Just What I Always Wanted – Some Survival Junk
Last week I received an email from an outfit called
Outdoor Survivor offering a free book, The
Firearms Survival Guide. The book is
all about how to ‘protect’ my 2nd-Amendment ‘rights’. It’s free. Why
not grab one, right?
The moment I clicked the ‘buy’ button, I was then taken
to another screen where I was given an amazing opportunity to grab the best
tactical knife ever made, complete with a spring-assisted opening latch and
German stainless steel. This beauty
normally retails for $99.99 but just today, just for a few hours more, I could
scoff it up for $19.95. I did.
Which took me immediately to another screen and here I
was given a fantastic, remarkable chance to buy a tactical, self-defense pen
and LED flashlight which can be used to break open a window if I need a quick
escape from my home. This amazing product also comes with a multi-tool for
everyday use and for close-quarters combat work. And all of these features for
the incredibly low price of $29.95 which I grabbed with the click of my mouse
because I’ll be visiting stepson next week and should bring a gift.
And now I found myself looking at another screen with a
picture of the four-in-one tactical backpack which holds – ready? – a hydration
kit for those desert treks, a compass which is guaranteed to be water-resistant
up to 100 yards deep, a digging tool for making sure I can fit into my foxhole
when that enemy ordnance whizzes overhead and an emergency rescue blanket for
covering me up after I’m wounded by the enemy assault. I’m not sure about the
need for the blanket but hey, there’s always room for it in the car when we
need something to sit on at the beach.
The tactical backpack retails for a hundred bucks or
so, but if I buy it today there’s a one-shot offer of $59.95 and putting it
together with the gun survival guide, the tactical knife, and the flashlight with
the LED gets me free shipping, unless I want everything rushed overnight. In
that case, I just need to add $24.95 to the order which means that once they
charge my credit card $134.80, I’ll have this entire pile of crap sitting on my
front porch tomorrow – oh…my… God, I can’t wait.
Now what do you think the odds are that I will ever
even remotely need any of this stuff I just bought because I’ll find myself in
a tactical situation where having this gear will make any difference at
all? The odds are about as great as the
odds that I will lose the 20 pounds that my internist has been telling me to
lose for the last – uhhhh – twenty years.
Yea, that’s about right.
Note that this entire sales promotion kicked off with a
book whose title contained the two magic words – ‘firearms’ and ‘survival.’
Note that I will ever need any of these items like I’ll need a hole in my head.
But the reason I’m on the email list rented by this marketing company is because
at some point or another the internet found out that I both like and therefore
own guns. Maybe they got my name from the NRA
or maybe from some other marketing group which sold me some other piece of
gun-related junk that I never used.
The truth is that there’s no necessary reason to buy or
own any gun-related products at all, just as there’s no necessary reason to buy
or own a gun. I just happen, God knows
why, to like guns. And what I don’t think my many friends in Gun-control Nation
understand is, that all the heated rhetoric about ‘freedom’ and ‘rights’ and ‘self-defense’
to the contrary, most people who own guns just happen to like owning guns.
If I didn’t like to eat, I could easily shed those twenty pounds. If I didn’t like guns, I wouldn’t give one rat’s damn about my 2nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ Get it?
