a human what a battery charger is to a car: the perfect tool for one specific task, but not helpful for most problems you could have. Thanks to the infinite variation of the human body and insults to it, your medical knowledge should go well beyond the tourniquet.

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