Ginnie is 63 and lives in a high crime area in a major city. She has lived in her neighborhood for over 55 years and it wasn’t always the way it is now. About two months back her church decided to fight back, and they purchased about 60 Electronic Pocket Whistles, and they spread the word in the neighborhood that if anyone heard the whistle, it meant that someone in the community was in trouble.

It took about a month or so for people to get acclimated to hearing the whistles, and to respond. The whistles stopped a couple of muggings, and drove some thugs to work their trade elsewhere.

Ginnie was coming from the pharmacy one night after picking up some pills for herself, and a neighbor when 2 slugs tried to snatch her purse. She blew her whistle, and within a minute or two thirty people were on the street coming to her defense.

The slugs had their picture taken quickly, and although they fled the scene, police have several clear pictures of what they look like.

This is elementary community self defense. It won’t cure all the problems in a neighborhood, but it’s a really good start, and it costs very little to implement. Sooner or later most slugs will get the message and move their sandbox.

If your prepared, you’ll never be surprised.

Michael Gravette 

When we talk about triple threats some old names come to mind, like Mickey Mantle, or Paul Horning. Today, with all the specialists in sports, there aren’t many guys who pose a triple threat, excepting maybe Alex Rodriguez, who will probably hold a number of records before he retires.

If you can do a number of things well in life, your stock often rises.

Fred Astaire survived a review that said, “can’t act, can’t sing, dances a little.”

He became a Hollywood Superstar, and his career lasted over 50 years.

On the street you need an ace up your sleeve, and Mace Triple Action is your proverbial big brother, or Uncle Louie. The triple threat is OC Pepper, CN Tear Gas, and UV Marking Dye.

The OC pepper stops the skell in his tracks, and causes a wee bit of misery because the skell will feel like he just stepped into hell. His breathing will become labored. Then the CN Tear Gas will flush  his eyes and he won’t be able to see anything, and he’ll do some coughing that a quart of Robitussin won’t stop. The UV Dye marks the skell, painting him up for an easy identification by police.

It’s a real sis boom bah wallop, one that a skell won’t see coming until it’s too late.

If you’re prepared, you’ll never be surprised.

Michael Gravette 

Safety Technology will not sell butterfly knives anymore.

The federal government seems to be interpreting the Federal Switchblade Knife Act, 15 U.S.C. SS1241-1245, to include butterfly knives.

There’s no rush by them to go after companies selling butterfly knives, but the handwriting is on the wall.

We will continue to sell the stock we have but will not reorder.  Most of the manufacturers and importers we deal with for knives are not going to be bringing
them into the States anymore.

The former pizza pie man got a life sentence yesterday in Union, Missouri. You’ll remember him as the guy who abducted and sexually abused a boy for four years, and then went out and kidnapped another boy, aged nine, because the other was getting old.

Michael Devlin is going to the can for the rest of his life because there isn’t any other sentence available, which is too bad.

Devlin spent months planning the second abduction, hanging around schools, and following school buses, hoping to isolate a boy. He asked the young victim for directions, and then grabbed him, and through him into his truck.

He had duct tape and a 9 mm in the truck.

Think about this. He hid one boy for over 4 years. He spent months planning another kidnapping. This is exactly why you have to drill it in to your kids heads to stay away from strangers. Kids need a plan for what to do, and you need to teach it to them. They need escape routes, and neighborhood alarms.

At the very least they all need a personal alarm or an electronic whistle. Other things are up to you.

Thank God he didn’t get two months, like in New Hampshire, or six months, like in Kansas.

The Show Me State still has people with common sense.

If you’re prepared, you’ll never be surprised,

Michael Gravette 

It simply amazes me how much money people will spend on certain things, and not give a thought about how to protect themselves.

$750,000 on a house, but no money for any alarms, much less a surveillance system.

$60,000 on a car, but no protection for the driver.

$40,000 a year on tuition, room and board, but no protection for the student.

It just doesn’t make sense.

How much should you spend?

It depends on what you are protecting.

If you have a child in college, you can protect them very, very well for a little over a hundred dollars. Extremely well for two hundred. Less than 1/2 of 1% of 40K in tuition, room and board. And you only pay once, not every year, so that takes it way down.

Protection in your 60K car? Around a hundred bucks.

Protection for your 750K and rising house? Five hundred to sixty five hundred, but again, you don’t have to do it but once. Less than 1% to start, and it goes down from there.

Not only that, but it buys peace of mind, which you can’t put a price on. The reality of the situation is that that personal protection and surveillance costs very little to start, and it delivers in the clutch.

Think about it. Where can you get this kind of bang for your buck?

If you’re prepared, you’ll never be surprised,

Michael Gravette

This is really starting to get under my skin. I just read about another child abuser who got no time in jail from the judge. But it gets better. The offender is an ex cop. The judge suspended all 45 years of his sentence.

It wasn’t a single isolated case. It involved six boys, and happened while he was an active cop. The one thing we know about child molesters is that there could be more victims.

Many, many victims of child abuse never come forward. They don’t want the publicity or the stigma of being a victim. They don’t want to hear the whispers, or see the heads nod.

But this different because of the authority figure involved. This was a cop. One of the people who is supposed to serve and protect. The fact that he got no time at all is mind boggling to me.

What does someone have to do today to get locked up?

We lock up people for minor drug offenses, the jails are full of them.

But sexual abuse of a child gets no time.

That’s a really bad message, and it seems to happen more and more these days with liberal judges. It’s happened in New Hampshire, Nebraska, and Kansas. Scum sucking child rapists getting a 60 day sentence, such as in New Hampshire. That’s a sentence for drunk and disorderly, not child rape, or child molestation, especially when it involves a policeman, or priest.

If I had been judge, this predatory mook would have gotten at least ten years, and probably more. I just don’t see how I could have been sympathetic to the point of no time at all.

In other news the Supreme Court is being asked to make a decision on the District of Columbia’s 31 year old gun ban, which was struck down by the Court of Appeals. The Appeals Court said the ban violated the Second Amendment. (That is correct!)

This will be a real test of the Bush appointments, because we all know what’s coming if HRC gets elected next year.

Thank god it’s Friday.

If you’re prepared, you’ll never be surprised,

Michael Gravette 

First off, I’m not referring to myself, but to my slobbovian friend of the same first name, Michael Moore. I have used Big Fat Mike as cannon fodder several times, but today I’m going to mention his name in a good light, in the interest of fairness and all.

Now you have all probably seen, or at least heard of Big Fat Mike, the guy who shoots the one sided documentaries targeting anything Republican or conservative. His last shot was at the health care system, which is a pretty easy target, even for grade schoolers.

Big Fat Mike has made a lot of dough from his shlockumentaries, and some folks say his net worth is now over $150 million. That pretty much means Big Fat Mike can get the best health care available, and if he stays at his present size, Double Buffet Molester, he’s going to need it pretty soon. I hope he doesn’t have a John Candy experience.

What I want to mention today is that Big Fat Mike draws the line on political correctness when it comes to his grub. Get out of the way of the Double Buffet Molester when it involves eating animals.

Big Fat Mike has been attacked by those wonderful and smelly PETA folks, and he isn’t going to stand for it. He says, and I quote, “The animal rights movement makes me want to kick my dog.” He actually defends hunters, hunting, and meat eating.

By golly, I think there is hope for this guy.

According to a report, he sent a crew of people to protest outside PETA HQ with signs that said, “YOU ARE WASTING YOUR LIVES!” He also made sure there were plenty of hot sweaty animals on hand.

He gets some big points from me for that. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop referring to him as the big fat schlockumentarian, but I may send him some cheesecake if I see him around.

You know, I think I just might send him a personal alarm, in case he gets stuck in the bathtub.

If you’re prepared, you’ll never be surprised,

Michael Gravette