Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk

Let's start with those of you are just thinkin' about it. Here are a few suggested resolutions for you:

1. Resolve to decide early in 2010 whether or not you are going to take personal responsibility for yourself and your family, whether at home or away. When the barbarians are at the gate, will you be prepared to defend  the castle until the cavalry arrive (in nine or ten minutes)?

2. If you resolve to defend the castle, then the next thing is to determine what measures to take, between minimal and extreme. Do you have good locks on the doors? What about an alarm? Is it monitored? Do you and your neighbors watch out for each other? Are you prepared for a home invasion, of which we have seen too many of lately? Are your children trained in interacting with strangers. Are there any RSO's in the neighborhood? are you aware of the registry?

3. If you resolve to defend your castle, are you prepared to use lethal force as a last resort,and in the gravest extreme?

4. If you resolve that you cannot or will not defend your castle, are you prepared to face the consequenses of that decision?

5. Will you resolve to watch politicians at all levels, and call them down when they are going the wrong way?

Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk

Now for you gun owners:

1. If you have a gun for personal/home defense, will you resolve to get training and practice with it early and often in 2010?

2. Will you invest in a few snap caps and learn to run your gun effeciently?

3. Will you resolve to always have it with you where legal?

4. Will you resolve to commit Jeff Cooper's four rules of gun safety to memory, and resolve, as much as is humanly possible, to observe these rules? 

Robert Crabtree tends to a customer at Gunsand Leather, a

firearms store and shooting range, in Greenbrier, Tenn. on

Friday Dec. 11, 2009. A nationwide review by The Associated

Press found that over the last two years, 24 states, mostly in the

South and West, have passed 47 new laws loosening gun

restrictions.(AP Photo/Josh Anderson)

 5. Will you resolve to go to a gun show, or a local dealer, and boost the economy by buying a gun, if you can afford to?

6. Will you resolve to buy a few rounds of ammo, some water jugs, and a few other emergency supplies, just in case of a bad snowstorm or other disaster?  

7. Will you resolve to watch politicians at all levels, and call them down when they are going the wrong way?