Needs must drive
When the Devil dances
“Dear Ian, I know you said to stay away from riot-stricken areas, but I have obligations. Advice?”
Yeah, don’t go.
However, I understand obligations and favours owed, so let’s take a shallow dip into suggestions. I’m going to assume you’re headed into Teh Stoopid to get someone out.
First question I’m always asked: “What long gun should I take?” None. Seriously, if you know you’re going to need a long gun — you need extra bodies, not the gun. One of the very obvious lessons from the Rittenhouse incident — a very obvious lesson that every-damn-body overlooks — is how many times someone was grabbing for his AR15.
In the crowded confines of a riot, a long gun attracts the eye. It gathers attention like nothing else1, and it’s is also a damned fine lever. In a situation like that your rifle or shotgun isn’t your gun anymore — it’s everybody’s gun. And it frequently goes to the person who wants it bad enough … that person just might not be you.
Should you take a sidearm? That’s on you. I wouldn’t suggest it if you haven’t had formal training at a gunfighting school2, but you do you, boo. Just remember that the cops will be on edge, and the usual rules and procedures kind of go out the window. Getting caught armed with a firearm in the middle of a violent, multi-day “civil unrest” may result in a ‘crunch now, sort later’ situation, so honestly factor that into your risk calculations.
Wear good-fitting, broken-in, lace-on footwear, preferably with ankle support. Jeans that you can move in — not tac pants3 — and a loose, neutral-colour long-sleeve shirt over a different neutral colour4 t-shirt5. Dollar store sunglasses6, and an unobtrusive hat of some kind should finish out your wardrobe.
Go on-line and search for “Press Pass”, preferably with the word “PRESS” as large as possible. Don’t put any information on it that would allow people to find you later if it should come off in the middle of a scrum. Do use a fake name and fake address, but don’t get cute or fancy with it. If you use the name of the protagonist in your very favourite esoteric Regency-era Romance, the bike-lock-wielding paranoid who peeps your press pass will be the Chair of Regency-Era Esoteric Romance Studies at the local liberal-arts college7.
Find a picture of somebody your own phenotype — not you — on-line and use that one for the picture on the pass. The picture should not be you, but should be close-enough that a quick glance won’t find glaring issues.
Hang your new press pass on a break-away necklace — I prefer dog-tag chain. If you are forced to unass your vehicle, wear the press pass, and use that to get through the scrum to the edge of the riot. It will probably get you around police barricades, but it may not. Depending on how the local constabulary feels about the press, they may let you take a little tune-up from the rioters before letting you through. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
By all means have supplies in your vehicle, but don’t look like you’re making supply runs for the Free-Range Socialists. Two or three sport bottles of water scattered around the inside of your car is one thing, two cases of bottled water on the back seat gets you unwanted attention. Both from Officialdom, and from the local anarchist collective looking to steal communally seize redistribute supplies for the Glorious People’s Democratic Worker’s Revolution, or what the hell ever.
Please include nitrile gloves in your kit, but — for God’s sake — leave the black nitrile in the garage for working on your car. Whenever you have contact in which someone might have been injured, as soon as it is safe, you will assess for injuries. In your assessment you will feel8 as well as look. You may have irritants in your eyes, and you will certainly have adrenaline giving you tunnel-vision. Red blood on black nitrile gloves will probably NOT be seen under reduced vision. Red blood on light-coloured gloves will stand out. Which could be very important for reasons that I hope it isn’t necessary to explain.
Yes, you should put on nitrile gloves before checking yourself or a buddy for injuries. Yes, wound contamination is not high on our list of priorities at the time. However, your hands may be covered in greasy grimy gopher guts9. You don’t want to waste time staring at the red smear on your hand and trying to decide if it came from busting Zephyr the Scum-Sucking Siberian Snow Pimp in the snot-locker, or from a stab-wound in your back. Put on the clean, blank gloves.
Because we don’t trust cell-towers to deliver the GPS data you need, get some dead-tree copies of maps for the area, and laminate them. Study them before hand. You want to understand the major routes in and out, and you want to fix major landmarks that can be used to orient yourself.
Make sure the vehicle’s fuel tank is topped off prior to entering the riot zone.
Time it so that you enter the riot zone after the night curfew is lifted, but before the Useful Idiots wake up.
Every time you contact your buddy, remind him to have his pets in their carriers, overnight bags packed, meds organized, kids wrangled before you hit the riot zone. Ideally, you should pull up, honk, have the entire crew loaded in less than fifteen minutes10, and feet wet in under an hour.
Finally: Don’t play with your food. Get in, grab your buddy, and get out. Quick, quiet, and no drama. Don’t lollygag, don’t document, don’t offer to help — the whole situation is not your issue, and you don’t need to volunteer to be a piñata — you aren’t going to change a single, damned thing; you aren’t going to heroically change the course of human history, and the best you can hope for is to not wind up as a footnote in the history books.
Ian
Note bene: I realize that the quote I used for the title is supposed to be: “Needs must when the Devil drives.” My father's version was “Needs must drive when the Devil dances.” I like Da's version better.
Especially from very twitchy Agents of the State.
Your boyfriend’s cousin’s girlfriend’s uncle-in-law the Navel Squeal doesn’t count. Neither does an NRA familiarity course. Gunsite, Thunder Ranch, CSAT, or something equivalent.
5.11 or similar pants scream “Undercover Fed!” and make Free Range Socialists get even stupider.
Someone may decide that they really, really, really want to have a “talk” with “That SOB in the grey long-sleeve shirt!” Under stress they might not be looking for the SOB in a tan short-sleeve shirt.
Yes, the ladies, too. The outer shirt may become contaminated, or a visual marker, and you may have to dump it. If you want to run around a riot with naught on your top half but a bra, far be it from me to stop you, but you might be more comfortable with a t-shirt. Just saying.
Not the latest Oakleys or Wiley-X — see note #3 above.
Always keep in mind that Murphy, of Murphy’s Law, hates you. Personally.
That’s an order, not a suggestion.
Or, you know, other stuff.
You probably won’t, but we’re going for ideals here.