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Survivalism should be a stealthy business. “If people do not know you have something,” thesurvivalistblog.net points out, “then they cannot make plans to take it from you.” Or, as a non-prepper would say, “Why should I prepare for myself when I can just take it from you?” Mr. E. Evans’ article highlights the dangers of Max Max misegos raining down on loose-lipped survivalists. His piece is a genuine hoot—in a scary-ass they’re not going to mention that on tonight’s NatGeo Doomsday Preppers episode and why doesn’t he bring up the obvious (guns!) kinda way. We pick up the story about a month after an ice storm has left Mr. Evans’ neighborhood without power . . .

But the merriment dissipates. A few weeks after, the only phone calls were cries of help. “Could I borrow your generator? The one you told me about?” “My pantry is bare, and I can’t get to the store. Will you lend me some of your food?” “You have drinking water, right? I need enough for a family of six. I’m coming over to your place now. Have it ready.”

The problem was those who had supplies needed them too. The well-prepared folks stocked up in the first place to feed their own families, not to feed the neighborhood. Ice storms tend to last. Their supplies were running low, so they had no choice but to refuse aid to others. The result? Grudges were created as some neighbors refused to help. Others felt slighted. Some had the entitlement mentality: “If you have it, then you owe it to me! How dare you refuse!” Threats were made, and feelings of animosity were nurtured. These feelings were not forgotten when the storm passed, and those who made no effort to keep their preparations secret became the biggest targets for handouts.

There is a saying that goes, “If the bomb doesn’t get you, your neighbors will.” This is why.

Oh sure, we can laugh about E. Evans’ paranoia. But it stops being funny when it starts being your Internet that’s wiped out by an EMP. And you run out of 5.56. In fact, how can you have a discussion about neighbors desperately seeking sustenance without bringing up firearms’ role in any such scenario?

Meanwhile, let’s face it: NatGeo’s Doomsday Preppers’ OpSec sucks. If you know what that means you know what I mean. If you don’t, you might want to start finding out. Or not.

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39 COMMENTS

  1. We had friends that lost electricity for a couple of weeks nearby. We were lucky in that our immediate neighborhood was ok, so I shuttled some supplies up to them periodically (drinking water, firewood, etc) I don’t know what I could have done if the entire area had been blacked out, as my priorities would have been my own family. This particular family is normally well prepared for “bad times” and they would have done the same for me (and have in the past) had the situation been reversed. The rest of my neighbors and so called friends? They’d be knocking on my door asking for my last can of food, of that I am sure!

  3. I agree, these people must be NUTS to disclose all the details of their prepper plans. I can tell you that at least 5 people NOT in on the “prep plans” these guys have going recognize them, so that means after a disaster suddenly 50 people huddled cold around a fire pit know where to go to get food. I don’t care how many people you got with AR15’s, 50 hungry, angry people with clubs running at you is no fun. Prepper rule #1 should be simple, sort of like DGU rule#1: STFU!

    • I don’t care how many people you got with AR15′s, 50 hungry, angry people with clubs running at you is no fun.
      With all do respect to the author of the above line, he must of never fired a AR15, SKS, AK47, or any other assault rifle. As far as personal defense from what you describe a saga 12 Gage w/vertical grips on a folding stock and drum mag(50 rounds of 00 buck shot), and beta mags for the rifles( for non- military that’s 100 rounds before a reload).FYI if you do not have a working knowledge of weaponry the following may be to descriptive, but necessary to make the point. I have seen what the business end of a AK47 does to a man and the effect it has on all that see that temporary cavity (the way the a belly almost seems to blows up in all directions as the muzzle energy is dis-abated on impact, before pushing everything in its way out the other side) left in a grown man before he hits the ground dead, his heart seeming to be dripping out of the said exit wound. I also have felt a 9MM to my left shoulder in a attempted robbery of my dads small business (more guns than employees do to how rough a area its become sense my dad started it 30+ years ago, in Feb. 2010, I took the 9 while reaching for my 12 gage as the two want to be gang members (we were told this was the last thing they had to do to get there colors?) that is when my dad 101st airborne Ret. was able to look at the cameras that only one gun was drawn between the two of them i was behind a built prof safe (trying to reach my shot gun with my foot LOL screaming in pain) when i heard two shots, the guy with the gun took two in the chest, his partner throw his hands up looking down at his now dead friend. People kill people not guns there only a tool, Guns saves the lives for those that train, prepare, practice safe gun handling. Also don’t forget the the right to bear is to keep the government in check, I believe it was Jefferson or Washington said “to keep a free republic there would need be armed revolution every 50 years” lets just say were over do, i didnt vote Bush and didn’t vote Obama we need something different. As a 25 year old country boy I know that this is all common sense to us. How to survive in the wet lands of LA. a place TV Star and commando Bear Grills called the smelliest, most humid, and unforgivable place he had even been to up to that time, the post Kitrina swamp outside of New Orleans. this is are back yard. In the north east plenty of fresh water springs, ponds full of fish, creaks full of craw-fish, the woods are full of dear and squirrel , hogs, ect. Thats why North East LA. is called sportsman’s paradise. If the world goes to sh** and you think you can come down year and do it Good Luck to ya.

      • You are obviously a very disturbed person. It’s one thing to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights and take pride/enjoy our firearms, but you clearly get a twisted sense of pleasure out of the thought of mowing down other human beings. I’m beign completely genuine when I say you should seek psychiatric treatment. Your detailed descriptions of shooting people add nothing to your argument. You are a very disturbed, twisted person. My guess would be it is the effects of witnessing such traumatic events and likely a result of PTSD. Have a little fucking compassion for other members of our species. Posts like this do nothing to help our cause.

  4. I know one of the Doomsday Preppers in the show. Great guy. I asked him why he was doing the show and he told me frankly that he wants to inform people. Others can see what he does and could hopefully encourage others to do the same. I don’t actively prep for any long term emergency. But after meeting this guy, I am considering something I never would have. The more people that know about prepping, the more people may actually do it.

  5. Feel free to call “preppers” crazy right up until some disaster has cut power to your fridge that’s disproportionately stocked with perishable food.
    I’m a big fan of Cope Reynolds’ show the Shooting Bench, during which he frequently discusses survival preparations.
    He has a great essay, “What is a Survivalist?” in which he calmly lays out why the survivalist mentality is a winning way of thinking.
    In short, it’s about the responsibility to oneself and one’s family to be ready for all types of emergencies. Then, it’s about being self-reliant so that you aren’t taxing the already stretched-thin SAR and DR resources. Those who are well-prepared can then go on to help those were less than ready, or whose caches of supplies were somehow compromised. And finally, they can be part an active part of any recovery/rebuilding.

    • At one of the Knob Creek shoots, I got into a few conversations with one of the security guys (orange shirts and sweaters).
      He was a crafty old coot, and when we talked about survival topics, he said to me,
      “What do you think I told my daughter to do if the shit hits the fan?” he said.
      “Prepare defenses and wait it out?” I offered
      “Nope… Steal from the weak.” He smiled, mischievously.

  7. The show has me totally motivated! I’m going to the to the store right now and stocking up on the two true necessities just in case the whole world collapses.

    Ammo and guns? Got plenty. Food? Covered. Bottled water? Check. I’m talking the real indispensibles — bourbon and toilet paper. ‘Cause if you’re out of either one, you’re all done.

  8. In the event of an emergency short- or long-term many items become commodities to trade and to protect. Sometimes neighbors, friends, and even relatives can become mortal enemies when it comes to surviving. That nice quiet friendly parent with kids to feed, keep warm, protect, and give medicine too can quickly go to seeing you as a problem to remove with a back of the head gunshot, knife, or club.

    Social unrest can result from economic and political change/collapse, climate change and currency debasement limiting access to food, and disease as in an over-do plague can also bring about a need to prepare and STFU about it. Ammo is a currency and a source of wealth in an emergency as are food, medicine, toiletries, person health products, fuel, fishing poles, short wave radios, etc.

    Silver might be a temporary currency during a collapse. Mercury dimes (90%) silver and Silver American Eagle coins are good to have. Gold is a store of wealth. It would be frustrating to have to exchange an entire one once gold coin for a single chicken.

    • Junk silver was a geat investment for me. Bought when silver was around $10 an ounce, sold close to $50. If there’s another dip, I may get back in.

  9. It should also be noted that, when the shtf, the local thin-blue-line will be handing out their lists of discovered and suspected preppers to the local ruffians. This will serve two vital functions in the thin-blue-line preservation playbook. First, it will reduce resistance from the prepper militia types by sending wave after wave of ruffians their way and eliminating some from both groups. Second, it will serve to more fully arm the ruffians to make carrying out those shoot-on-sight orders much easier. If you live someplace where the sheriff, city council, and/or police chief are suspect(and most places fail on one or more of these) then you should seriously consider changing that if possible or getting the heck away from it. Remember the Battle of Athens Georgia!

      • The tin foil hat isn’t really necessary when “sovereign citizens” are being labeled as anti-government extremists and terrorists. Maybe you should remove your media-issued rose colored glasses and don your own tin foil hat.

  10. First a disclaimer, I haven’t watched the show (I try to avoid NatGeo because of it’s generally left wing, anti-gun, bunny hugger slant). I have seen the numerous promo’s for the show however. Like most “reality” TV the only reality your getting is a big dose of whatever nonsense the producer and director of the show believe in which is usually some sort of fashionable left wing blather. I’m going to go out on a very short limb here and guess that the “real” people portrayed on the show are purposely chosen because they don’t typify anyone or anything but happen to be over the top wacky or entertaining. Remember, nothing is less real than “Reality TV” ’cause if it was real, it would be boring, stupid and aggravating just like real life. Kudos to Ralph. Anyone who stocks up on Bourbon and TP knowns what really matters!

  11. Two of the guys on it have extensive YouTube channels full of lots of information. He has said on numerous occasions his goal is to spread awareness about prepping as well as his thoughts on how to best do it. Given those goals, I’d say he’s doing rather well.

  13. My FIOS screen told me I was watching Nat Geo ‘Preppers’, but the entire show was about the Barretts and their newest .50’s and .338’s. Just as well. As for the “Threats were made, and feelings of animosity were nurtured” in a prior comment, you can’t expect people to actually get smarter when emergencies strike. It’ll become like the last 300 meters on Everest in a blizzard, everyone in a mental fog, hardly able to think, leaving the wounded to freeze in the dark, staggering forward …well, at least until the JD and Bourbon are gone. After that, we’ll see.

  14. In Russian, the label on the video says, btw, “Replica Tank “Tiger I” under way.” I just compared it to a Tiger I (panzer 6) and sure enough that puppy is a ‘replica’ built on a longer surplus russian chassis. I suppose that’s an item they use in Glorious Motherland Was re-enactments? And they even can’t eat, drink, shoot, or …it. Odd.

  15. I keep a thousand rounds or so for each of my firearms. (10,000 in 22LR it’s so cheep) and buy mags and such from the link in my name above. I do keep them “Just in case”. However I do not have a tank a huge generator, or anything else. Who is more crazy, the person who is “always prepared” like the boyscout motto, or the person who is never prepaired and just expects the government and neighbors to help them in a time of crises?

  16. “Preppers” is the most comical show on television. I was bored and looking for something amusing to watch and found it…Preppers , First of all I am not sure whether the people on the show realize it but people all over the world have just got their name address and location,how much food they have and water and how nice their gun collection is. I sit and watch and will continue to watch ,as its unbelievable what people give their permission to air. This one guy has a stash of guns that would rival any army post and he shows the location of his secret room with all the safes and guns and food and water and his full name and Natgeo takes no time to hide his location .Im thinking ok…this guy looks like he has maybe 50000 dollars in guns and some good eats.I know where im heading to when it hits the fan.All these people that are showing their little ponds and food production doesn’t think that perhaps a neighbor that doesn’t know them as friends but knows who they are might tip off others about”their” stash…lol Its so amusing I will watch the show till it is taken off the air because I was rolling laughing in the floor. The woman that says she will be ok because she has 100 extra pounds and everyone else will die of starvation but she will be ok…Well that is if someone doesn’t eat her lol..I just read a post from a guy in Monroe La that says do you know what an AK 47 can do to a man…Well,first of all you have to have it attached permanently on your side as you take your bath or go to the bathroom or whatever. People that are starving and want what you have don’t care if you have a bazooka. They will find a way to out maneuver you and take what they feel is the spoils of war or in Preppers case,the spoils of the end of the world. I don’t care how many Ak 47’s you have or what you have if you are outnumbered then you are outnumbered. Its hilarious to think that these people think they even have a chance ,first of all letting everyone know who they are and where they are and what they have is a bad idea…Then there was the same woman boasting of having a 100 extra pounds ,saying they had alternative ways of communication like banging out morris code on boxes and walls.Call me stupid but im not going to be banging morris code to someone ill be blasting 12 guage shells through the walls so the bad guys don’t have to wonder what im saying. She also recommended an alternative language.Her choice of language was Tagalog.She gave a small but humorous example of her attempt at speaking it and it was so funny I almost peed in my pants..What? She doesn’t realize that Tagalog is a well used language and there are many Filipino’s all over in every community? I know what her strategy is .Her hope is to make the Filipinos that attack her for her food and maybe her virtue 🙂 as she puts it ,start laughing so hard that they fall over dead maybe end of story. I suggest she and her hubby learn a dead language like Aramaic or Latin ,not the national language of the Philippines..Tagalog is spoken in more places in the world than Spanish almost. Its just really amazing these people .Im a happy camper laughing and enjoying others showing off their feats of survival ism. I sit here thinking about the fireman in New York city that threw broken glass out into his hallway and wondering what that was all about. Imagine…you are practicing for the day of doom throwing glass out in the hallway and some little barefoot child walks by and cuts his feet up because of your demo..Geez..The guy is a black man that has a storage unit a few blocks away with extra food in it and is waiting for a super volcano to go off in Yellowstone so he can walk four blocks in a suit with a gas mask and tank on his back to retrieve food and walk back. My thoughts already as he did his practice run is that here is this giant black man walking down the street in a gas mask and tank on his back looking a little threatening and no one calls the cops..I guess that is New York for you.The show is great…is funny ,entertaining and just ironic and mind altering. Im not sure who is funniest ,the people or the experts. One show where it was a meek family that kept bees for honey and trade and crushed apples to make cider and and fuel and grew a garden so large in the back yard they had too much food and they were prepped for anything but they don’t like guns so they didn’t think anyone would bother them because they would gladly invite the community in and feed them and give them shelter and they kept saying ,”oh we don’t believe in guns” we will just be good and the people around us will be good and then a guy about 25 popped in and said ,”oh Ill invite the raiding marauders in and feed them and determine if they are good or not and if they are good Ill let them stay and then if not Ill poison them and slit their throats” lol….so meek and mild ,must be the family that breeds serial killers..You know ,because when they finally catch serial killers they always say ,’oh they were so kind and took out my garbage and they were gentle and so good” ok…well guess we know where the next family of serial killers are starting out from since he announced his intentions. What he doesn’t realize is when people are hungry and trying to survive ,civilization goes out the door. When he invites them in they will put a bullet in head and then eat his prepared food and then sleep in his nice comfy bed since the family that was so prepared didn’t believe in guns but then again..when you are in a situation like that you are pretty outnumbered and if people want what you have ,they don’t care about making friends they want the goods.I have rambled too much here but my thoughts are flying here and there and the humor in all of this is really kind of sad.Yes its great to be prepared but don’t broadcast it…You can’t feed the world and take care of everybody or the world would be without famine now.I have seen first hand how things worked out in a situation. Just remember the news reports of Katrina in New Orleans and what happened in just a week or two.The looting,the stealing the violence and the community leaders had no way of communicating because they had mothballed their communication devices that used air waves..That was just a small hurricane and one city and so many people died and the anger and the rampage that went on after just a week or so and the police even abandoning the people and looting themselves and then the marshal law of one parish against others,daring people to come into their parish..The whole thing went savage really quickly.I still think about it and the short time period it happened and how bad it turned out. Can you imagine a Volcano that covers the United States or major earthquake in the United States or and EMP wave that wipes out the power grid ,or a major flood that covers a lot of the states or anything that last over a few days.My thoughts is when anything like this happens everyone will be calling the government and they will be out to lunch…It makes me shutter to think about it but at least for the moment…Preppers has brought laughter and a release of tension by watching these people and their ideas which in ways are really good things to do but shhhhhhhhhh! don’t tell everybody lol…kind of defeats the purpose of having secret anything or securing your way of life.. Anyway thats my story and im sticking to it.Thanks Natgeo for a nice amusing show and making me laugh.

  17. Doomsday Preppers are ridiculous. It’s one thing to prepare for an emergency. But it is mental illness and very sad for a person to be so pessimistic and hopeless that they create the only senario of failure and downfall of an entire world. Get over yourselves, really. Your life is less than 100 years. You are flesh and blood and deserve no better than anyone else. Doomsday Preppers prove that there are lunatics living among us. Go bury yourselves in your stupid ineffective bomb shelters and get off my television you hopeless losers.

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