The first and best preparation that you can do to increase personal security for you and your family is assembling the necessary tools.

Security tools take two forms - physical and mental. On the physical side, you can get what you need by merely buying lots of stuff, which is any equipment you may need in an emergency. Food and medicines too, because any emergency or panic will may disrupt the distribution process, so you may need more than bullets to survive, or at least go without too much disruption.

From the mental perspective you must be emotionally prepared to deal with any emergency that arises, and you must have the basic skills to do so. This means you need to know just what to do with all the self defense stuff you bought and stockpiled.

Therefore, the most important security tool that you can have is not something that you can keep in your security kit. Instead, your most important tool is kept in your mind - your skills and your mental attitude. This is because all the supplies and equipment in the world will only be useful if you know how to use them.

When an emergency arises, you will not have time to read the first aid manual. So read it today! For example, do you know CPR (cardio pulmonary resuscitation), or are you still putting off contacting your local Red Cross chapter or college in order to learn the basics? Do you have enough stores of foods that may not be available at the grocery store, and do you have your required medicines? Alternative energy supplies? Or, do you have a half-baked approach to preparedness - a pistol in your home, but you may not be confident that you have the know-all to use it effectively if a life threatening intruder enters your home? If you aren't sure, then you are long overdue for a call to the National Rifle Association or another firearms safety education provider.

The point is this - when you have built up a collection of useful security tools, and you know how to use them, you can rest assured that you have done your job and created your own Personal Security Zone.

Yes, it's important to seek out comprehensive training courses in how to use the equipment that you add to your security kit. Yet, don't let anything stop you from getting started collecting the tools you will need. When it comes to preparedness, any amount of knowledge & tools will be better than having none.

For example, authorities on security all stress the importance of having a comprehensive medical kit with plenty of supplies to deal with traumatic injuries. This is because in an emergency we may not be able to rely on a speedy-enough response from police or medical personnel or ambulance services. Therefore, we need to plan on being more self-sufficient.

Plus, if you have the right equipment available when you need it, there's a much better chance that somebody else may have the skills to use it even if you don't.

A well-known expert said, Select security equipment like your life depends on it, because it might.

Is All This Too Pessimistic?

Sorry if all this talk about preparing for disasters is bumming you out! Of course nobody wants to get ready for gloom and doom. Alas, if we could all just bury our sleepy heads a little deeper in our pillows and just pull the covers up a little tighter around our shoulders, we might be able to dream away any future risks that life might visit upon us! But, it's our nature to worry and to prepare. And, it doesn't need to be such a bummer.

The ability to define what may happen in the future and to choose among alternatives lies at the heart of contemporary societies," according to Peter L. Bernstein in his worldwide bestselling book Against The Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. According to Bernstein, Risk management guides us over a vast range of decision-making, from... safeguarding public health... waging war... planning a family... paying insurance premiums to wearing a seatbelt...

Once you realize that preparedness is just another type of risk management, like wearing your seatbelt or brushing your teeth, then it's no longer such a bummer to think about! Instead, we learn to view preparedness as more of an interesting preoccupation: a topic that has kept mathemeticians, engineers, politicians and insurance brokers bustling with interest since the Renaissance. In fact, it's our innate human capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices, that improves our lives and drive our society forward.

So now that we have a new and improved attitude about preparedness, let's find out more about building your own Personal Security Zone.