Objectives

This whole transition isn't easy. It started awhile ago, but still. All through elementary, all through high school, university, college, I was indoctrinated as a liberal. The police's job is to protect us. The government is gonna help us in a disaster. Guns are bad, and only for highly trained professionals. Being taxed all to hell (not that I was, as a student) didn't seem all that bad, after all I have 'free' healthcare! What would I have to do to fulfill my end of the social contract except shell out the cashy monies, not sling dope and not punch anyone else? What could go wrong?

Yeah. I'm glad I've changed. It took a team of great DIs to pound sense into my skull and begin the process. I guess it might have started at Katrina, I guess. It was a huge deal to my pre-police-academy class in school. I was just so sickened by humanity, watching the reports of medical choppers taking fire, that padre getting gutshot. It actually occurred to me that if the shit hits the fan, I'm on my own. I thought I'd be okay at first...till I realized the first criminal with a gun would just shoot me. I was never a fighter, though. I was the nerdy kid everyone broke down, who thought that he could outrun every bully and mugger he ever met. Yeah...I've grown some. Realized that's not what it's like in the real world. In the real world, there are muggers who are faster than me. That once I start making an income that'll sustain me out in the world, I'll be taxed obscenely. That should any of the stuff that keeps modern society going suddenly disappear, even for a couple of days, I'd screwed. I'm like a dog that ends up dumped in the woods- yeah, I got all kinds of stuff buried in me, but I'm so domesticated, I wouldn't know what the hell to do, and the only way I would survive would be for me to become a brute that needs to be put down. I don't wanna be like that anymore. I don't want to rely on convenience or anyone else. The end objective of this is to become a fully independent MAN, not a boy who works in a cubicle nine to five and whose only contribution to society is being an economic cog.

So here I am, rambling. Time to get some progress done. So, right now, I'm a little ahead of your average kid my age- I can cook for myself, I have some self-discipline. But I have a long, long way to go before I become independent manfolk. I've divided objectives into two categories: skills I want to obtain, and stuff I need to become independent of all that modern crap that's churning out a generation of milk-fed, dependent overgrown boys who can barely fend for themselves.

The Short List of Skills:

1. Hunting. I've never been hunting. I don't know what to do. I can shoot straight enough, but even if I hit something delicious and kill it, what then? I don't know how to skin, gut, or carve anything up.

2. More and better shooting skills. I have my trigger time with the AR, the Browning, and a little bit of time with whatever guns my American friends have been able to loan me. I have nowhere to practice since Toronto's mayor has essentially shut down every range in Toronto by refusing to lease municipal land in the city, and failing to renew the leases of existing shooting ranges and clubs, there are no ranges in the Greater Toronto area. There's a couple a ways out of the city I can investigate, but owning no firearms...yeah, going and watching would be a tad creepy.

3. Better first aid skills. In evolving to the 'civilian sheepdog' mentality, I've come to the conclusion that it means more than packing a gun. It is, at its core, about helping people. And your job doesn't stop after all the brass is on the ground.

The Short List of Stuff:

1. A car. Toronto is blessed with a fantastic public transit system, which has more or less negated my need for one. But then again, these things are fickle, and if I'm gonna hit a range, I'm gonna need wheels.

2. Restricted-level gun license. My current papers only really allow me to have some long guns (but nothing I'd really want to bring to a firefight, unless I had a lot of armed friends or it happened in 1942). I want access to ARs, not because I really like them, but because they're functionally the only EBR I can get my hands on, and one of very few semi-automatic firearms that can legally have a ten round mag. It'll also get me access to a sidearm...which I can't carry.

3. Firearms. If you can't keep what you got, you got nothing. The current list of prospects is as follows:

-Lee Enfield Mk IV
-Remington 870
-Tavor (well, I can dream...it's 3000$ CND)
-Lever Action .357
-Mosin
-Maybe an SKS, but it would only legally be allowed a five round magazine
-Mauser 98k for a 'sniper rifle'

That's about all I have to say for tonight...now back to work on my paper.