Urban Survival Firearms - Reader Question on Tactical Lights

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a reader comment on the artivcle pertaining to Lights for other Handguns,...."Anonymous asked,......What about the battery life/supply for these lights? Do you have rechargable 123s or AAs, AAAs, etc hooked up to some type of solar pannel charger?"

UrbanMan replies: Typically, battery life on the tactical lights powered by the DL123 Lithium Batteries, sometimes called Surefire batteries, is about 20 hours of run time. If the flashight is a duel bulb and LED model like the excellent Surefire A2 Aviator, which has three small red LED light and a 60 lumen white light bulb), then when the batteries run down far enough, the white light will not come on but the red LED's still work. I still those bateriesi n a couple of these to use as map, signalling, tracking or navigation lights.

DL123 Batteries are not rechargeable. That's whay I have many more AA and AAA flashlights, than I do have tactical lights, in order to replace my DL123 powered tactical lights when I run out of stocked batteries. I have rechargeable AA and AAA batteries that I can recharge off a 110/115v outlet, 12v vehicle battery or from a Solar Panel. See this post for more on Batterys and Solar Recharging Systems. You are just not going to get the lumens, in a small package, from anything other than the DL123 3v powered flashlights.

Every person needs a red lens low powered light in order to read maps at night, work lock combinations, etc, without destroying their night vision nor giving away their position. I prefer the excellent little Photon red lens Micro Lights with an LED bulb for that. An alternate color would be blue, that works well to. These Micro Lights can be carried anywhere and are amful handy. I think I own about 12 o4 14 of them, one key chains,...in the un-used ashtray of my truck,..tucked inside a belt keeper on my gun belt,...lots of different places. And with 12+ hour battery life, and replaceable batteries, it lasts a long time. Cheap enough to have several for your Survival Bug Out Bags or kit you carry on your body.

Urban Survival Firearms - Reader Question on Other Handgun Lights

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following question on the post, Urban Survival Firearms - Tactical Handgun Lights:...."Anonymous asked,......What about lights for Beretta 92D, M9 (commercial 15rd), Walther P22 (.22LR), or Smith & Wesson Model 10, 15, and 40...What do you recommend? Not all of us out here have Glocks. Are there any lights out there with re chargeable batteries? If so, do you recommend anything with re-chargeable solar panels for these lights?"


UrbanMan replies: There are adaptor kits for the Beretta 92 and 96 series semi-automatics. These are plastic picatinny rails that fit snugly underneath the bottom of the Beretta frame and use a spring metal clip to secure the mount to the forward portion of the trigger guard. I will continue looking for one and if any company still manufactures this I will post their information. These actually fit and worked pretty good. Surefire also had an older light and mount called the Slimline, see photo below:

As far as the Walther P22 is concerned, I believe those are made with an integral rail (either cast or machined onto the frame of the gun) and they will accept a tactical light. However, the end user should match up the light onto the gun to ensure it works well enough before they buy it, if at all possible. I know the Surefire X200/X300 will work on the Walther P22.

For Smith and Wesson revolvers (model 10 and 15), I know of no light adaptor. All shooters should be comfortable using a handheld light in their off hand with a handgun. There are various techniques for this, probably the most common is the Harries technique where the support hand is underneath the strong hand (holding the gun) and the backs of the hands pressed together, see photo.

Two other methods of using a hand held flashlight in combination with a handgun are the Rogers and the old FBI technique.

I suggest you practice dry fire with these techniques; choose the one you are comfortable with then get proficient in the technique then head to the range for live fire practice. I would also suggest tritium night sights on all your guns, handguns and long guns. You can tell the shooters who shoot alot at night,....they have white lights and tritium sights.

I have done alot of shooting at night using night vision goggles. It is a acquired skill. I much prefer tritium night sights and a white light aid as you don't lose so much depth perception.

Your local gun shop can square you away on night sights, or you can order them through Brownells.

Urban Survival Planning - Reader Question on Planning for the Ladie's Monthly Visitor

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received a reader question from the post Urban Survival Preparation - Emergency Planning by Yahoo....."Anonymous asked,......Have you posted anything that relates to women's natural issues, like our monthly visitor? Material to stock up on that? Any natural grains or food that would substitute Midol? Good site."

UrbanMan replies: Boy, have you got me out of my comfort zone. But thinking about this will be good for my survival group’s planning as I have several ladies coming to the big change era and some just starting out getting acquainted with their new monthly visitor.

I have stocked many boxes of tampons……I think there is 160 total of assorted absorbency capacities. No doubt these would run out. In the back of my mind I have been thinking about some type of re-useable pad much like how the old cloth baby diapers were used. I think the solution in a post collapse world would be some sort of pad that can be laundered and re-used.

If a home made or field expedient product intended to be inserted was used, then I think the chances of toxic shock would probably be increased.

As far as natural hormone replacement therapies go, the following plants are in phyto-estrogen supplements: Black Cohosh, Cimicifuga, Racemoss root; Chasteberry; Licroice Root, and, Dong Quai Root.

I know a lady who is her late 40’s and is taking a pharmaceutical grade phyto- estrogen supplement and reports no menopause symptoms and sometimes goes three months between her visitor showing up.

Another product associated with reduced menopause symptoms, as well as other degenerative diseases is Omega 3 Fatty Acids, which balance The Omega 6 Fatty Acids that body produces and reduces problems associated with inflammation.

My source for this is http://www.myachingknees.com

As far as reducing pain from menstrual cramping, lessening your caffeine, salt and sugar intake just before your visitor arrives and using Chamomile tea to reduced discomfort associated with cramping,…again start drinking this a day or two before your visitor if he’s known to come on schedule.

As far a OTC pain meds such as Advil and others. Part of your Survival Medical kit should include the standard OTC medications such as Aspirin, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, Benedryl, some decongestants and the like. I myself hate to take anything other than aspirin and even then only small amounts. But I assume these may be in short supply during a collapse. I buy the big bottles at Costco or Wal-Mart, then replace when the expiration date gets about six months past due.

I am attaching a link to herbal remedies for menstrual pains from www.Home Remedies and Nutrition, here.

Hope this helps and thanks for commenting earlier.

Urban Survival Planning - Argument For Economic Collapse with the Shrinking of the American Middle Class

The Middle Class in America is Radically Shrinking, from The Business Insider
by Michael Snyder, Editor of theeconomiccollapseblog.com

UrbanMan’s Comment: What do you think will happen when there is no middle class only a lower class scraping to get by and an elite class? What will this ratio look like? 10% Upper Class and 90% in the poverty zone? How long will the people in the poverty zone put up with that? The 10% in the Upper zone will include the super rich and government employees, over 400,000 added to the roles is the number I seen, compared to 2.5 million net job loss since the Obama Administration came into office. Keep in mind this article was written by a economist, who is not in the habit for preparing for the worst like we are.

The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Here are the statistics to prove it:

83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 43 percent in 2007.
66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.

For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
For the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.

This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

What do most Americans have to offer in the marketplace other than their labor? Not much. The truth is that most Americans are absolutely dependent on someone else giving them a job. But today, U.S. workers are "less attractive" than ever. Compared to the rest of the world, American workers are extremely expensive, and the government keeps passing more rules and regulations seemingly on a monthly basis that makes it even more difficult to conduct business in the United States.

So corporations are moving operations out of the U.S. at breathtaking speed. Since the U.S. government does not penalize them for doing so, there really is no incentive for them to stay.
What has developed is a situation where the people at the top are doing quite well, while most Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to make it. There are now about six unemployed Americans for every new job opening in the United States, and the number of "chronically unemployed" is absolutely soaring. There simply are not nearly enough jobs for everyone.

Many of those who are able to get jobs are finding that they are making less money than they used to. In fact, an increasingly large percentage of Americans are working at low wage retail and service jobs.
But you can't raise a family on what you make flipping burgers at McDonald's or on what you bring in from greeting customers down at the local Wal-Mart.

The truth is that the middle class in America is dying -- and once it is gone it will be incredibly difficult to rebuild.