I’ve been thinking lately: what would happen if this nation got turned into a big “gun-free zone” and we weren’t able to defend our homesteads from varmints, both four-legged and two-legged?

Mankind has always been a murderous species, dating back to Abel’s murder by his brother Cain. It’s in our blood to both be marvelously creative and horrifyingly destructive.

As a gardener, I lean towards the creative end of the spectrum; yet I’m under no illusions as to the sheer wickedness of Homo sapiens.

It’s a good idea to be able to defend yourself and/or hunt if there was a crisis. Over the last week or so I’ve been doing a lot of research into primitive weaponry. There are quite a few ways you can feed yourself if things got ugly and you lost your garden. I’ve obviously covered foraging many times – but what about hunting and fishing? And what if you had to fight off drug-crazed looters or zombies? Or both!

This week I’m going to take a short break from gardening posts and focus on homemade weapons for hunting and self-defense, starting with the bow and arrow.

Later I’ll jump right into that… but for now, check out the video I did on my new jump into archery:

I had my first “official” archery lesson last week and, as is my wont, I’m doing tons of research into the field.

I’m also spending my time practicing with a homemade target in my driveway.

I picked up a sweet (and affordable) Samick Sage recurve takedown bow (shown on left) with a 55lb draw weight last week and have been doing much better than expected with my accuracy.

55lbs is quite a lot to pull, but it throws the arrow at a velocity that will take out a grizzly bear. I figured that I’m 6′ 1″ and in good shape so why mess around with a lower pull when I have the muscles to really throw some arrows?

That said, it’s tough right now but I’m acclimating. After a couple of weeks of practice I’ll be quite comfortable.

My friend Sam also hooked me up with a pair of classic compound bows so I’m going to be playing with those too. The downside of a compound bow is their complexity. Unlike a recurve bow, a compound bow is quite hard to restring at home. I want to be competent with a bow that’s as simple as possible before I trust in high-tech solutions so I’m spending at least an hour a day target shooting with the recurve.

The upside of a compound bow is their high accuracy. You sort of “feel” the shots with a recurve… but a compound works more like a rifle.

Anyhow – more on all that tomorrow. Stick with me – we’ll have a fun week wreaking havoc. I’m going to be covering crossbows, atlatls, slingshots and more, so let the weeds grow on your garden for a bit as we go on a testosterone-fueled rampage through the primitive weaponry of the world.