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Podcast, Youtube and Blogs About First Aid

June 29, 2011 by

Podcasts and Youtube and Blogs, oh my!

In the last article I covered what I believe to be the most important item in first aid; training. In this article I’ll cover Podcasts about first aid, survival medicine and other related topics

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor; all information provided is based off my own research and personal experience. I would advise you to use the information I give here as part of your research.

I have listened to a few different Podcasts where the host of the Podcast has interviewed a medical professional. Sometimes that professional has a Youtube channel or a blog as well. I’ll link the Podcast in case you would like to listen as well as cover some of the high points. I’ll also link their Youtube or other ways to connect with them. Some of these I listened to at a time when I could take better notes than others. I did not transcribe these interviews and they are not word-for-word, but they will be close to the speaker’s intent.

Matt Brasik Today’s Survival show- 135
Bob Mayne of “Today’s Survival Show” interviewed Matt Brasik of Midwest Disaster Medical. Matt covers ways to get Red Cross training as well as training from other places. He also recommends building a supply of the prescription medications you take every day

Matt lists some over-the-counter medications that belong in your first aid kit. I’ll cover some below. He also explains that Wal-Mart and Target both sell generic prescriptions for $4.00 for a 30-day supply and $10 for a 90-day supply. He goes on to say that many insurance companies will only let you get a minimum prescription but if your doctor writes out a paper prescription and you pay cash, the insurance company can be left out of the transaction.

Some of the OTC meds he recommends are stool softeners, pain relievers, Metamucil, Benadryl, Orajel and the one I thought was the most interesting was Primatine Mist. He said the active ingredient in both Primatine Mist and in an Epipen is epinephrine. In an Epipen there is.3mg of epinephrine delivered intra-muscularly and in Primatine Mist there is .22mg of epinephrine and id delivered via inhalation. He said he has never used this method, but that Primatine Mist could be used to treat anaphylactic shock; give a few puffs and then maybe some of the Benadryl. You can find out more about Matt at Midwest Disaster Medical.
 
 
The Survival Podcast Episode 565- Lessons from the Haitian Earthquake
In this episode of The Survival Podcast, Jack Spirko interviews Brandon Shelton. Immediately after the earthquake in Haiti, Brandon’s Pastor approached him about taking a few of his friends and going to Haiti to help in the relief effort. In this interview Brandon explains what it was like in the aftermath of the earthquake. He said that after the initial earthquake, the trauma wasn’t killing people, dirty water and diarrhea was. He explains that having Imodium and anti-nausea meds as well as a means to re-hydrate are very important. He also said that being well stocked on food didn’t matter when there were 30 tons of rubble on it. He said the only thing that would have been a big help in this situation was having a BOL (Bug Out Location).

Brandon and some of his friends created Bella Medical Ministries. They have made numerous trips to Haiti and have most recently aided in Joplin. If you feel so moved, you can support Bella Medical Ministries via their website.

 
The Survival Podcast Episode 584- The Patriot Nurse
In this episode of The Survival Podcast, Jack Spirko interviews the Patriot Nurse. In the interview she explains that the three leading killers worldwide are respiratory infections, diarrhea and measles. She explains that it is a good idea to have multiple ways to treat pain and explains that what works for one person might not work for the next. She said that if you can’t store anything else, store Mucinex or it’s generic form. This will help break up the mucus and make it easier to cough out. This in combination with what she calls “percussion therapy” physically pounding on someones back will also helps break up the mucus.

She explains that cough drops are important to store as they help sooth the throat. Bronchitis can occur If you have a cough and your throat becomes irritated, if left untreated. Another important item is a means to create re-hydration, table salt and water, even pedialyte, keeping children hydrated as they don’t have much fluid to lose. She also covers what health care might look like in a large-scale scenario such as a pandemic. Here is one of the videos from the Patriot Nurses Youtube Channel
 
 
The Survival Podcast Episode-685- Dr. Eric Wilke on Survival Medicine
If you only listen to one of the Podcasts I have mentioned, listen to this one. Dr. Wilke covers some of the ways in which to purify water, I cover the same subject in detail in The Storage, Filtration And Purification Of Water Dr Wilke explains that we don’t have the same diseases as third world countries because of our water and sewage treatment systems. He explains that one of the biggest killers in the third world is diarrhea. He explains how to treat viral and bacterial infections.

Fair warning; the next paragraph is a little gross.

In the USA, under normal circumstances, viral infections out-weigh bacterial infections, and antibiotics really aren’t going to help. You need to stay hydrated and wait it out. If the diarrhea is watery, there is no fever and no blood or mucus in the stool, then presume it’s a virus and treat with fluids. If there is blood or associated fever or mucus in the stool or white floating stool, which means your not digesting fat, this is a big tip off that it is Giardia or a bacterial infection. It may go away on it’s own, but antibiotics will help it go away faster and may help with some of the side effects.

He mentions that you will need to push fluids. You need to drink until you are urinating. Sometimes people will be very nauseous and will have to take a teaspoon at a time, almost constantly to stay hydrated.

Dr Wilke also talks about knowing how to clean wounds and how to stop bleeding. He mentions that duct tape can be used in a pinch. Some of the medicines Dr Wilke recommends are Imodium, a means to make re-hydration serums, and meds to ease pain. Jack and Dr Wilke also talk about some unconventional things in medicine, such as the healing properties of honey.

They also spoke about the shelf life of medications. Dr. Wilke talks about an article that was written by Laurie P. Cohen and published in the Wall Street Journal in 2000 called “The Shelf Life Extension program”. The Air force was forecasting spending billions on destroying and replacing medications. They asked the FDA to test the shelf life of medications to see if they could safely use them beyond their expiration date. Dr. Wilke explains that the original study cannot be found. He mentions the article from Laurie Cohen. I couldn’t find the original Wall Street Journal article, but I did find a copy of it that can be found in this article about the Shelf Life Extension Program. I’ll post some of the highlights.

“The testing, conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter. The results, never before reported, show that about 90% of them were safe and effective far past their original expiration date, at least one for 15 years past it.

In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, says he has concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer. Mr. Flaherty notes that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn’t mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.”

“Joel Davis, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, says that with a handful of exceptions – notably nitroglycerin, insulin and some liquid antibiotics – most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military. “Most drugs degrade very slowly,” he says. “In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years, especially if it’s in the refrigerator.””

There are many reasons drug companies don’t use the longer expiration dates, most of them have “$” on them. I never bought into the meds loosing all efficacy on or even remotely soon after their expiration date but I wouldn’t have guessed that many of them would have been as potent and effective many years after they were created.

So if the medications are still viable for some years later, what happens when they are no longer viable?

“Only one report known to the medical community linked an old drug to human toxicity. A 1963 Journal of the American Medical Association article said degraded tetracycline caused kidney damage. Even this study, though, has been challenged by other scientists. Mr. Flaherty says the Shelf Life program encountered no toxicity with tetracycline and typically found batches effective for more than two years beyond their expiration dates.”

So meds will last much longer then their expiration dates imply and if they do “go bad” they just lose efficacy? You’ll have to decide for your family, but unless it’s Tetracycline, I don’t think we’ll be throwing away meds just because of an expiration date.

Here is a video from Dr. Wilke’s Survival Medicine Course Youtube Channel.

You can stay connected with Dr. Wilke on the Survival Medicine Blog and at the Survival Medicine Course Youtube Channel

 
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Filed Under: Medical and First Aid

First Aid, CPR and AED Training

June 22, 2011 by

First Aid, CPR and AED training are great to have. This training can prolong life until medical professionals arrive. If there is a hunting accident or a rolled ankle while hiking or on a larger scale, an event like a hurricane or even worse, the training and supplies that you have might be the only aid available.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor. All information provided is based on my own research and personal experience. I would advise you to use the information I give here as part of your research.
 
Guided First Aid and CPR/AED Training

There are a variety of places to get hands on first aid training. My church offers a first responder course covering first aid and CPR as well as AED, which is where my wife and I got certified. You may have taken a course of this kind in the past but procedures change quickly. As an example, between the time we were certified and the writing of this article, the time span of a little over a year, breaths are no longer given in CPR, only compressions. That’s a pretty big change! The thought is that the compressions alone force enough oxygen into the system. My point is that a refresher course is a good idea, as techniques are always evolving, on top of the fact that certification requires it.
 
The American Red Cross

The American Red Cross offers a large selection of training classes, from baby-sitting, first aid/CPR/AED to wilderness first aid. They offer hands on training as well as some web based.
 
The Emergency Care and Safety Institute

The Emergency Care and Safety Institute offers a wide selection of classes as well, at a glance it looks like they may have more in the way of online training.

A note about both the American Red Cross and the Emergency Care and Safety Institute; they both base their wilderness first aid training on the Boy Scouts of America Wilderness First Aid Curriculum.

I know that there are many types of more advanced medical, wilderness first aid, first responder types of classes available nationwide. I won’t recommend any, as I haven’t taken one. If you have taken a class please feel free to mention it or link to it in the comments.
 
Independent Training

Here are some resources I have found over the years that will provide some independent training:

American Heart Association

The AMA offers a product called CPR Anytime, for $34.95 you can order a Mini Anne® and training DVD. I’m not sure if you can become certified with this method but the knowledge is the important thing. They also call their training DVD “Family & Friends CPR Anytime DVD” so I assume they won’t mind if you lend it to others to get the training.
 
Hesperian Foundation

Here is some of what they say about their organization on their website::
“Hesperian is a non-profit publisher of books and newsletters for community-based health care. Our first book, Where There Is No Doctor, is considered to be one of the most accessible and widely used community health books in the world. Simply written and heavily illustrated, Hesperian books are designed so that people with little formal education can understand, apply and share health information.” Off grid solutions when there is no doctor – Episode 016 has an interview with Mr. David Werner, he tells of the history of “Where There Is No Doctor”.

The Download section of their website has some free documents in PDF format. I have links to the following titles: Where There Is No Doctor, Where There Is No Dentist, A Community Guide to Environmental Health, Where Women Have No Doctor, A Book for Midwives.

While the digital format is good, I personally own at least 3 of the books. There are times when having the actual book might be much more desirable than the digital copy. If you know of any missionaries in third world countries, this book might be an excellent gift.

Mayo Clinic
The Mayo Clinic has an excellent first aid section on their website.
 
Pets

I have come across two pet CPR and First Aid programs;

BART (Basic Animal Rescue Training)
“Veterinary Professionals empowering Fire Fighters and First Responders.” Their mission statement says “BART’s mission is to empower firefighters and other emergency personnel with the training, knowledge and equipment necessary to safely and effectively address the needs of animals encountered in emergency situations,”

Pet Tech
CPR, First Aid & Care For Your Pets. Pet Tech teaches an eight-hour pet first aid class. You can browse the variety of topics covered as well as find a trainer near you on their site.

 
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Filed Under: Medical and First Aid

EMP’s, Solar Flares and CME’s

June 8, 2011 by

EMP’s, Solar Flares and CME’s

Disaster probability says that an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) or a solar storm has a small chance of happening. If they happen, a massive number of people will be affected and left without electricity. There have been two recent books that have dealt with an EMP attack, I have read and enjoyed both; they are “One Second After” by William R. Forstchen and “Lights Out” by David Crawford.
 
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)

Congress established The United States EMP Commission in 2001 and reauthorized it in 2004. The EMP commission released The Critical National Infrastructures Report in 2008. This 208 page document is filled with the EMP threats to many different pieces of our infrastructure. Wikipedia has a good article on Electromagnetic pulse and has links to even more information.

From The Critical National Infrastructures Report (page 9)

“The electromagnetic pulse generated by a high altitude nuclear explosion is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. The increasingly pervasive use of electronics of all forms represents the greatest source of vulnerability to attack by EMP. Electronics are used to control, communicate, compute, store, manage, and implement nearly every aspect of United States (U.S.) civilian systems. When a nuclear explosion occurs at high altitude, the EMP signal it produces will cover the wide geographic region within the line of sight of the detonation.”

Also from the The Critical National Infrastructures Report (page 9)

“The time required for full recovery of service would depend on both the disruption and damage to the electrical power infrastructure and to other national infrastructures. Larger affected areas and stronger EMP field strengths will prolong the time to recover. Some critical electrical power infrastructure components are no longer manufactured in the United States, and their acquisition ordinarily requires up to a year of lead time in routine circumstances.”

National Geographic covered what an EMP is and what it would look like. Here are two videos from Youtube, the first is a short 3-minute video, and the second is the full-length 45-minute video.

I have read a lot about EMP the last few years and have seen people say everything from it’s not a real threat to it’s more of a threat then conventional nuclear war. For EMP to be a viable threat our enemy would need a nuclear warhead and a missile capable of reaching our ionosphere. North Korea has nuclear capability and has threatened us with using them for participating in war games with South Korea. Do they have a weapon capable of achieving EMP? I don’t know. Pakistan also has nuclear weapons but at this time their government is friendly, though the safety of their nukes is in question because, I believe, they knew that Osama Bin Laden was living in their country and gave him support.

Most of our enemies do not have the technology to arm a missile with a warhead capable of being launched from their homeland and reaching the United States. They could however hide one in a cargo ship and fire it from fifty miles off our shore, straight into our ionosphere. It would only need to travel 200 miles straight up.

Solar Flare and Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)

These events are caused when the sun has a storm and launches huge amounts of radiation toward earth. This article from the New York Daily News called “ Dire warning: U.S. unprepared for massive solar flare storm; could lose power, communications ” explains it well; I will cover the highlights here.

“”It’s very likely in the next 10 years that we will have some impact like that described in the National Academy report,” Dr. Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s heliophysics division, told the Daily News. “Although I don’t know to what degree.”

Fisher explained that the sun works on an 11-year cycle and is now emerging from its quiet period. The next phase — the solar maximum — lasts from 2012 to 2015. During this period of time, massive solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can occur and could be strong enough to knock out satellites, disable high-voltage transformers and cripple communications worldwide.”

Here is a Podcast by Off The Grid Radio called “ Is Your Time Machine Ready? – Episode 031” it is an interview with John Kappenman. Mr. Kappenman is an electric engineer who has testified before Congress about America’s vulnerability to solar storms. I found this interview very informative and recommend you listen to it, or a transcribed version can be found here.. I’ll cover some of the main points here.

Mr. Kappenman points out that in our electric grid, the biggest vulnerabilities to a solar storm are the transformers:

“It would be transformers that are exposed to the highest levels of these induced currents from a geomagnetic storm that would be the most at risk of being permanently damaged. In today’s world manufacturing marketplace, we really don’t have the ability to manufacture and replace large numbers of damaged transformers. We’re looking at, in the case of the US alone, something that could take four to 10 years to recover from, based on the amount of transformers that we think could be manufactured and made available to us. And that might be a bit rosy because it assumes that somewhere a manufacturer will be unaffected by that storm and be able to begin manufacturing in a normal fashion. Under this sort of planetary event, I assume that we are probably making a rosy assumption that anybody would be able to resume any kind of normal functioning from a manufacturing standpoint.”

Mr. Kappenman goes on to say that the USA has in the neighborhood of 300 or more transformers and produces roughly 50 a year. “We don’t have the manufacturing capability right now in the US to manufacture at the very highest voltage levels – 765 KV.” Those cost tens of millions of dollars and “A lot of them are made in Brazil, Japan, Korea and so forth. They’re all non-domestic sources”

Now that we know why there is a danger and how difficult a recovery may be, Mr. Kappenman will explain what an event may look like, as it would unfold. (I added the paragraphs from the transcript to make reading easier)

“The next big crisis point would be things that would degrade within a very short period of time after the initial loss of power. One of the things that would occur would be major traffic snarl-ups because of the loss of street lighting, signal lighting, things like that.

You have to worry next about the availability of potable water. Essentially, all of your municipal water treatment and sewage treatment facilities would be lost immediately. The only thing that you would have left is the available water pressure in the municipal system, and that will only last as long as the demand placed on it from users.

That demand could spike as people start to draw tap water for some sort of reserves and so forth. Probably within a matter of a couple of hours, you would have lost all of your municipal water resources as those water towers are drained and the pressure drops out of the system. In high-rise buildings and so forth, big electric pumps are needed to pump that water up to higher elevations in the buildings anyway, so that may be more immediate consequences in those sort of situations. Treatment of sewage will be a major problem going forward from that. There could be consequences there as well.

Loss of transportation systems of all sorts will become a cascading problem. You may only have available to you the amount of fuel that’s in the tank of your car at the time that the blackout occurs. You probably will not be able to count on being re-supplied in fuel in any way, because that also requires electricity to operate pumps at filling stations. They may have some standby off-grid generation of available at those sites, but again, that’s going to be rapidly depleted as they pump out their storage tanks at any particular filling station.

Foods – perishable foods – will probably be lost within 12 hours to 24 hours after the event. The same becomes a critical problem for perishable medications. Again, if you look at the statistics, there’s something like a million Type 1 Diabetes sufferers in the US alone that could be placed in serious health consequences within a matter of just a few days if they are cut off from their insulin supplies.

Telecommunications will probably be gone within a matter of two to three days. Many of the telecommunications centers have some level of backup generation that they design into the facility but the problem becomes that those generators eventually run out of fuel and the ability to re-supply fuel to them is a serious issue. Even if you’re on natural gas supply, in residences and so forth, the problem with natural gas is many of the natural gas appliances that we depend upon – furnaces in particular – also require electric power to be available in order to operate and control those furnaces. Heating could become a major issue, especially if this occurs during a severe cold snap, which could add a complicating factor. Those are the ways that these inter-dependencies we have on electric power begin to stack up and impact virtually every other critical food, water and service supply that we need in the country.”

Mr. Kappenman’d first Off The Grid Radio Interview
Imagine the lights going off suddenly…and having no power for as long as ten years – Episode 010
 
Final Thoughts

Because the world is so much more dependent on the grid, an EMP or a very powerful CME would be more damaging now than at any other time in world history. Earth has seen solar flares and CME’s before, and we do often have advanced warning. This would give governments a chance to shut down parts of the grid. One of the things governments can do is harden the electrical grid, which is one of the reasons that Mr. Kappenman testified before congress.

I’m not as concerned about an EMP attack as I am about a solar flare/CME. While an EMP attack could still happen, there are a lot of things that would need to align perfectly first. A small CME or solar flare could still wreak havoc on satellites causing problems with cellular connections and GPS, which mean navigation problems for aircraft and cargo ships. A large CME could shut the grid down essentially.
 
What can we do?

We can continue to prepare as we have been. Remember the first line of this article, “Disaster probability says that an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) or a solar storm has a small chance of happening”. These events are not something you should plan exclusively for, but they are something that you will become more prepared for, by becoming prepared for the smaller scale things that have a higher chance of happening, such as job loss, or more economic turmoil.

While a TEOTWAWKI event such as an EMP or CME has a small chance of happening, we still need to be aware. I do believe we will be affected by solar flares in the near future, as the sun goes through its eleven-year angry cycle. To increase your awareness you can subscribe for Solar Flare alerts.

While I don’t want to get in-depth on them Faraday Cage can offer some protection against EMP AND CME, by shielding the electromagnetic radiation.

Lastly, even though the chance of these events occurring is small, they should still be on our radar. I believe the timeline Mr. Kappenman offered is spot on. If there is no power, there is no water being pumped into many areas and food and other shortages will occur within days. Because of events like the looting in Minneapolis after the tornado, if we see an event of this type, you need to have a Bug Out Plan (BOP) and a Bug Out Bag (BOB) for each member of your family ahead of time. Keep in mind that the worst-case scenario in this particular instance means cars might not work due to them having circuit boards. Because of this, think of ways to bug out that allow you to move with all of your bug out gear. Securing gear to a bike and walking along side is one option. Getting permission to use a shopping cart is another. Using a game cart can work as well, if you have access to one.

In the worst-case scenario I think that civil unrest will happen pretty early. Bugging out quickly might be a good idea if you live in an urban or suburban area with a high crime rate.

 
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Filed Under: Signs of the Times

Buying Your First or Next Handgun

June 1, 2011 by

Whether your purchasing your first handgun, or just the next in a collection, there are certain things to keep in mind. There may be more in this article for the newer shooter, but I’m willing to bet there is still something of interest for the veteran as well.

I’m not going to tell you what kind of handgun to purchase but I will give you some ideas on figuring out which gun you want to purchase. I do not know your local laws. Please refer to them to make sure you are not breaking any laws in your area.

When it comes to hand guns, there are at least two never-ending arguments, caliber and brand. I’m not going to get into either argument. In my opinion much of this is subjective. Your hands might not be as big as mine or you might just not like the way the grip feels. However I will give you some things for you to consider before you purchase.

First let me give you the qualifiers that I used when I began to research handguns. I use the same requirements for all firearms.

1. It has to work every time I pull the trigger or misfires have to be so seldom that the number might as well be zero.

2. It has to be a common caliber, the more common the caliber the more common the ammo. This is for people building their primary defensive battery; if you have go to handgun, then by all means get something nonstandard.

3. I have to like the gun; how I grip it and how it feels when shooting it. I was talking to someone that said his dad owned a Glock for many years and had a car accident causing some nerve damage to his hand. Afterward his dad could no longer shoot the Glock because of the way the polymer grip vibrated. If you don’t like the feel of it, you won’t shoot it, if you won’t shoot it you won’t be proficient at it.

There are a wide variety of handguns. I did a lot of research and came up with a list of guns that I wanted to put my hands on. I went to a couple of gun stores and held them, felt the weight, worked the magazine release and the safety, etc. This helped me narrow the list down some. From here I went to a local range that rents guns and rented a few. This was, by far, the most important step (I think) as well as the most fun.
 
Some Evidence for Being Well Trained

Florida School Board Shooting

Today’s Survival Show with Bob Mayne; episode 124, is an interview with John Hodoway. In it he covers the Florida school board shooting in great detail. He makes a very good point. The gunman, named Clay Duke, had a 9mm semi-auto handgun. He fired a total of 15-16 rounds and missed multiple targets with each round. Mike Jones, the security officer that responded and returned fire, had a .40 caliber. He hit the gunman at least three times yet did not bring him down.

Mr. Hodoway, albeit a bit sarcastically, makes a couple of good points, first the gunman had a 9mm which has less kick and therefore is “easier to shoot”, so the gunman should have hit whatever he was aiming at. The security officer had a .40 caliber and shot the gunman three times. This should have brought the gunman down. As Mr. Hodoway puts it, “People should just drop out of respect, when you pull that (.40 cal) out of your holster.”

After firing 11 more shots, the gunman eventually took his own life.

Why do I bring this up?

I believe that training is more important than caliber, with a caveat that I’ll cover below. My wife and I have had some two-on-one training at a local range. It was a bit expensive but highly worth it. I recommend you get some training in the beginning before you build any bad habits. He tweaked our stance, grip, helped us learn what to do if there is a failure (misfire, stove pipe etc) and much more. Once you have the basics down; grip, stance etc, spend time practicing your good habits.

In the comments Dave makes a good point about training “under stress we always default to our LOWEST level of training, not our BEST.” He is exactly right, I respond that I couldn’t agree more on practice, I’m all for range time, but I also think people need to get training from an instructor as well, one who can put you through some paces and show you your weaknesses.

My reasoning is this, many of us drive, multiple hours a week, but we’re not qualified to drive in a NASCAR. Plinking targets is great, but if you carry for self-defense, I believe you should take some quality training from a qualified instructor. Learn some drills that you can do one your own, learn to clear a misfire, to “get out of the box” among other things.

I personally, wouldn’t carry a .380 or .22 if I have any other option. I have listened to a couple of Podcasts with doctors saying that the .380 kills over time via blood loss, not immediately from the trauma of the gunshot. The reason I carry is to immediately stop a threat, so I want something capable of doing so. But like I said, if I had no other option, I have thought of getting one so that I can carry in the summer and not print. (Print means the gun showing via the bulge on your hip or where ever you are carrying it.)
 
Revolver Versus Semi-Auto

There are pluses and minuses to both; I’ll just give my $.02. A revolver doesn’t fail; it guarantees when you pull the trigger, it fires. The down side is that there are only six shots, this can be mitigated a bit with a speed loader, but you’ll need to practice speed loading to build the muscle memory, so you can do it quickly. A semi-auto has up to 15 rounds (+1 in the chamber should you choose), but they are more prone to failures. In the training I took, the instructor helped us practice how to clear failures by loading dummy rounds in the magazine and having us fire at the target.
 
Buying Online

Check your local laws to be sure, but in many cases you can purchases firearms online. You’ll need to have it sent to a local gun store with an FFL (Federal Firearm License). The gun store will run the necessary background checks. You can find some good deals online. Keep in mind some FFL’s charge much more than others. I recommend finding the FFL first so you know what the total cost will be.
 
Ammo

I have purchased ammo online a few times and would continue to if it weren’t for the comment from the person who delivered it. I decided that it was best to keep my gray and buy locally, for a while anyway. To purchase online, you’ll usually need to send them a copy of your driver’s license. The delivery company may not leave the package if no one is home. They are aware that it’s ammo.

Also keep in mind that there is practice ammo and there is defensive ammo. One difference is that the defensive ammo mushrooms more to cause maximum damage with less penetration. Here is a great breakdown of the types of defensive ammo. It is more expensive but you should practice with it to be sure of how it will function with your gun. You are trusting your life to this ammo; you and your family are worth far more than the $50 it takes to be sure it functions well in your gun. I use the cheap ammo at the range and keep Hydrashok for carry.
 
Magazine or Clips

The correct term is magazine and there are those that will correct you if you use the term “clip”. There is an argument that keeping magazines loaded can damage the springs over time. I read that when magazines were first used, the material used to make the springs developed memory and would fail to push the ammo into the chamber. From what I have read the material used now will not develop a memory. I’m not concerned and have yet to have one fail, or even hear of a modern failure due to memory. If you are concerned, you could unload and reload every month or two.

There are other things that you’ll need to purchase. Here are a few of the main ones.
 
Eye and Ear Protection

When I started shooting I went to the local hardware store and bought a cheapish pair of safety goggles, and some earplugs. I used these until I went shooting with a friend and he had the shooting glasses shown below.

I was blown away by the difference. They make things pop out. I promptly bought two pairs. Another nice thing, other than making things crisper, is that they come with four interchangeable lenses, yellow, clear, red and black.

I also discovered that the earplugs were not enough protection for me and now use them in combination with earmuffs. There are a wide variety of earmuffs. I bought these electronic ear muffs. They pick up sounds at a good distance away, and keep the gunshots quiet. This is ideal for range and training where you need to be able to hear one another.


 
Cleaning Kit

I recommend a basic cleaning kit that will clean handguns and rifles. You likely can find videos on youtube of how to disassemble and reassemble your handgun, as well as how to clean it. I recommend cleaning your firearm after every shooting session.
 
Greasing

Check your manual for where grease will need to be applied. You might also be able to find videos on youtube. I did some research and found that any high temperature grease can be used for this, I purchased a can for $5 from an automotive store and it will probably outlast me.

Remington has a very convenient tube. I purchased one and will refill it with the high temp grease when it’s empty. A word of caution; I remember hearing that the main reason a Glock is sent in for repair is due not being greased enough, the second highest reason is too much grease. This may have been said about Glocks, I’ll bet it’s the same for other manufacturers.

 
Gun Safes

My wife and I each have a different model of pistol safe. I don’t like either. Hers is a model called Stack-On that quickly responds to a code being entered and opens slowly once the correct code has been given. Mine is a Winchester and it doesn’t respond for a second or two after the first number has been entered, so I have to hit a number, wait for a couple of seconds then enter the entire code. Once the code has been entered the door flies open. Both are plugged into an outlet and have battery backup. I have given thought to the biometric safes. They are a bit more expensive but not waiting for the buttons to respond or door to open might be worth it.
 
Red Lasers (not a need, may be a want)

If you have been a shooter for a long time you might not need a laser. One tip I have heard is that a red laser can be a great help to anyone over 50. Picking up a site picture is a skill that develops over time and a red laser can ensure you hit what you’re aiming at.

It is possible that lasers can give away your position, but the can also help the inexperienced shooter, or the shooter with older eyes pick up the target faster.
 
Grip Aid

The last item I want to address is actually a tip I was shown in the training class my wife and I took. The man that gave us the training was a policeman for 20+ years, much of it in SWAT. He said that one way to greatly improve the grip on any handgun was to put a section of inside out bicycle tire inner tube on the grip. He was right. My wife and I liked it so much that all of our handguns have it on them, as well as a couple of friends’ guns.

 
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