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Bonus Episode: LARPing Is Not Preparedness - Risk Assessment For Daily Life · The Junto Podcast

0:10
Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
0:18
I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for joining us.
0:30
Hello, America. Welcome back. Thanks for listening. This is just a little short bonus episode.
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I just wanted to get some, get some stuff out there.
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So I recently sat down with a better way to a podcast and Jordan who runs that
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podcast is a good dude and a smart guy.
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And we had a good conversation about a great many things, somewhat political
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a little bit, a lot of firearm stuff as it, you know, it's, it's a two better
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way to a, of course, we talked about firearms and I made a few statements.
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He released a clip of the, of the podcast, a little short clip.
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And that clip set the LARPer world ablaze.
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With just any number of comments and opinions.
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And that's good. I guess we, you kind of like to hear other people's perspective,
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if it's respectful, I suppose.
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So I commented, one of the things I commented was that there's a lot of civilians out there,
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who are carrying around plate carriers and body armor and all,
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these extra magazines, and they got an AR-15 truck gun or a .300 blackout with
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a suppressor on it and whatnot.
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And the gist of what I was saying was they're living in a vigilante fantasy world.
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Well, I stand by it. I don't retract it, and I don't apologize for it.
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Yeah, and we'll see here in a minute that they're setting themselves up for
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failure, not some success of some big protracted gunfight.
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And I'm happy to debate any serious adult on the matter, any serious adult.
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And then I mentioned also that I rarely, if ever, well, sometimes,
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I rarely carry a spare mag for my daily carry.
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I carry a Glock 19 with a 15 round magazine with one round in the chamber.
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So I have 16 rounds as I walk on my daily walk.
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And the LARPers got very saucy about that. Very saucy.
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So the comments came rolling in. I was very surprised at how many comments came in on that.
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Trolls, bots, and the whole plethora of former infantrymen and artillerymen
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and MPs and frickin' name it, light-wheeled mechanics.
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And then the least impressive of the whole bunch, cops.
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Now, you guys have heard me say many times, I got a love-hate relationship with cops.
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I think cops should be among the best trained firearms handlers walking the streets.
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They ought to be, but they're not.
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So take that for what it's worth. I was called harsh names.
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I was called stupid. I was called a grifter.
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And then there's names that I was called that would, well, that would cause
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you to catch an ass whooping face-to-face.
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I guess that is the benefit of being a keyboard warrior is that you can talk,
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crap on the socials without catching a beating.
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Well, do that. Yeah, do that. Continue to do that because you're safe that way and good for you.
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I was told that I was untrained, under-trained, uninformed.
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I must never have experienced any kind of life-threatening situation or been in a dangerous space.
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And some spoke up in a semi-respectful manner and just made an argument that
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like, hey, the extra mag is not necessarily for capacity.
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Oftentimes magazines create malfunctions bad mags or whatnot so you have extra mag as a backup,
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okay one combat hero reached out and hit me with the old military two is one one is none,
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others piped up with very non-specific anecdotal you know hey in modern pistols
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the magazine is usually the most common malfunction and blah, blah, blah.
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And that's not a hundred percent wrong. That last claim with the magazines cause
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a malfunction, it's not a hundred percent wrong.
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That's just one of many malfunctions that could happen. But yeah,
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if a magazine is damaged or not seated,
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fully seated, or it's dirty and there's gravel down in the box or whatnot, that.
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Any number of reasons. Well, the fast fix is immediate action,
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correct? You slap the mag, you rack the gun, and you get back on it.
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That's immediate action. Anything beyond immediate action, you should be breaking contact anyway.
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Remedial action, yeah, you might be able to do it pretty fast.
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But still, that's the thing where you need to assess what's going on.
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And then, yes, oftentimes in remedial action,
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you will lock the slide to the rear, pull out the old mag, make sure the chamber's
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clear, maybe stick that mag back in, or maybe, yeah, you can stick a new mag in, sure.
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That's fine. All that works.
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But the tactical gurus that came out of the woodwork just blew my mind.
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You know, they must have been on lunch break at Publix or something With all
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the expertise And all the experience This is what I'm very curious about Is all the experience.
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These people don't come with, and 90% of the people who commented have private
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profiles or have zero follower.
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They're either fake accounts or they just have an account so that they can go
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on and comment without catching an ass whooping.
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Yeah, it's bizarre. So that's what I'm curious about. Where's the experience?
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Now, in my trivial 30 years of shooting experience and training, and yes, actual combat.
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I've seen malfunctions come and go. I've seen a lot of light stripes happen
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from cheap ammo, white box ammo, or redneck reloads, stuff like that.
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I've seen 1911s, M9s especially, and a handful of Glocks that have had catastrophic
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malfunctions after 20,000 or 30,000 rounds.
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Well, with the exception of the M9, back in the day, the lock and block would
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break after about every 2,000 rounds.
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Trigger springs would break. You'd get broken strikers.
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You might see hairline fractures in the chamber Broken extractors,
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And I have seen magazines fail, sure, I have After repeated drops on concrete
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and the base plates pop off The followers get off track,
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Normally because of some bizarre
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novel speed loader That's pushing the front end of the follower down.
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Or springs will get bound up with just dirt, gravel, mud, things like that.
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And those things, well, those things are maintenance issues.
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Yeah, they're maintenance issues.
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And they are abuse issues or negligence issues.
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What I have not seen in my 30 years is this epidemic of magazine failures. I haven't seen it.
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If a malfunction is your primary fear or what you think is the primary risk, run better equipment.
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Maintain your equipment better.
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Shoot it enough to know that it runs. Shoot it enough to be able to identify,
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if you have a weak mag or not.
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Now, what I have found when it comes to magazines is that cheap aftermarket magazines may fail you.
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But if the pistol that you carry every day that you trust your life with and
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that you trust this epic gunfight, that's that's on the horizon just any day away.
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Is a Taurus G2 or a Ruger LCP or a,
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tricked out canic that's got all the aftermarket parts you can find on it.
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If that's your daily carry, sit this argument out because you're probably not
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qualified to speak on the matter.
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And that's not bemoaning people who can't afford higher quality gear,
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you can't afford a Glock.
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You can't afford a CZ P10.
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There's better gear out there. So if your equipment selection is weak and your
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norm is to expect malfunctions.
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Your argument is weak. Stop trolling the internet and save up for better equipment.
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Run better equipment when your life depends on it you want to shoot cheap guns
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shoot cheap guns but you guys are lecturing me about life and death,
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on carrying an extra mag and if you're carrying cheap gear you're you're in no position,
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buy better gear, run quality ammo, run quality defensive ammo that you have
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run through your gun multiple times.
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Carrying a spare mag is not wrong. I never said it was.
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If your daily life warrants it, if your daily attire allows for it,
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if your job allows for it,
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yeah, drive on, Even if the risk doesn't warrant it, and you just want to,
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and everything else is accommodating, then right on, do it. I never said not to.
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I carry an extra mag when the risk warrants it, but in my daily life,
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the risk does not warrant it. Well, you never know.
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I can do a little bit of independent research. So the spare mag's not really
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the issue, I don't think.
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A lot of people commented about
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that. Well, I carry it because of malfunctions. Well, I addressed that.
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But gentlemen, normally it's not ladies, so I'm speaking to gentlemen out there.
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I was called a FUD even.
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One guy called me a FUD, and then another guy invoked Clint Smith.
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So the spectrum of comments was broad.
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Your truck or your car is not a damn arms room. And it's not a kit locker.
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In Metro Atlanta and similar metros, a parked vehicle is free game. It's open inventory.
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You can, you should do the math.
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Is there anything in this car that if it gets stolen, I'm okay with?
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You should do that in Metro Atlanta and other metros, major metros.
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Because there's no shortage of thieves who smash windows and they go straight to the console.
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They go straight to the glove box or they'll go straight to the gang box or toolbox in your truck.
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And they're not looking for spare change, good people. And they're not looking for your phone charger.
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They're looking for guns. Criminals are far more organized than your average
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Molon lab type gives them credit for.
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APD has a good roll up on a year by year account of this argument.
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And vehicles account for the large majority, and I mean 70-plus percent of guns stolen.
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They're stolen out of vehicles, the large majority.
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And I'll give you just one.
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In 2021, there were 2,812 reported gun thefts.
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2,022 of those were out of vehicles. Excuse me.
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Fast forward to 2023, very similar numbers. Of 2,506 reported gun thefts,
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2,030 were out of vehicles.
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The FBI puts Atlanta second highest rate of gun theft out of vehicles behind
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only one city, Memphis, Tennessee. Huh.
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In June 2026, they made a federal case against five Atlanta area dudes who were
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trafficking stolen guns to the Caribbean and to Canada, believe it or not.
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It's not an anecdotal thing. This is recorded fact.
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And then nationally, this trend has seen a very gradual, not very gradual,
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almost a very distinctive uptick of guns stolen out of vehicles.
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Of all the cities that were sampled in this, they all reported that over half
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of the guns stolen, reported, were stolen out of vehicles.
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And then there was, this year, there was a national survey of gun owners that
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found that roughly 3% of gun owners have had,
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guns stolen out of vehicles, roughly 3%.
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And that's a large number considering how many gun owners there are in America.
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And after the theft from these participants in the survey, 73% of those owners
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stopped carrying their guns in their vehicles.
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Now, I don't know what the other 27% are thinking.
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I guess they think if it happens once, lightning never strikes twice in the same place.
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I don't know what their logic is. I don't see a lot of logic in it.
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In Atlanta, crews will run a neighborhood in minutes. Minutes.
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You got a five-man crew and they're just leapfrogging driveways, man.
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If you keep a gun in your vehicle, if you store a gun in your vehicle,
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and you got a big giant pile of kit and a goddang assault rifle,
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because just in case, because I'm going to get home when the shit hits the fan,
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The data analysis, if you look at the real data, the prediction here is that
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somebody else is going to be using your kit and your gun before you do. It's not smart.
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Look, these numbers are what they are. I didn't even include the numbers of
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gunfights, civilian gunfights, whether or not they went to a reload or not.
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And there's always anomalies. but your life is not one series of one anomaly
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after another. You're not an anomaly factory. You're not special.
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Your perceived knowledge of the world does not make you a target for bad guys.
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They don't know who you are and they don't care who you are.
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Well, until they do, right? That's that's always the answer.
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Statistics are whatever until it happens to you.
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Well, we can be aware and we can implement all sorts of other tools to avoid that.
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I'm asking you guys, or at least proposing that you ask yourself,
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and I mean honestly, man, sit down with yourself in the mirror and ask yourself
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if you're working from a place of preparedness,
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because that's what everybody wants to call it. I'm prepared for anything.
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But are you using actual and factual information to build that?
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Or is it paranoia or are you just a hobbyist and you just want to have a bunch
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of guns and shit which is fine too man,
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but my bet is a lot of you out there are paranoid,
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and I want to note that there were a lot of dudes that piped up that lived in rural spaces,
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where levels of crime guns don't get stolen out of truck everybody's and the
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spaces where people still have guns hanging up on the back in the back window
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and shit and they're out in the the back country and there's creatures,
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mountain lions and bears and shit i get yeah i get it i'm not talking to you
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people and you know i'm not talking to you,
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so there's no need to pipe up you can pipe up if you want to whatever it's not
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relevant to the conversation and you know it's not by all means if you're in,
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the back country in montana yeah man,
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carry carry a long gun carry an assault rifle carry pistols carry a trail gun
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carry all of it sure but you know i'm not talking to you.
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Your role as a civilian.
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To be in some protracted gunfight with the Sinaloa cartel.
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Your role, your job, is to get yourself, your family, and anyone in close proximity
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to you out of the kill zone if something bad happens.
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You're meant to be more aware, more proactive, and should you need to use your
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gun, use it confidently.
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And if you're legitimately trained, now mind you, I'm saying the word legitimately.
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I also suspect many of you YouTube warriors or commenting find yourself some credible training.
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And yes, you can use a resume is not everything, folks, but you have to vet people somehow.
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Just because it supports your bizarre view of the world doesn't mean it's good training.
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Legitimately trained, armed, and competent enough to do so, then do it. You should do it.
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You may save innocent lives. That's the goal.
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Protect innocent life. That is always the goal.
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If you think your role is anything beyond that, you're wrong.
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The anomalies may happen. You may be able to help a cop do a thing.
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There's a few incidences out there. You may be able to.
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Now, on the other hand, if your actual job is to stay into the problem until
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the problem is complete, until the problem is solved, i.e.
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A security team of some sort, a police or deputy, a security detachment,
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a personal security detachment, whatever, then the fight changes.
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The parameters are different the duration of the event multiple threats possibly
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movement protracted and stressed problem solving,
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all of those raise the odds that a cop or security guy may run dry it may happen,
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you see cops do it all the time,
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a spare mag is not that's SOP that's not even questioned so if you pipe up to
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this and you and you comment as a cop you should always carry extra max no shit,
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no shit thanks for the intel update deputy obvious,
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a rifle in your car is sop.
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If you're a civilian and you're on your commute to work every day that's not
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a patrol that's not a movement to contact.
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Dressing up for a mission that ain't yours, that you don't have.
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You're just LARPing. And if you just want to LARP, say it out loud. Own it.
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So the only adult question left to ask is this.
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Did a risk assessment process create this idea that you need kit and a rifle
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and extra mags and all this?
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Or did Instagram convince you of that? A risk assessment, ladies and gentlemen,
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this is the gist of what I'm trying to say here.
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It's a procedure. It's a thought out procedure.
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You set the context and the criteria of your daily life that you actually live, not that you imagine.
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Your true circumstances, your real circumstances, to your daily life.
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And you identify the actual risks that you're presented with in your daily life.
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And it varies. Some people live in high crime places. Some people have to go
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visit bad areas for work.
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It changes. And this is where we're at right now. You have to be a critical
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thinker. Do your risk assessment.
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Use an old and current crime data, history, demographics, politics,
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political climate, the whole works, and then weigh the likelihood of an incident
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versus the consequence of an incident.
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Do that thoughtfully, and then you build a mitigation.
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If your risk assessment concluded that I need kit and a rifle in my truck because
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there's a likelihood I'll be ambushed on the way to work, okay.
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I don't think that's a likelihood in most people's daily life.
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Decide what risk you're willing to accept okay for me most days i carry now
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i carry every day but i mean generally speaking it's only one mag and around a chamber,
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the pistol is my mitigating factor and it's enough based on the risk that i have assessed,
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now if there is some spontaneous riot of heavily armed communists, I don't know what,
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then I might come up short or I might just break contact. Yeah.
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But there's probably some indicators of these things before they actually happen.
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There's probably some indicators. That's why you use actual factual evidence, not imaginary.
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You implement your mitigations and you carry on and that's fine. Thank you.
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I'm going to take a break here and point you to one case, only one,
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but this is the only one case that I felt like needed to be highlighted in this conversation.
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John Hurley, who was a 40-year-old man in Old Town, Arvada, Colorado, back in 2021.
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Hurley was shopping at an Army-Navy surplus store and a fellow named Ronald
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Troika ambushed and killed an Arvada cop named Gordon Beasley with a shotgun.
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He murdered a cop, shot up the car, went back to his truck and grabbed an AR-15.
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Hurley, who was a concealed carrier, came out of the store, blasted Troika, the gunman,
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and then walked over to make sure he was down and not a threat,
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picked up Troika's AR-15.
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And less than a minute later, Officer Craig Brownlow arrived on scene.
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He saw Hurley holding that rifle, and he put him down with three rounds.
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The good citizen, the good Samaritan, the hero of the day, was shot by a cop,
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because the situation was ambiguous.
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Now, Arvada police went on to call Hurley a hero. Yeah, and he was.
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And that he most certainly saved lives. The one cop got killed, true.
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But that guy went back to grab his AR and he meant to probably kill other people.
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Brownlow, the cop who shot him, was cleared of all charges.
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Because they found it to be, it was a justified shooting because the cop had
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no way to know who Hurley was.
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He was just standing there with an AR in one hand and a pistol in the other.
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If you skip a step in your risk assessment, all you're doing is dressing up
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your irrational fears And calling it preparedness,
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That's all you're doing You're Very weakly justifying,
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Your paranoia.
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Risk assessment on your daily life. If you got to do it every day, do it every day.
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I told you, I carry an extra mag once in a while. If I'm going to be doing a
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site survey in Southside Atlanta, I carry an extra mag for many reasons,
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but there's one big major reason. Why?
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Well, the population of Atlanta is, oh my God, I don't even know how much bigger
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than the population of Rome.
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So just volume alone, the more people present, the higher the odds of something happening.
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So that's a simple thought process. There's vastly more people.
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I don't know how many million are in Rome in the streets of just downtown Atlanta on a daily basis.
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Probably, I would guess in the Atlanta city proper on a day,
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on a normal work day, there's probably three or four million people scurrying around.
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Georgia has something like 8 million people or nine, but I mean,
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in the city alone, there's, there's probably a couple million people walking
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around in the city of Rome on a given day.
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There's probably eight or 10,000 people out and about on the street. I guess.
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Do a risk assessment every day. It don't have to be a big drawn-out process.
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The objective is not that you're going to survive the collapse of society and get back home.
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The objective is to finish your day healthy, keep the people you're responsible for safe,
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and refuse to contribute to a second problem when you're fantasizing about a
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first non-existent problem.
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Being an asset and not a liability does not mean that you're going to jump in
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with superior firepower and help out, help, help take down the, the jihad.
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That's, that's not it. What it means is you're not going to add an unknown dangerous
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variable to an already ambiguous situation that is potentially high threat.
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Don't add to the problem. Defend yourself by all means.
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Defend your family. Defend those next to you by all means.
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But don't add to the damn problem because you have a fantasy.
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And all you out there who come out with the well you never know or well murphy
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will get you murphy you never know when murphy's going to pop up,
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or the best is better to have it not need it that's the best because that sounds
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so true and it is true to a degree,
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two is one one is none none of those are analytical criteria those are bumper
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stickers those are memes for people who can't think critically and don't want to do the adult work.
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You can do any damn thing you choose to do. This is America.
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You want to carry kit in your truck? Carry it.
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If you choose to be a caricature, be it.
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You're just not a serious person. You're a LARPer.
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If you want to have a serious conversation on this matter, I'm here.
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A serious conversation.
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If you want to hit me up with a bunch of bullshit on comments and then you have
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a private profile or you don't, yeah.
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If you want to have a serious conversation, I'm open to it.
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I'm happy to. And I'll have this conversation with any, anyone.
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Name your favorite gun tuber or name the most experienced cop you know.
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I'll have the conversation with them.
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That's what I got, folks. I felt compelled to put this out.
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Maybe I do. I have let people push my buttons a little bit. Apparently,
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I push buttons. Apparently, me and Jordan push buttons.
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To create all this nonsense anyway.
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And for those of you who are very saucy, I live in Rome, Georgia.
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You're welcome to come around to shoot, train.
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You're welcome to analyze what I offer in training. Analyze it. Look at it.
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See if you think it's valid. Ask meaningful questions, and I'll give you meaningful answers.
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If you're serious. If you're just a caricature, just be it and stay out of the
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conversation. All right.
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Take care, good people. Do take care. I love you guys.