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LDS: What do you think about putting firearms in your storage as part of emergency preparedness?

I helped my ward compile a list of needful things for storage; and a few people were upset about keeping weapons. Small bore arms are indispensible where I live, a very rural area, lots of carnivores in the bush. I put guns on the list not about insurrection at all; but as a tool like a rototiller or a cookstove. What do you think?

Public Comments

1. For protection and maybe hunting, it's a great idea.

2. If you discount insurrection, you're kidding yourself.

3. Anyone without a gun is not going to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.

4. I'm sure that this is a controversial topic and one could argue that to have firearms is the antithesis of loving thy neighbor. However, it is in accordance with the notion of providing for our own and defending our families, faith and freedom, the three f's.
Certainly, if you live in rural Alaska or in the Australian outback, etc. a firearm is a basic necessity for protection from wild animals. If you live in the urban jungle, a firearm may be a basic necessity of urban survival. We would hope not to use such a weapon but at times it is necessary. I have been reading my family history journals from the 19th century and they had firearms always ready for protection and providence. One story is about a mother, alone in her cabin, being surrounded by native warriors with arrows and spears pointed at her. She agreed to get some food for them and returned with her rifle pointed at them. The warriors decided to leave her alone and turned and left.
Of course, we know of the prophesy that all who would not raise arms against their neighbor must flee to Zion for safety. Is that time coming? Where is the Zion that we flee to? I think the first answer is yes and I think the second answer would be a place where the inhabitants of Zion are dominant. For my liking, that means getting out of California which is embracing the philosophies and sophistries of the world faster than I care to acknowledge. In other words, the voice of the people is choosing that which is wrong and are ripening for destruction. When they remove all the good people from among them, which hasn't happened yet, then will destruction be at their door. I don't want to be here when that happens.
A firearm will be needed in California before that happens.

5. Well consider the cicumstance when there might actually BE no food or water and you barely have enough for your family.

A gun might serve as a useful deterant, whether or not you ever fire it. Honestly, I despise guns. Im one of the people that would vote them completely away if I could. But that being said, in the hypothetical we are talking about, I can see the value. Whether for protection from bush critters or "neighbors' who would be more than happy to kill you for food.

6. Storage is an individual decision - just as how we keep the Word of Wisdom is up to individual discression. There are other options for protection [dogs, for example].

You cannot please all the people all the time - if you presented a balanced approach to preparedness - I would counsel you to not worry about it and let it go. But then, I can be thick skinned and don't care about PC types.

best wishes