NOTE: USCCA Customer Engagement team members get a lot of questions, and they pass a good number of them along to Concealed Carry Magazine Senior Editor Ed Combs. If you have a question, you can either ask it below or email it to editor@usconcealedcarry.com. We, of course, cannot guarantee answers to all questions — Ed’s a pretty busy guy — but we’d love to help you out with whatever’s stumping you.
Jared Blohm
Managing Editor
Concealed Carry Magazine
Should I Have a ‘Go Bag’?
Short answer “yes,” long answer “yes, but.”
The origins of the “go bag” can be confusing because they’ve existed for so many years and for so many purposes. This has led to a lot of cross-pollination, which can result in a private citizen’s “go bag” being a little out of whack for what he or she might actually need it for.
In a law enforcement context, a “go bag” is an easily carried bag of loaded magazines for your duty and backup sidearms, other ammunition (either AR mags or 12-gauge ammo, depending on whether your department’s squad cars contain shotguns or rifles), emergency trauma-medicine gear like tourniquets and combat gauze, and other emergency gear that you’d grab were you responding to a North-Hollywood-bank-robbery-level shootout in your area. Though some folks like to keep something like this in their vehicles at all times, it’s not quite as important as another kind of “go bag.”
What Is a ‘Go Bag’?
In most private-citizen contexts, a “go bag” is for escape – as in, it is no longer safe to remain in your home, so grab your “go bag” and get out of there.
You’re looking to fill a backpack with the essentials: materials that will keep you hydrated, upright, warm, clean, fed and moving for as long as it takes to get to safety. So yes, you absolutely should have such a bag, and you absolutely must maintain it.
You’re going to want to periodically check it to ensure its contents are not spoiled, specifically the food and water. Remember: the time to “fill all canteens” isn’t the moment it’s time to move. Everything needs to be ready to go when it’s time to go. No fair getting stuck with spoiled food and water that’ll make you sick when it’s time to escape a hurricane or terrorist attack. But there’s another side to “bug-out bags.”
You also need to seriously consider where you will be “bugging out” to.
Were you just told by the governor that you need to leave a certain area after a chemical spill? Are you concerned that your city is about to erupt into mass violence, or that the minor earthquake that’s underway is the beginning of “the big one,” and it’s time to retreat to a secluded area and make a stand there?
Determine Your Go-Bag Needs
Chuckle all you want at any of those scenarios, but these are questions a lot of “go-baggers” never bother to ask themselves. They just find a list on the internet and fill a backpack.
Though that’s a far better plan than not assembling any emergency gear, you’ll need to soberly assess:
- Your risk profile – both geographically and socially – for being forced to evacuate wherever you currently reside;
- Your mobility profile, as in how far you think you can realistically get from where you are if everyone else is also trying to escape at the same time;
- Your roster, as in the number of persons for whom you are Capital-R Responsible; and
- How you intend to transport all of the individuals and bags that will be involved in the evacuation.
What this can quickly reveal is that with the exception of certain natural or man-made disasters, your go-to plan should be to shelter in place. It’s nothing for a healthy 25-year-old to shoulder an 80-pound internal-frame pack and start hoofing it to a deserted state wilderness area. Once that 25-year-old is a 45-year-old, with a spouse and two or three kids, everything changes.
Only you will be able to properly and accurately rate yourself and your overall situation. But whatever your situation, have a few fundamentals ready to roll at all times.
What to Pack
Have your essential documents either stashed in a bank safe-deposit box or otherwise locked down. Some folks like keeping images of all birth certificates, marriage licenses, titles to vehicles and homes, and the rest on their cell phones. This can present security issues, though. Some store such items in The Cloud, and others opt to keep the real-deal originals in waterproof containers ready to be bugged-out with. As with everything else in the responsibly prepared lifestyle, the time to think about this stuff is now – not the moment an evacuation order is issued.
Food and Water
Food and water for at least two days. That’s a lot, so this isn’t going to be a little handbag-sized unit. At least two days’ worth of water is at least 2 gallons, and anyone who’s spent much time consuming nothing but the water they’re carrying and/or processing understands that a gallon a day is a very short ration. Carry easily refillable water bottles and be certain to top off whenever you can once the bugging-out has commenced. You should also carry water-purification chemicals or a filter pump … or both. Equipment redundancies are always a blessing.
The food is actually the easiest part: pack stuff that you know you like. But remember, this is not a camping loadout; it’s closer to a patrol loadout. So meal-replacement bars, beef jerky and other shelf-stable, mess-free stuff is the way to go. And remember: your body requires water to process food. If you don’t have any water, don’t eat anything. You can go a heck of a lot longer with no food than you can with no water.
That said, even a meager hot meal can make a bigger difference than some people can even understand. If I’m carrying a backpack anywhere other than through an airport, you won’t catch me without a steel canteen cup, some tea bags, a few envelopes of dry soup, a small bottle of hot sauce and a small cooking pot among all of my normal gear.
Other Basic Needs
You’re going to want some basic tools, and I mean basic: a head lamp or two and batteries, a multi-tool of some kind, a few dozen feet of line (paracord works fine, but so does regular old nylon rope) and whatever shelter needs you can manage to carry. A lot of guides on “bugging out” will tell you to have a tarp to rig as shelter, but a 12×12 will only do you so much good if you’ve never even run a YouTube search on how to rig one as a makeshift rain fly.
As far as fire-making supplies go, I recommend waterproof matches, Bic-brand lighters, a few candle stubs or tea lights, and Coghlan’s fire sticks. You’ll notice that there are a few redundancies in this list, and that is because like water, the ability to make fire is non-negotiable. While we’re talking keeping warm, a sleeping bag would be ideal, but can really up the bulk of your bag.
You’re going to need any meds that you or any of your party require, and you’re going to want to have meds and med gear that you may need on your journey to wherever you’re going. This means basic first-aid supplies as well as the same kind of trauma gear you’ll have with you at the range – specifically a tourniquet and combat gauze.
Luxuries
Toiletries also go a long way, including TP, hand sanitizer, soap, feminine hygiene products, a toothbrush and that little tube of toothpaste the dental hygienist gives you after a cleaning. You know yourself better than anyone on the internet does, so be certain that what you’re carrying is what you’re going to want.
Little luxuries can make a big difference, like those little, tiny compressed towels. Clothing will vary by your location, but have at least one change of socks and base layers, pants and a long-sleeved shirt packed and ready to go, along with a wool watch cap and a good set of work gloves.
Do You Need Everything?
If this sounds like a lot of stuff, that’s because it is. And if you want to make a go of it with nothing but what you carry on your belt and in your pockets, that’s your business. But that’s not “go-bag” gear. That’s “barely made it out of the building alive” gear. You’ll need to strike a balance between those two ends of the spectrum.
You don’t need to pack everything that I do, nor do you need to pack everything anyone else does. But you should take a good look at everything you consume in a day and make some tough decisions on what you want to keep in a backpack that you’ll stow in a vehicle, in your office or in your residence in case everything goes sideways and it’s time to move.
