camp ideas

So I've been wanting to get a bit more social with my prepping and thought it might be nice to arrange a camping skill-share, where we could get together, make camp, share some ideas and knowledge and practice some skills and test out gear. In thinking about this I got to thinking about skills and ideas for discussion topics.  My thoughts around it revolved around the bug-out decision and what could or would be needed in those situations. 

So here is my brainstorming list of ideas around topics to cover both philosophical topics surrounding TEOTWAWKI scenarios and situations where wilderness bug-outs might be beneficial, and also covering skills and techniques I feel might be worth sharing for a SHTF situation.

 The idea would be to put into practice some of the skills and preps people have gathered and learn new ways of doing things in a relaxed, pressure-free environment.

I don't claim to be super knowledgeable or skilled but I think it would be a valuable experience and a great way to socialize mindsets as well as test out gear. 

To bug in or bug out

- when (depending on the event, there may or may not be a warning, sheltering in -place may be advantageous) (traffic, unrest, martial law, fuel restrictions, road clearance, security)
- how (on foot, in a vehicle, daytime, night-time, overt or covert)

- trigger points (depends on the situation, essential services, social markers (rioting, mobs, looting)

- prep (depending on the situation there may be time to do last minute preps (storm proofing windows, shopping, water storage)

- Where:

Should the decision come to bug-out, one of the first thoughts I think worth discussing was that of site selection. Given the variety of threats that could trigger a bug-out, such choices would need to be suitable for the situation at hand.

As I see it, a site selection depends on four basic elements: 

- access (can you hike to it, does it have road access, do you need ladders, ropes or a boat to reach it?)

- resources (food,  water, firewood, materiale on site)

- physical security (distance, isolation, cliffs, dense forest, rivers, fences, buildings, walls)
- obscurity (is it a commonly known or popular location, does it get plentiful visitors in normal times)

Having settled on a bug-out location and making it there, you are faced with some choices around camp layout that will need to be considered, these apply to any camping situation.

- shelter

- wind

- local hazards (rivers, cliffs, marshes, wildlife)

- areas (sleeping / cooking / fire / toiletries / craft)

- distance to water 

Shelter building. Depending on your situation and expected duration of your stay you may need to take into consideration a variety of elements such seasonal weather and both convenience and comfort. Do you need to build  a log cabin to winter in or stilt house to monsoon in?

- natural

- salvage

- portable

Foraging: Bugging out is usually a limiting idea when it comes to resources. There will be only so many meals you can pack and take with you ,and after that you'll have to fend or yourself. 

- bush food

- salvage (neighboring residences / "abandoned" towns, risks of venturing out)

- hunting

- caching

- farming (crops  & livestock)

Fire craft: Cooking, water purifying, heat, light, craft and security. Fire brings all thee things and there are fewer things that say "survival" more than being able  to start and maintain a fire. But it can be dangerous, time and energy consumptive (fire wood is hard work to chop and haul)

-stoves

- bow drill

- fire steel/ flint / Ferrocerium

- smokeless buried

- fuel (harvesting and storing)

Water: essential for life, for crops, for hygiene and  sometimes remarkably difficult to come across.

- sand charcoal filter

- evaporation still/plant harvest

- streams, billabongs, springs, rain harvest

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!

-My Country, Poem by Dorothea Mackeller

Food: Ok ,so, you've got your crates of MRE, your boxes of ramen and cans of beans, and lugged it a ll out to your bug-out location. Now you have to eat it. as a limited resource you want to ensure you waste as little as possible, maximise caloric content and avoid meal-fatigue. 

- - cooking/food/MRE's/rations

- - storage

- - hobo stew

Camp craft: There are all manner of skills to learn and things to make to improve camp living. Some are purely outdoors skills, others are wilderness survival and others just useful.

- travois building

-navigation

travois building
cleaning/ hygiene/ latrine
canoeing/fishing

first aid
sharpening tool/knife

signaling
gadgets

rope, knots, cordage, nets

Security: having arrived at your site, you'll want to establish a perimeter and put some kind of security in place, if the situation calls for it, based on the level of threats expected, you may need to deploy all manner of security to protect your location, your supplies and yourselves.  

traps / tripline alarms / noisemakers

- light/noise discipline

- snares, traps and static defense

- hiking/stealth

- tracking/stalking

  

 

The 5 c's of survival - combustion/cordage/ containers/ cover/cutting tool

Camp stuff aside, there's the whole "when is enough's enough", when to pack up and big out or board up and bug in. Some scenarios are better for bug-in vs bug out and would take some debating to determine what constitutes what kind of risks or benefits. 

Situations leading to a bug-out.

- social collapse: fabric of society in tatters, no law, no services, reliant on pre-established community goodwill if it exists. 

- economic collapse: mass unemployment and poverty, starvation and resource scarcity. law and order stretched thin, but government still operates in some capacity. Profiteering rampant. Currency irrelevant. 

- governmental collapse: formal government dissolved essential services operate on volunteer basis only. Free market economy continues but currency may be unstable .

- natural disaster: devastating and dangerous. depending on the nature of the event the damage may be narrow or widespread, limited or long term.

- - floods

- - dust bowl

- - fires (bushfire, urban wildfire, pipeline / refinery )

- - mega storms (hurricane, typhoon, tornado)

- - geological (earthquake, volcanic, impact events)

- disease  / plague

climate change: I don't need a 16 year old Swede to shame me into being concerned. Climate change could lead to a variety of cascading disasters.

- global warming

- - sea levels coastal shifts inland

- - droughts

- weather patterns

- - flooding

-- EL nino, La Nina

- - crop failures

- armada storms ( if one butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, imagine a whole swarm or an armada of butterflies and the storm they might create (thanks Peter F Hamilton))

water supply

- Drought

- -domestic water restrictions

- -crop  failures

- - bee pollination collapse

solar flare / increase (Circuitry Man) the day star is an angry friend and can do us harm in more ways than sunburn and drought. A burp of the sun could drop us back to the steam age and we lack the infrastructure to support it.

- grid down infrastructure failure, comms out

- emp

- radiation

- heat

Yellowstone super-volcano

Pacific Rim ring of fire eruptions/quakes

- ash

- tsunami

- plate shift

- reactor meltdowns

polar flip: i'm not convinced this one is really an issue worth listing as a disaster, rather a significant inconvenience and nuisance. 

- navigation

- Van Allen belt holes

power / fuel ( no oil, coal):  Fuel crisis might dramatically cut transportation, distribution and essential services. prices may skyrocket to compensate or they may simply halt

- electrical power grid down

-- water and sewage pumping cut / digital economy / comms

-- transportation / food distribution

international terrorism

- local infrastructure disruption

domestic terrorism :social unrest and instability, cultural shifts and revolutionary. All are disruptive and might warrant  a"get out of Dodge"  to avoid being caught up in or being on the wrong end of.

- religious extremism

- jihad vs crusade

- hate crimes/race war

plague: global Pandemics, sweeping through countries , killing or incapacitating people could lead to infrastructure and societal collapse as well as the direct threat of infection.

- Spanish flu

- red flu ( the Last Ship)

- crop blight (Interstellar)
- livestock blight

war: woah, woah, woah, what is it good for? Not property values that's for sure. Time to Wolveriene's out!

- invasion

- thermonuclear fallout

Crazy Supernatural disaster: I'm not going to shirk from addressing the very dear threats to the movie-going preppers lists even if it's not a credible threat. Worth it for fireside discussion with  a few drinks at the very least.

- zombies

- aliens

- trifids

- kaiju

Would some kind of camping trip with workshops appeal? If you're in my geographical region and would like to hang out do drop me a line. We'll chop some wood and char some food, rig some traps and get our hands dirty.

Review: Combat Australia - ghillie suit

Getting kitted up!

For the last four years I have attended an annually held post-apocalyptic  Live Action Roleplay event called “After the Fall”, the first iteration “Event Zero” I wrote about here:

In the first iteration I played a gung-ho soldier type who met his end being hacked apart by Steel Legion ravagers after a NERF-gun malfunction and failure to adequately transition to CQB weapons. In subsequent games, I signed up with the Junkers; a culty bunch of wasteland scavengers, scrapping by on the edge of the town of Sanctuary. The new persona I developed was the of “Trashman”  a somewhat deranged human scarecrow. Central to this character was the philosophy of “you can’t kill what you can’t find” and central to this was my new costume. Regular cammies wouldn't do so I opted for a modified suit of Desert Camo Ghillie. 

Pushing some food in before heading back into the bushes

Which I “junked-up” to keep in theme. I got my Ghillie from  Combat Australia who had this to say of them:

Why is a Ghillie camo suit so much better than just the standard issue AUSCAM uniform for concealment and camouflage?

The uniform that the Australian Military current used is called the DPCU, which stands for Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniform. It is a general purpose uniform designed to disrupt the visibility of a soldier from 300 metres and beyond. It is obviously not designed to be the perfect blending colors for all terrain including urban, bush and deserts. The Ghillie (or in Australian military its more commonly known as a Yowie suit although that is changing over time) is designed to go beyond this and actually hide the soldier.

Get your cover on, Trashman

The Gillie Suit has the ability to conceal the soldier which is not only far more effective at 300 metres but is very effective at close range distances. For instance, 50-100 metres and in some cases -point blank. It achieves this in several ways. Firstly the colors are designed specifically for the Australian bush and therefore are far more effective given that no consideration has to be made for urban or desert warfare. The colors are based on the woodlands American design but are slightly lighter to best cope with the Australian bush, which are muted shades due to the drier climate.

 I adorned my suit with “trash” in the form of blue bailing twine from hay-bales and curb-side rubbish bundles, and strips of shredded plastic shopping bags, which I tied to the twine or directly to the burlap strands.  I also took to tying on any piece of litter I found dropped in the scout park we based the game in.   

I fully acknowledge that doing so took way from the “natural muted colours” the suits provided but it lent to the “human detritus” characterization I was going for and I kept a close eye on the kinds of rubbish you see in abandoned lots, under railway siding bushes and the like, as  I was intending to lay in ditches and under bushes a lot. A touch of social engineering was in play here: the litter-blindness people get when having fun. “don’t look at me, I’m work …”

Combat Australia go on to say this of their Ghillie suits: The 5 S's of Cam and Concealment

In military speak the cam and concealment come under the 5 S’s...

One windblown clump of trash or a whole TrashMAN?

·         Surroundings:

Have the cam and concealment lesson this consideration comes under the title of surroundings?

I made a habit of moving  through the tree lines as often as possible, avoiding open fields and roads.  The offered me plenty of duck and cover options  and also kept me in the shade out of the hot sun.

·         Shape:

Shape refers to the soldier being spotted due to the symmetry of his body eg. straight arms, legs, head and also the symmetry or shape of the troop movement being the soldiers in a group or formation. Ghillie suits work towards disguising this by disrupting the straight lines of a human body and disrupting the pattern of soldiers in formation together so they more closely resemble vegetation.

why are all the photos of Bigfoot off center or blurry?

I walked hunched and bow legged, I tucked my arms and kept my stubby  NERF launcher in Classic Low Ready

·         Shine:

Another important consideration is Shine, obviously the DPCU has some success in alleviating this concern but the 3 dimensional nature of the suit is far more effective and pretty much eliminates this concern completely. Wearing the Ghillie/Yowie suit answers this concern comprehensively.

I draped the included weapon drape scarf of the suit over and around my NERF launcher, leaving its action free my attached scope accessible. Pulling the mesh down over my face obscured vision a little but greatly masked my shiny skin and glasses

·         Shadow:

Shadow is another concern especially when trying to be concealed from air drones. Although the soldier’s body is almost impossible for the drones to spot, the shadow can be very obvious at certain times of the day. The Ghillie/Yowie suit again assists in this regard by breaking up the obvious shadow of a man much like it distorts the shape, making the shadows more closely resemble the natural vegetation.

In the most recent event “ Buyers Regret” we were informed there was a drone in play.  I never saw it, but shadows can give you away on the ground too.  I was especially careful with this at night as the site had street lamps  along its roads which cast long shadows. Any moving shadows were a dead giveaway.

·         Silhouette:

These points are also very similar to the issue of silhouette as again it distorts the obvious outline of a soldier silhouetted against the backdrop of distant light sources.

Photobombing a mutant Wastelander. never knew

As with “Shape” and “Shadow”. I kept to behind the tree line when moving and aimed to lurk behind or in copses of trees rather than on roads or plains. Its amazing how often people will walk right around  a corner and not “slice the pie”  in an outdoor setting. Squatting by a stump or leaning up against a tree “thinking tree thoughts” I was often bypassed or ignored. Once people realised I was “out there” this became a running joke, with people talking to bushes and denying being alone because “Trashman is here too”.  The number of people who blissfully unawares put their back to what was essentially a murder-hobo was astounding.

There are many advantages to wearing a ghillie camoflauge suit kit over a conventional flat colored uniform. One of the considerations to be made when wearing a Ghillie or Yowie suit are that it is always going to be hotter inside the suit than wearing a standard camouflage uniform. This is obviously the case as the material is thicker by its very nature and works somewhat like a fur coat. This concern is alleviated as much as possible by the design and construction of the suit.

Junker with a Trashman shadow

The inside lining is made of sweat mesh which allows air to flow through as much as possible. The strands and individual meaning they are not “clumps” of cloth than can more effectively retain body heat. These strands are similar to single strands of what we call in Australia “hessian” although other parts of the world including the US and the UK more commonly refer to this material as “burlap”.

Shift change at the Town gates brings Trashman out of the bushes

Please note that although there are some fire resistant qualities to this material it is still highly flammable and should be kept some distance from open flames. Other considerations are that it is obviously heavier than just wearing a uniform (by about 1.5kg) and gathers weight as vegetation gets stuck to it. Retaining vegetation is an intentional characteristic as its optimal to have natural and realistic local vegetation working in conjunction with the suit but will add to its weight as it retains stick and twigs and leaves.

Trashman attending wounded after a mass casualty IED attack, spot him?

 

 

I found that my ankles, knees and elbows picked up the most detritus and that around the ankle hems the burlap fibbers fluffed up and collected the most  vegetation. This had a bonus effect of brushing away some of my tracks as I walked, dragging in the dirt as I stalked.

The third consideration is that fact that the suit will make more noise than a standard uniform as it by its very nature displace more vegetation around the soldier when in the prone position or when in the standing position against vegetation in that mater. The suit is most effective when hiding in one place for longer periods of time rather than running. It is best suited therefore to stalking.

Popping up from cover to provide more menacing overwatch, remained unobserved

When  I took picket for my Faction or provided overwatch on one of many “babysitting” runs I did on valuable assets,  I would find an off-track spot and sit, or lay and gather handfuls of local detritus and toss it over myself to better blend in and add to my ” I’m meant to be here“ aura. Walking slowly through the bush and being mindfull of twigs and the like was important as the added bulk of the suit (including height). I snagged on lots of things over the weekend and learned a good distance to keep and how to move  quieter as the event drew on. Part of the discipline was to keep he suit on the whole time. I donned it after getting up and only doffed it for bed.

In the Australian Army there are quite a few regiments where possessing a Yowie suit is required. To my knowledge this very day there is not an issued Ghillie suit, this is intentional so that the soldier becomes capable of constructing his own which in turn, makes more effective camouflage.

 I found that the press-stud  jacket closure was probably  a touch weak ,but with an over-belt it stayed on even when snagged ,and even over my post-apocalyptic tire armor a button or toggle or two would fix that… Also the drawstring pants was only barely sufficient to keep the pants on and in place, especially when crawling through brush belt loops would assist as would a bracer-system which I could rig, for next time.

Paint me like one of your French piles of trash, Jack.

All this said, I got spotted by a lot of people too. Wearing a ghillie suit does not make you invisible but standing behind a bush thick enough to stop a NERF dart doesn't make you bulletproof either.   Bushcraft beats gear any day. Trashman the "Tasty Tree" avoided cannibal ambush for another year. Watch out when you drop that butt and where you pee or when you check under your chair you might see Trashman hiding under there, eating your bees!

Professionally watermarked photos courtesy of The Professional  Hobbyist on Patreon here and on Facebook here.

Events: 600 posts! 836,000 hits!

I clicked over a couple of big milestones recently. I cracked 800,000 page views earlier in the month, and looks like I've having even more success as well there, but also just published my 600th post.

Between my regular Reviews, Home-Front pieces, Wish-Lust pieces and Event reports. I've covered a lot of Kickstarter projects as part of my reviews, which have been great to.

I also have written a bunch of posts for Breach Bang and Clear and cross posted here too.

 It's been really great to see some high levels of interest in the things I've covered, as well as a bunch of LIKES and comments as well.

I'd be delighted to take requests of gear, events or topics to cover, so if you have a hankering to see me review something, try something, go or do something, to help your understanding of what I think it takes to be Apocalypse Equipped, do drop me a comment and let me know!

Ready For Anything. Are You?

Home Front: Reader pistol ownership answers

I had four intrepid readers contact me answering my questions about their pistol ownership, and I am grateful for their trust and openness is laying out for what to some is a rather contentious topic.I wanted to gauge what pistol owners had to say about their decisions, training and mindset. In Victoria, Australia, where I live unless you are in the Federal or State Police, a licensed private security guard or a competitive sporting shooter, there is very limited civilian pistol ownership here. 

I grew up in a staunchly "no-gun toys" house, with exceptions made for my 1977 Han Solo and Stormtrooper blasters (which I still have). I did manage to trade my way into owning a .177 break-barrel air pistol whilst living in Dubai, UAE, in 1989, and left behind in Calgary, Canada in 1991. My dad gave me his Vietnam era Army pistol instruction, and I plinked away at paper targets, bottles, cicadas and the like. I did some quick draws, turn-and-shoots and the like, and generally made like a teenage Billy The Kid.

 Other than that, I've only had a limited experience with live firearms and some with laser trainers.  This is why I go out to the people with the experience to ask the questions. 

Obviously, I only have the replies from those who wanted to and did reply, so it's a subsection of my readers, but I think these folks have some interesting views and offer some insight to why people carry, what they carry, and how they carry. 

So, here are the answers to my questions from four pistol owners, all from the U.S.A., with LEO and Mil experience in some capacity in all four respondents. Lets hear it from their perspectives: 

How much pistol is too much pistol? 

• Ed N: A pistol is all about what you intend to do with it. If you are carrying it concealed you want something comfortable that you can wear all day. I don't like to go any smaller in caliber than a 9mm. If you go too big, you won't carry it and it becomes useless.

what is your current go-to pistol? 

• Ed N: In the woods I carry a Glock 20sf 10mm. Day to day, I carry a Ruger Lc9 9mm. For plinking, I prefer a Glock 34 9mm.  
  
  • I did have a question. When out in the woods, what might you expect to need a pistol for? Hunting? Defense? And if so, what and from what?
    • Ed N:I am much more worried about the two legged problems than I am 4 legged. I am not a hunter and would go well out of my way to harm an animal unless it is an immediate defense situation or survival was in question. I carry the largest caliber pistol with the largest capacity I could find because in the end, I just want to be prepared for anything. When I went camping, I used to carry a 44 magnum. Honestly, they are just a little too loud and reloading can be a problem in a pinch. The Glock 20 in 10mm seemed like the best compromise. I say all of this having never had to shoot at anyone or anything in the woods in all of my years carrying. I keep my pistol concealed and don't broadcast it and have never had a problem. However, I carry it for the same reason I carry a firestarter I have never had to use outside of practice. I would rather have the option there when I need it, than wishing I had it. And there is a pretty dramatic trade off. A couple pounds is a lot when you are hiking in the woods. Having a large pistol concealed on your person, (because having it in my pack would defeat the purpose of being prepared), is tiring. But in the end I would not do it any other way.

• Hunato (CONUS):Sig Sauer P238 
• Richard (Virginia, USA): EDC a Glock 19. Also carry a Glock 26 during the summer months when the 19, as small as it is, is to much with holster for the humidity. 
• Rob (Pennsylvania, USA): My go to pistol is a 1911.  I have a full custom on order, and I should have it soon.  Right now, my 1911 is a Sig Nitron.

what caliber and cartridge, and was this a deciding feature? 

• Ed N: 9mm is my go to caliber. With modern ammo it is the equal to 357sig and 40 with almost no ballistic differences. 9mm allows more rounds and a lot of options. You can pick up fmj (full metal jacket) rounds for cheap practice and jhp (jacketed hollow points) for self defense.  
• Hunato: .380 various PDR (price forces choice) 
• Richard:  9mm hollow point. 9mm has enough strong power and the size allows for a bigger magazine capacity. An additional deciding factor was that my wife is more comfortable with the recoil than a .40 or .45.
• Rob: The caliber I prefer is the .45, It was not the deciding factor in my choice, I just like the .45 caliber.

what is your motivation to own a firearm? 

• Ed N: Self defense and it is just fun to shoot. I have been shooting for 25+ years and it is a Hell of a lot of fun. 
• Hunato: I am a free man in a Republic.  I have children under my roof and two legged wolves (literally) come down my street time to time. 
• Richard: Raised around firearms in a law enforcement and military household, so firearms safety began as soon as I could walk. After my service, my father gave me a sidearm, and I have carried ever since. It is always better to be prepared and [not] need it, than need it and not have it. 
• Rob: I grew up on a farm and was always around firearms.  When I got into law enforcement as a career, naturally, the pistol training came with it. 

 

what was your motivation to carry a firearm?

• Ed N:I started off in an action oriented career before giving it up and going for money instead. I have been shooting and been around guns most of my life. 
• Hunato: Travel and home defense.  I also enjoy the sport of shooting. 
• Richard:  (as with reason to own)
• Rob: Even without my career choice, this world is getting dangerous.  I would carry a pistol regardless.

 

do you open-carry, concealed-carry or store-secure?

• Ed N: I conceal carry 99% of the time. I have friends that are very open-carry oriented, but I can do without the hassle of a soccer mom feeling threatened by a pistol on my hip and calling the cops. In my opinion, it is best to keep it completely concealed and hidden away from private eyes.
• Hunato: On some rural land I own, open carry.  Out and about conceal carry (license) at home ALWAYS store secure.  My oldest child was 8 before he realized we even have firearms 
• Richard: I am fortunate to live firearm friendly state (Virginia) and carry concealed ever day. During the weekend, I may carry openly while running errands, and when I do that carry a Glock 17. 
• Rob: Conceal carry.

 

what features of your pistol made it appealing for your use?

• Ed N: Overall size, grip comfort, ammo capacity, and accuracy with the pistol.
• Hunato: Can be carried condition One with high reliability, thumb safety (1911-ish design) my wife and I carry identical weapons, interchangeable. 
• Richard: I have stuck with the Glock family as they are inherently simple and safe to operate. In addition, if my wife is carrying the 26, and I am incapacitated, she can reload using the spare magazines for my 19 or 17 as I always carry at least two additional. 
• Rob: My Sig is the standard Sig pistol.  However, my custom 1911 was ordered with Heine ledge sites, a light rail, and a magazine well.  These, to me anyway, are needed for a true combat style pistol.

what training have you had?

• Ed N: I have had and later taught gun safety and target shooting. I actually spent more time learning tactical shooting with a shotgun than a pistol. While a pistol is the best self defense weapon, overall it does not compare to a long-gun.
• Hunato: Scouting Merit Badges, Law Enforcement Explorer Academy, Concealed Carry Permit Class, Active shooter class 
• Richard: My farther is a firearms instructor with the state, and have also trained during military service, although not as extensively as I do with my dad. With him, quick draws, fire from concealment, weak hand operations, threat identification, and more 
• Rob: Like I said, I grew up around guns and used them my whole life, for not only hunting, but target shooting as well.  I learned the safety issues surrounding guns at an early age. After high school, and during college, I joined the military, where my training continued and became more advanced.  Finally, my law enforcement experience has continued my training over the years.

what regular training do you perform?

• Ed N: I shoot on a semi-regular basis. Currently I hit the range about once every month. I tapered off a bit a couple years ago when ammo prices went through the roof. 
• Hunato: Monthly Range Day, weekly Dry Fire practice (including draws with Blue Gun). I used to think the NRA was "over the Top".  Now, after NY, PA, CT, MD, CO, PA, IL, CA, DC, and the English, Oz, NZ, and Canadian removal of self defense rights, I am a member. 
• Richard: As accuracy requires constant up keep, my wife and I go to the range at least monthly, more so if our schedule allows. In addition to that, we will randomly load a dummy round to simulate a failure and build muscle memory. I hope this answers your questions, and to add additional information, both my wife and I are ccw licensed in multiple states. We carry to ensure we do not become victims, and offset if that is also not putting ourselves into a situation where that could occur. Neither of us have ever had to resort to our firearm as a civilian, and hope never to need to. But I believe that I would rather carry for another 50 years, before seeing harm come to a loved one, and not have the tools to save them. 
• Rob: I continue to receive training through my department, and I shoot when I can on my own.

So, thanks to all the folks who sent me in replies, and I hope I've represented you all well.  It makes for an interesting read, and I am pleased to see responsible gun-ownership mentalities in place in all the replies. 
Be responsible, stay safe. I hope that none of you ever feed the need to use your pistols for anything other than because it's fun to shoot guns, or to put food on the table!

For those who object to all of this (and are still reading) , or thick skinned gun owners don't mind a very Australian ribbing, here's Jim Jeffries talking about an Australian take on the very American gun-culture.

And finally, to throw my own hat into the ring, if I had my choice of pistols to own, it would likely be the 
H&K SOCOM Mk23-Mod 0, being a "big gun that holds a lot of bullets", because I would want to put a lot of big rounds on target until it went away and accessories are what I'm all about ...