Gun Owners of America has compiled this very informative list of 2008 Presidential Candidates and the Second Amendment.

Thanks to A Keyboard and a .45.

The post What If You Had To Walk Home at Reactuate has had me thinking about it since I read it.  Now that I have brought the computer back from near death I can get back to blogging again.

I don't know for sure how fast I walk, but as I said in comments over there, I have a job that frequently requires that I walk quickly for several hours per day.  This isn't just nice, polite walking on sidewalks or down streets.  It involves slogging through alleys and occasionally beating my way through brush.  So I'm not boasting, but simply stating my opinion, when I say that I'm probably in better walking condition than the average person.

But like I said, I'm not sure what my actual rate of speed would be.  So my s.w.a.g. would be that my walk home would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours.  I would almost certainly have to camp somewhere at least once.

I already carry several items on my person or in my truck that could be useful in such a situation:

Small Igloo ice chest (my lunchbox)
32-ounce plastic bottle of water (in the lunchbox)
Small flashlight
Zippo lighter
Extra lighter fluid
Extra flints
Trench coat
Cold weather hat
Hot weather hat
Basic multi-tool
Swiss Army "Tinker" model pocket knife
Medium-sized lockblade pocket knife
Dog stick
Toilet paper (yes, but I use it for blowing my nose)
Basic first-aid kit (but it would be hard to carry without a backpack)

Now of course, I don't carry the trench coat on me all the time, but it is rolled up and stashed in my toolbox.  It could be useful during bad weather.  My hot weather hat is a simple booney hat with a ventilated crown.  When you work outside during the summer around here you have to wear a suitable hat; this is not an option.

The problem is, I drive a company truck while I'm working, and in the proposed scenario I could well be miles away from my personal truck when disaster strikes.  However, I think I could probably throw together a small backpack or fanny pack with some items that I could easily transfer between trucks every day.

How likely is this to happen?  Probably not very likely, but I've still been considering it.  I think a few more items could be added to such a backpack without causing too much encumbrance.  Items like:

Electrolyte tablets and/or single-serve Gatorade packets
Water purification tablets
A few protein bars and/or carb bars

I also have a couple of traditional canteens which I can hang on my belt, which would be easier than carrying a plastic bottle or a small ice chest.  I could easily stash them in the truck and forget about them until needed.

A few comments:

The dog stick is something I use while working.  Although its primary purpose is to fend off vicious dogs, it also serves as a walking stick and I've even used it to sort of pole-vault across water-filled ditches a few times.  It's also useful for jimmying certain kinds of gate latches and even works as a back-scratcher.

I think if I were to put this kit together I would include a half-ounce or so of pipe tobacco (vacuum-sealed).  If I'm going to have to hole up somewhere along the way, there's no sense in being too miserable about it.  It would have to be something that didn't contain much latakia, because that stuff always makes me thirsty.

Possibly a larger fixed-blade knife or small saw would be a good addition.  Although I have one of those portable pistol boxes in my truck, I've never been comfortable with leaving a gun locked in there all day while I'm not there.  Even in the company truck, I have to leave it parked on the street somewhere all day while I'm walking around and it would be more likely to be broken into than my own truck left back at the office.

Another tool that I use while working is a small 8x10 monocular.  I don't know if it would be of any use, but it's always on my belt.

Besides lighting pipes, the Zippo would of course be very useful to start a fire.  Extra lighter fluid might also be vital to getting a fire going if things are a little damp.  The stimulant effects of smoking a pipe might also be beneficial.

Oh yeah, I forgot.  I always have 3 or 4 pipes in my truck, plus a couple ounces of whatever tobacco I happen to be enjoying at the time.

I think this is going to work.

UPDATE:  As a service for others on Eponym who want to use ScribeFire, yes you can.  Just google "scribefire eponym api" or something like that and you will find what you need.

The computer rejuvenation went very well.  The actual restore took only about 10 minutes, but then getting everything transferred back took over 2 hours.  It's zipping along right now just fine.

I was going to try the Opera browser, but when I started trying to make this post I got a warning that it was incompatible with Eponym's RTF blog poster.  So I'll have to go back to Firefox.