Discussions about Safety and Personal Security

• Non-Weaponized Defensive Posturing. - May 12, 2021

  This week I hope to be your guide at actually putting rubber on the road, without an anchor in your wallet, to create partial security barriers out of everyday living conditions that might be just enough inconvenience to prevent random, opportunistic scumbags from violating the sanctity of your home.

• Creating a Personal Security Plan. - April 14, 2021

  I hear it all the time, the countless stories about being smaller, or petite, having a deep-seated fear about being alone in dark or unfamiliar places. I’ve spoken to hundreds about their perception of injustice with racism, sexism, physical brutality. The story is the same for all situations where a perceived physical inequity could exist between the would-be attacker, and the intended victim.

• Weaponry through the ages. Feeling safe with defensive weapon systems. - March 24, 2021

  Talk about longer term dependence on weapon technology. However I want to be sure we talk about the chance that manufacturing plants could be offline, or no longer functioning. As we discuss the need for weaponry in a defensive measure, I want us to consider the longevity of said weapons. Whenever discussions of the zombie apocalypse surfaces, the immediate discussion comes up for axes, modified maces, or swords.

• Video game players. Are they really prepared for the apocalypse? - March 17, 2021

  Podcast Episode 031721 Published on March 17th, 2021 Here in the depths of the Alaskan winter, there are several things that can be counted on. The first is that the Alaska Outlaw homestead here in South-central Alaska is prepared. We are prepared for earthquakes, as well as many other natural disasters of many kinds, all the time. The second is that Saturday nights here are filled with whiskey, and great company while enjoying the third. Video games over the internet. While I need to be sure I say that we are all accomplished men and women, and simply enjoy bullshitting and talking smack while engaging in complete fantasy, a video game about some type of combat. Whether it be the Gears of War series, Halo series, or Call of Duty Black ops, we all here know, very well the reality of engaging in conflict, and simply play as a backdrop to the socialization time. I can honestly say that all of us know that the games are fantasy, and simply use them to occupy our hands while conversing about endeavors. While these newer generations place more importance on the culture of video gaming, I am comfortable in knowing my kids clearly know what video games are for. Greetings friends, family members, fellow Alaskans, and those of you fellow Americans, wherever you are. Welcome to the Alaska Outlaw podcast, I am the Alaska Outlaw, and today I’d like to take you on a journey of understanding training versus the social media threads about being a “gamer”. In today’s episode, I want to talk about the level of preparedness that can be obtained by the use of “first-person shooter” type video games. What is this “first-person shooter” concept? What does it mean? A first-person shooter is when the screen of the video game is framed in such a way that the viewer is looking from the shooter’s eyes. This creates a psychological attachment between the video game shooter and the player playing the game. Although modern video games continue to improve the video rendering, creating a pseudo believable crime scene, which does create a semi-tolerance of the faked violence of the screen. Let’s talk about the readiness encouraged by the modern video game world. Talk about the people who jam out to the Call of Duty game late at night after a day of work? Are they being accurately being trained for combat? As I mentioned before I’d like to talk about the “preparedness” that many of these men and women are thinking they might be getting, but alas, are not. Ultimately the fantasy world of video games falls into three distinct player types: Those men and women who test the extremes of the game. They understand the limitations and seek to exceed them with secret handshakes, or treasures throughout the game. These folks know it is a video game, and although they are beating Call of Duty this week, by next week it’s something totally different. This next group is the “wannabes”. They assume that because they are good at their controller, somehow they are being educated in the art of strategic combat. They incorrectly assume that their experience within the game somehow prepares them for actual combat. In many cases, this group has become the butt of many jokes and ridicule, as they may have a false impression of being trained in some art in which they aren’t. The final category is where many individuals fall into. This group realizes video games are nothing more than something to do while possibly socializing, or ingesting our favorite liquor. This category recognizes video games as fantasy preoccupations that can be used in socialization and bullshitting sessions. The days of pre-teen boys gathered around a small dual-colored screen watch super-simplistic motion being played out on the screen based on basic moves of some type of controller, are long gone. They have been replaced with high-speed, interactive, virtual reality, where realism takes leaps and bounds every release. Gone too are the days when proper firearm handling and civics were taught in public schools. The balance between those two couldn’t be any further apart if we tried, however, many in the social media circuses, and sometimes mainstream media, attempt to link this modern-day youth violence on the impact of these video games. Two things there: they’re your kids, stop it, and if not teach them what it means. I mean really, grow a spine and say no. Problem solved. Ultimately the video game genre has produced many video games that are incredibly detailed, leaving very little to the imagination, however even with the up and coming world of virtual reality, there remains a large disconnect between the game-world, and the real-world. Primarily, the reality of physical exertion and general Newtonian physics is the single largest argument against the video game training scenario. The problem is that many parents aren’t standing up and being accounted for in this discussion. Teaching the children the finer points of what is happening, and more importantly, why society doesn’t need any more lunatics. This leads us to the major source of discourse, and that is the idea of the adaption, and adoption of video games by some different groups (such as the US Army, some law enforcement groups) to provide a level of training. However, this identifies a possible beneficial aspect of video games which technically can allow for some mental exercise, in a repeatable fashion, in such exercises as “shoot-don’t shoot” immediate decision-type exercises. This decision matrix within the mind is ripe for the use of video games for this type of exercise. One has to keep in mind the nature of the exercise, we’re now more interested in the appropriate action in a snap decision, rather than the overall body count. So, to say that there is absolutely no value in these high-speed, quick action types of video games would be a disservice to the games throughout the industry. The lack of physics, exertion, and emotional carnage […]

• Household Chemical Safety. Do you know what you’re storing together? - March 10, 2021

  What kind of chemicals are we talking about you ask? The many secret ingredients to keeping your home clean, or maintaining a level of hygiene, all of these products have some level of chemicals stored there that we need to be cognizant of. As an example, we need to be diligent that ammonia and chlorides don’t mix on a kitchen floor, however, there are many more. So, in addition to understanding a little more about our products, we will take a good look at what can be safely stored together. When you home turns into a blender due to an earthquake, tornado, or other natural disaster, we need to be sure that things don’t get mixed in an environment that we are trying to breathe in.

• Outlaw Thoughts. Why do we blame Public Safety? - January 20, 2021

  Towards the middle of last year I published a podcast about the ramifications of defunding the police departments, and I generally outlined the evolution of “law enforcement” from the earlier night watchman, to the professional police officer we have today. Just as importantly, we talked about the community placing more and more legal burdens on these law officers, effectively shuffling the responsibility of policing the communities ourselves, and yet, while constantly tolerating criminal behavior. Every day I hear discussions about “how bad” officers are, and I remind those speakers, that we (as a community) made them that way.

• Air Safety. Infection potential in the air we breathe. - December 16, 2020

  Being prepared for natural disasters is really just imagining yourself in your home without utilities, or possibly stranded without the ability to resupply yourself and your family. Right? Wrong. Depending on the disaster, first-aid and basic construction understanding may be needed to keep you and your family safe and secure. However, you may not be aware, but according to the USFA, 37 percent of residential fire victims succumbed to smoke inhalation.

• Mitigating Unnecessary Risks - November 25, 2020

  gotten away with it, while others were not so lucky. Whether it was losing extremities due to extreme frostbite, or losing their lives due to hypothermia. As my older boys were growing up they constantly challenged the Alaska winters, and for the most part, they were a part of the lucky ones. However, I would say that one of the most avoidable injuries are the injuries dealing with hot and cold weather. As a boy growing up in Southern Arizona, I learned, sometimes painfully, that extreme heat can be just as dangerous as extreme cold. Heat stroke, exhaustion, and sun burns can be very dangerous, and painful. But, in the big picture of things, the most overlooked type of injuries are weather related. In my experience, there are really two schools of thought when it comes to weather injuries; first is the “macho man” mentality who foolishly thinks they are tougher than the weather, and the other are the “quick tasks” that underestimates how fast weather can change, or what degree of impact a short dash of weather can have.

• Loss of Technology. Going back to move forward. - November 4, 2020

  As many of you know, I’m pretty involved in surviving and getting my family and I to the other side of whatever Mother Earth may throw at us. With a constant knowledge that any minute of any day, some lost soul in some far-away place could depress the button to send us all back to the ice ages, I work tirelessly sometimes to think of all the “what ifs?”

• Safety in Numbers. Avoiding unnecessary risks. - October 5, 2020

  This week I’d like to expand on some safety ideas for you as you travel around different situations, by deploying some “safety in numbers” practices that we’ll talk about here today. Throughout the decades of being in the security industry, I’ve had countless conversations with many individuals about the concept I call “physical injustice”. Physical injustice is identified by noting a physical difference between two parties.