While lock picking is often associated with nefarious characters and criminal activity, it’s actually a skill that offers significant advantages to prepared and responsible citizens. When utilized responsibly, these skills can provide a better understanding of one’s own security, help in emergency situations and even serve as a fascinating hobby.

Debunking the Criminal Connection to Lock Picking

Most criminals prefer not to invest time, effort and money into mastering how to pick a lock. Breaking into a home usually entails a quick and forceful entry, like smashing  a window, kicking a door, or exploiting an unsecured access point.

In reality, picking a lock can take a lot of time and criminals don’t want to spend any more time than they have to at a location. Therefore, it’s crucial to separate the skill from criminal intent and recognize its value for law-abiding citizens.

Enhancing Personal Security

By learning how to pick locks, you gain valuable insights into their function and vulnerabilities. This knowledge will help identify weak points in your security system and encourage you to invest in high-quality locks and other security measures, making your property less attractive to potential burglars.

Emergency Situations

Lock picking skills can prove invaluable during emergencies. Lost or broken keys, accidental lockouts, or assisting someone in distress are situations where lock picking can save time, money and even lives. In these instances, quick and non-destructive entry is crucial and having the ability to pick a lock can make all the difference.

A Rewarding Hobby

For many, the skill is a fascinating and challenging hobby. It requires patience, dexterity and problem-solving skills, making it both mentally and physically stimulating. The lock pick community is filled with enthusiasts who enjoy sharing their experiences and knowledge, fostering a supportive environment for learning and growth.

Where to Start with Lock Picking?

We’ve been producing content and products with a focus on lock picking for over 14 years and in that time, we’ve created what we feel is the best starter pack for those looking to dive into the skill.

The ITS Lock Picking Starter Pack includes everything you need to get started with picking pin and tumbler locks. The included Modular Practice Lock allows you to scale the difficulty from extremely simple to a full-on challenge when using all six of the included Security Pins.

For a limited time, we’re even offering a FREE Universal Lock Picking Practice Station when you purchase a Starter Pack. There are no coupons needed, simply add a Starter Pack to your cart and you’ll see the Practice Station added automatically!

Conclusion

Lock picking is an invaluable skill for prepared citizens who wish to enhance their security, assist in emergencies, or just explore a rewarding hobby. By demystifying the criminal association and embracing the practical benefits, you can use this skill responsibly and to your advantage, so you can prevail!

Are you a US Military Veteran that’s planning on visiting a National Park this summer? Today I wanted to provide detailed instructions on how you, or any Gold Star Family member, can pick up a free pass to never have to pay for admission to a National Park in the United States again!

While camping, tours and special recreation permits aren’t free, the Lifetime Pass will get the pass holder and occupants of a single, private (non-commercial) vehicle, or the pass holder and three people (16 and older) free entrance into national parks and national wildlife refuges.

It also qualifies for free standard amenity fees (day use fees) at national forests and grasslands and on lands managed by the National Park Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation and US Army Corps of Engineers.

Do I Qualify?

For purposes of this program, a veteran is identified as “an individual who has served in the US Armed Forces, including the National Guard and Reserves and is able to present one of the following forms of identification to get the Interagency Military Lifetime Pass,” when entering a national park:

• Unexpired Department of Defense Identification Card (DD Form 2, DD Form 2765, or Next Generation USID replacement)
• Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC)
• Veteran ID Card
• Veterans designation on a state-issued US driver’s license or identification card

Gold Star Families are described by the USGS website as “next of kin of a member of the US Armed Forces who lost his or her life in a qualifying situation, such as a war, an international terrorist attack, or a military operation outside of the United States while serving with the US Armed Forces. Eligibility requirements are in section 3.2 of Department of Defense Instruction 1348.36.”

Before visiting a national park site, “Gold Star Family members must download and print a voucher to present to park staff, exchange for an Interagency Military Lifetime Pass, or place on the vehicle dashboard at unstaffed sites.”

Where Do I Get the Lifetime Pass?

The easiest way to obtain your Lifetime Pass, is to head online here and pay the $10 document processing & handling fee, so that you don’t need to visit a National Park location to obtain the pass. In my opinion, it’s worth the $10 to not have to deal with it on-site, but again, the pass is totally free and if you’re interested in finding an in-person location to avoid the $10 online fee, click here.

I’m not sure if the in-person option also gets you a fancy car hanger for your pass, but in my experience with the online option, it came with the hang tag holder to drop your pass into.

What about Active Duty Military?

For Active Duty Military and your dependents, there’s also a free Annual Military Pass as well that will provide the same amenities as the Lifetime Pass, but it just needs to be renewed each year. For details on the Interagency Military Annual Pass through the America the Beautiful – the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass (Interagency) Program, please visit the USGS Online Store.

Links and Resources

I hope you can find the time to visit a National Park this summer, these passes are a great reason to get back into nature and your roots!

• Find a National Park to Visit
• Order a Lifetime Pass Online
• Details for Veterans and Gold Star Families
• Locations to Get Passes in Person

Since designing and releasing the ETA Trauma Kit Pouch in 2011, we’ve seen a slew of imitations and outright copies. We’ve even seen reputable companies introducing copies of this design as recently as this month. While the saying goes “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” we believe in staying ahead of the competition by continuing to innovate and protecting our designs.

For those of you who have commented, shared or even messaged us about some of the copycat designs you’ve seen in the past, we sincerely thank you. As we approach our 14th year in business, we wouldn’t be anywhere without your support. For any companies out there looking for a great Trauma Kit Pouch, hit us up. We have a fantastic reseller program and we’re always happy to work with other small businesses.

We’ve learned over the years that the best way to protect our designs and intellectual property is to invest in the legal teeth that will allow us to continue to change the game, one design at a time. We’re proud to announce today that we’ve been issued U.S. Patent – 11,602,406 B1 for our 4-Way Mounting System! There’s more bureaucracy and cost in collecting patents than tax stamps, but unfortunately, it’s an inevitable part of business.

Being prepared for things like natural disasters means that you’ve anticipated the worst of the worst and tried to “hedge your bets” against it. Whether that means stockpiling canned goods and water, or even installing whole-house generators, preparedness takes different forms for everyone. However, something we’ve noticed anecdotally is that being prepared may actually affect your perception of how severe of a disaster was, thus the theme of this article; The Preparedness Paradox.

The Preparedness Paradox

The preparedness paradox is a phenomenon that occurs when people who have prepared for a disaster perceive the disaster as less severe than those who have not prepared.

For our example, we’ll imagine a large storm knocks out power to the local area. You’ve prepared your family and household for these types of occurrences by having two weeks worth of food and water, as well as a gassed up generator. When the storm hits and the power blips out, you’re quick to get the generator running and your meals are covered. For the duration of the storm, your family is comfortable, warm and fed. When the disaster has cleared, you emerge victorious and there’s a propensity to brush the storm off as “no big deal,” because of how ready you found yourself.

It’s in these moments that it’s important to consider two things. One is that you should still be making notes of how you could better improve for the next time. What small changes could you make that would make things even better? Are there skills you could work on to better pass the time or help give yourself a leg up even more? Next, it’s important to consider how those around you, who are less prepared, may have fared.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

It’s always refreshing to meet people who are working on becoming more self-sufficient, both in preparing for natural disasters and also in everyday life. However, there’s an attitude that commonly develops among these people that “they’ve got theirs” and their neighbors/communities aren’t their problem.

This is an easy attitude to develop and one of the most common morality tales that gets tossed out when defending this stance is “The Ant and the Grasshopper,” in which a hungry grasshopper approaches ants who are drying grain they have collected during the summer, asking for a bite to eat. The ants are quick to chastise the grasshopper for his lack of preparedness and basically tell him to go pound sand.

The fact is that a community that is better prepared to go through things together is stronger than a few households scattered about, that have done their preparedness work. It’s easy to say that you would turn the grasshopper away, but it’s another to actually turn someone away that’s physically reaching out for help in front of you, or not help someone that you can see needs it.

Helping Spread Preparedness

By helping those in your community become better prepared, you will create a strong community that is ready to help each other and outlast anything nature can throw at you. Here are some tips for getting the conversations started with those in your community.

Actually Start the Preparedness Conversation

During the days after something like a hard storm, reach out to your neighbors directly and see how they’re doing. You may hear them discuss issues they had that you’ve dealt with in the past and have solution for. Something as simple as “I have a great method for storing rice and beans if you want me to shoot you over some online shopping links.”

In many cases, people may not have even considered keeping supplies like this on-hand and your conversation may help them strike out on that journey. We’ve seen firsthand how people can go from not even having spare batteries, to starting up a conversation with you about the new radios they bought and what channel you think all the neighbors should use to communicate during an event.

Share Your Information

One of the hardest things to tackle with the subject of preparedness is the research and sharing things you’ve learned is a fast way to get those around you up to speed. Something as simple as sharing your state government’s Disaster Supply Checklist can get people thinking about the gaps they need to fill in their preparedness. You can also show them the First Aid supplies that you keep on-hand and explain how valuable medical supplies can be when emergency services may not be available.

Help Them Create a Plan

Having the supplies on hand does not equal true preparedness. It’s important to highlight to your neighbors the need for planning things like communications, evacuations and even possibly shared supply lists. One of the benefits of sharing in preparedness is that you can offload different responsibilities to different people. Maybe you keep the backyard chickens and they tend the vegetable garden.

Another great option is to get involved with your local government’s preparedness organization, like the Community Emergency Response Team. These local groups have things like checklists and already established plans that can help. For more information, you can also check out our CERT write-up.

Build Your Community Resilience

Lastly, when something does happen that causes you to have to use some of your plans or supplies, conduct a sort of “After Action Review,” that allows everyone to share what went right and what went wrong. There’s a strength that comes from preparedness that is hard to enumerate until someone has experienced it. From these experiences, you can grow as a community and better help one another.

Conclusion

It’s important not to lose sight of why we practice preparedness. At the end of the day, it’s about keeping ourselves and families safe during trying times. Bringing your community into this fold makes more sense than trying to stick it out alone during the storm. Hopefully this article has helped offer some tips for discussing preparedness with those around you, to create a resilient community that is ready for whatever may come your way.

With hospital space at a premium these days, it’s becoming more important than ever to take steps to avoid them if possible. Recently we came across this great article from Edwin Leap, discussing some tips for avoiding the emergency room and things to consider if you do have to end up taking a trip to one.

One of the most poignant lines of the article is taking steps to ensure you’re in good physical shape, not only through fitness, but also through elimination of things that harm your body in small ways, like drugs and alcohol.

Edwin’s article also highlights the importance of knowing your local medical facilities and their capabilities, before you need access to one in an emergency. We’ve discussed the importance of knowing the “baseline” of your neighborhood and we would consider this as a part of that knowledge. For instance, your local hospital may not have a fully equipped operating room, so making your way there with an injury will just delay you further as you’re transported to another facility.

Some things we would add to the premise of the article, would be ensuring that things like documentation are taken care of before an emergency comes up. For instance, if you have Power of Attorney documents, you can put those on file at the hospital you’ll most likely be traveling to, so that a family member doesn’t have to worry about bringing those documents in when you’re not able to communicate.

Additionally, if you have prescription medications you can can discuss getting a longer supply (90 day vs. 30 day), so that you have more on-hand in case something disrupts their supply. During a natural disaster or other emergency, you don’t want to have to worry about getting a refill on your meds.

Lastly, you should take stock of the supplies you have on-hand to treat injuries, before transport to a hospital. Many people participate in activities that have the propensity to cause life-ending injuries, but ironically don’t carry life-saving gear with them. (Looking at you, shooting range guys.) Ensure that you’re carrying a full-size Trauma Kit to these type of places and take the time to seek out the necessary training to use the supplies inside. Last but not least, we’d also recommend making sure that you have a well stocked First Aid Kit, because the likelihood of you needing supplies for treating cuts and scrapes is much greater than some of the higher level medical items.

We hope you’ll take the time to read through Edwin’s thought provoking article and stay safe out there!

Now including a 2-Piece Titanium Concealment Toolset and Discreet Carrying Case, the ITS SPIE® Kit (Special Purpose Insertion Extraction) is our solution for the tools needed during an Escape and Evasion (E&E) or a Home Invasion Scenario to escape from illegal restraint.

The new carrying case for the ITS SPIE® Kit features a Mints Insert printed on Waterproof Paper for storing important written information and also features a durable Water-Resistant Air-Release Label, to help prevent air bubbles and ensure your kit hides in plain sight!

Escaping illegal restraint is heavily advocated here at ITS Tactical and as long as Zip Ties and Handcuffs can be purchased by anyone off-the-shelf from Army-Navy stores or a host of resources online, the average citizen needs to have access to these tools to escape potential illegal restraint.

Please check out the video below for a brief overview of these tools and their applications.

A few years ago, we featured an article that discussed Bitcoin and whether it would be the future of currency. At the time we published, it was assumed that anyone reading an article online was probably familiar with the word Bitcoin, but these days it would be nearly impossible to find someone that hadn’t at least heard the term.

Our previous article did a great job of discussing how Bitcoin works, from the creation and mining process to the storing and use of the coins, but it seems today that the future of cryptocurrency in general is even murkier than it was back in 2017. Let’s examine some of the issues still blocking Bitcoin from becoming the next reliable currency.

The Roller Coaster of Coins

While it’s generally agreed upon that Bitcoin was and still is the “top dog” when it comes to crypto, the explosion of different “coins” has seen many users diversifying their currency across a multitude of coins.

Some of this diversification comes from wanting to avoid some of the harsh valleys these volatile coins can find themselves in, but even more people are spreading the love to multiple coins in a hope to strike it rich when one catches the hypetrain and 10x’s or even 100x’s their money. This leads to what we feel is the greatest issue that Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies face in general.

Is Bitcoin a Currency or an Investment?

Bitcoin was originally designed to be used as an anonymous and secure alternative to other currencies. However, it quickly became more akin to an investment to most users, with people touting just how much their initial coin purchase was worth today. This isn’t a negative for those early adopters, but it certainly is to anyone that wishes to actually hold and utilize it for purchases.

As an example, let’s say you bought $500 USD worth of Bitcoin six months ago in May of 2022 to use for purchases. If you spent none of that coin, it would currently be worth about $270 dollars. That’s a 45% loss in just six months. For comparison, even under the “insane once-in-a-generation inflation” that we’ve been seeing in the last couple years, that same $500 would have the spending power of about $492. Because of the volatility, it doesn’t really make sense to keep Bitcoin around solely for use in purchasing items.

However, as any solid “crypto bro” will be furiously typing in the comments below, Bitcoin is still an excellent investment option as it sits today. If you had purchased that same $500 in Bitcoin when we originally published the article in January of 2017 and not touched it, you’d have around $9,865 in value today. That beats even the most aggressive hedge funds for returns over 5 years.

That doesn’t mean that something will happen over the next six months to drive the price of Bitcoin even lower. With the anonymity and decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies, it’s impossible to predict or trend them in any way.

Conclusion

While Bitcoin’s future as a currency may still be a bit shaky, it’s hard to argue that it’s a bad thing to buy if you plan on holding onto it. Over the last year, the crypto market has seen some of the worst percentage drops overall since its inception, but Bitcoin remains the “OG” and still seems to be one of the most stable options out there. For buying gear and other fun stuff though, we’d recommend sticking with the tried and true Greenbacks.

Our new ITS Lock Pinning Mat provides the ultimate space for all things dealing with locks! In this video, we showcase just how easy the Pinning Mat (and the Reverse-Grip Pinning Tweezers) make swapping the standard pins of the ITS Modular Practice Lock to the included Security Spool Pins.

As described in the video above, the benefit of changing to Spool Pins is the “false set” they produce while you’re picking. This means that it feels like you’ve got a pin to set above the Shear Line, while in reality it’s just stuck on the ledge of the pin. This is great practice to hone your picking technique and ensure you’re lifting the pins properly.

What makes the Modular Practice Lock superior to other trainers, is the ease in which you can change out the pins one-by-one to increase the difficulty, or swap them all at once to really test your skills!

For the last few years, Bryan has been working on turning an old Golden Tee 99 arcade cabinet into a custom MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). In this video, he outlines the process of stripping out the old parts and planning/building out the new.

The unique part of this MAME Cabinet is the use of the original 15 KHz RGB CRT/VGA monitor and Bryan outlines how he managed to get that to work with a Raspberry Pi.

The ITS DIY Knot Board Display is finished and in this video, Bryan outlines the final steps and tools he used to complete the project. Check the list in the sidebar for links to the items mentioned and for the digital download of the awesome vinyl background we created!