I’m a prepper, he’s a prepper, she’s a prepper, wouldn’t you like to be a prepper too? Actually, I’m not much of a prepper. I have enough food and water to last a week or two (for two), a few guns and around 30k rounds of ammo. Yes, well, there is that. Like many People of the Gun, I got into quasi-prepping through firearms. Tipster One_if_by_land1776 emailed a link to a UK SKY News piece on U.S. preppers. He wonders how many people are coming at it from the other direction: preppers getting into guns. I guess that depends on . . .

How many people are getting into prepping; ’cause you can’t really prepare for the end of the world as we know it without thinking, ‘hmmm, maybe I should be armed.’ Last year, dailymail.com pegged the U.S. prepping population at 3 million and growing. SKY News is down with that. Today’s report US Families Prepare For ‘Modern Day Apocalypse’ (from which the above video was scraped) is tough on both prepping and the causes of prepping.

Why is it happening? Partly, no doubt, because it allows Americans to indulge in some of their favourite pastimes: consuming, camping and buying lots and lots of guns.

And partly because fear sells, drives up numbers for cable news, and increases sales for everything from dried food to assault rifles.

But it’s also arguably a sign of a country coping with economic decline. The end of the American Dream has left people more uncertain about their future, and their country’s.

And if you thought that was as condescendingly dismissive as a UK news channel can get, wrong!

It is also a fundamentally American phenomenon. In a country built on the radical individualism of its founding fathers, people have an inbuilt mistrust in their government’s ability to protect them.

Sociologist Barry Glastner wrote The Culture of Fear. He told Sky News: “Americans are fairly unique as world citizens in that we tend to believe that we control our own destiny as individuals to a much greater extent than we really do.”

Ironically, he points out preppers may actually be reacting to their fears in the least effective way. Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities, he said.

“Where there are real dangers, to take an individualistic approach is usually exactly the wrong thing to do. So the kinds of things that the preppers are preparing to protect themselves from are much better handled on a community-wide basis than they are in your own home.”

Or not. In any case, preppers are amongst us. And the antis. How great is that? [Note to Dad: teach your daughter to GET OFF THE X.]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

82 COMMENTS

  3. I get that the Brits think the way they do, there is a city close by no matter where they live. And they are a socialist country.

    I think prepping can come in many forms. My friends and I do a blitz canning session during Labor Day weekend. Our best 3 dayer was 2,000 lbs of tuna. That’s for several families.
    I love to can veggies (go ahead and call me a girly man), I’m still eating fresh asparagus from the garden.
    Plus freeze dried foods, 3 freezers filled with salmon, crab, venison and a wee bit of elk left.

    • Oh yeah, the wife and I pitch in for canned tuna every year..we drive over to the coast and go in on it with her parents.. right off the boat…

    • Nothing girly about canning. Kind of reminds me of reloading, actually, and likewise is a skill that could save your life. Now, should you start quilting a MOLLE vest and matching kicky beret, it’s time to talk.

      • i had two cans of tuna yesterday. reminds me of the lead article. some kind of stinging insect with hellman’s of course (that’s best west of the rockies), one on sourdough, one on challa.

    • To be fair what the heck could the Brits do if power went out and the island got cut off due to an aggressor country? No US help in this scenario, problem is worldwide for whatever reason. Most would be eating each other within a week.

  4. Did that guy Barry Glastner miss the hurricane Katrina government response? How about the government response to ebola, that was pretty great, right? Where does this guy live?

    • Yeah, plus the business district of Ferguson burned while the government knowingly stayed down, and nightly riots across the nation right now.

      I’m only prepped for a week or three of disorder, but even FEMA, our own government, says everyone should have supplies on hand to survive whatever the local hazards are: hurricane, earthquake, etc. In a disaster, prepare to be without government help for at the very minimum three days.

    • Ironically, he points out preppers may actually be reacting to their fears in the least effective way. Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities, he said.

      The Sheep is strong with this one…..

      • He was almost on to something but his love of authority couldn’t be overcome. It is better to deal with adversity as a community rather than individually. My community, however, is comprised of Jim from across the street and Bob from a couple houses down and not .gov.

      • You beat me to it. This guy must have had his head where the sun don’t shine for a very long time. I forgive him, though, for not remembering how well his .gov was handling things in the 1940s until a bunch of individualists bailed them out. Long time ago, we should ignore that now, pretend it never happened.

    • The “Sandy” response wasn’t exactly stellar, either. FEMA blows and in fact drives a large faction of the preppers.

  5. I’ve noticed that if I talk at all about back up plans and planning for bad things, most people start mocking and joking about aluminum foil hats. Seriously? After the earthquake at Fushima, Japan was helpless for a month, and Katrina also showed us that waiting for the government to rescue us is not a good plan. Self-defense or self reliance some people can’t understand the motivation.

    • “Self-defense or self reliance some people can’t understand the motivation.”

      Just as importantly, self-reliance gives individuals the resources to operate more effectively as a community during a time of crisis.

      Conversely, a community filled with under-prepared dependents is more likely to turn on each other as resources dwindle and desperation rises.

  6. Yeah, I’m going to give up prepping because some socialist reporter thinks waiting days (weeks? Months?) for the government to come rescue me is the best course of action for me.

    Um, no.

  7. I know the preppers on TV tend to be the doomsday type, but that seems to be the extreme edge, right?

    For me prepping means

    1. Having enough essentials for at least 2 weeks (which FEMA recommends)

    2. Having basic repair stuff in my vehicle (I can change a fuse, fix a flat, etc on the side of the road)

    3. I have water, food, sleeping bag, etc in my car for anything from when I am at a friends and drank too much and cannot drive safely home to the time I got stuck on the Grapevine in ice and snow and the road closed. Waited 6 hours before they started moving cars What if it had been longer?

    4. Having basic essentials in a go bag (trying to get my parents to do the same with all their medical prescriptions and the like). I have had to evacuate on quick notice because of a forest fire… and I live in a suburb of LA!

    5. I have AAA for when a roadside fix won’t work

    6. I have a trunk gun or two.

    7. I know some basic emergency medical techniques and keep a first aid kit in my car and home.

    8. I have some emergency cash

    You get the point. My “prepping” is very much oriented toward real world scenarios, not end of the world. When you have to evacuate to a Red Cross Center in the middle of the night that is a wake up. And things can be a lot worse. Heck in College we were standed on campus for days, with faculty hiking through the woods to teach as the road was washed out in either direction. They fixed one lane going one way first. And then for a year and a half we had to drive 25 miles to get to the town we were actually techinically in, as we had to head the opposite way, down the hills, and loop back around (changing from mountain to beach to farmland !)

    That is mighty strong incentive to stock up.

  8. Prepping is a natural reaction to the country being destroyed from within by the criminal cabal that currently runs it. Anyone can see the disaster that’s coming. The only question is when.

    As for Jolly Old England, that country’s doom is from Sharia, and it’s coming fast.

  9. I’m not a prepper. But I can see the logic of heaving some food and water just in case. And some ammo of course. Just in case the community preparations did not work out as planned by higher authorities. Or in case there ceased to be comunity as such.
    Not long ago I read ‘The Lucifer’s Hammer’ where commet hits the Earth and most hated bad guys in this otherwise quite well written book are preppers. Those damn individualists!

    • I thought the most interesting thig about that book was how skill sets mattered even more than equipment. Any hardcore prepped should learn some unique and valuable skills that would matter in a post-apocalyptic world. And for Gods sake, have a copy of “The Way Things Work”

        • “I’d like to know how to get THE WAY THINGS WORK on Kindle. I can’t find it in a Kindle format.”

          There are freebie online sites where you can convert files like PDF, EPUB, etc. into MOBI.

          Or nearly any other file format to most any other format.

        • I cannot find THE WAY THINGS WORK in any e-format, only print. If there is a legit ebook or digital file, I would like to know a source. Thanks.

  10. Interesting that friends/communities often prep together. I think most all peppers would agree that a vital part of effective preparations would be to get your neighbors and family on board so they don’t need your food when SHTF.

    You guys forget, community doesn’t have to mean government. That’s what public school brainwashed you to think.

    • I think the mentality of prepping depends a lot on your lifestyle, and political demographics.. For us it’s a way of life.. the garden,the canning, the chickens, hunting, fishing.. Lots of churches, conservatives, guns carried..

      • The Mormon church is fairly heavy into prepping.

        If memory serves, their doctrine is one year of food put up at all times.

        I have heard they do periodic canning parties, contact your local LDS church to see if they allow non-members to can with them…

        • I can’t think of a reason they’d say no. It’s an opportunity to make their pitch to someone who’s demonstrating an interest in something the church considers important. And even if you turn them down, the more people with those skills there are in the community, the easier it will be to deal with a disaster.

        • actually its more like work up to three months supply and build on up from there as you can. youre not supposed to get into debt getting it as that would be counterproductive. in fact they advise us to be prudent and not panic and go to extremes.
          from the churches site for being prepared, ProvidentLiving.org under emergency preparedness

          “Family Emergency Planning
          Church members are encouraged to prepare a simple emergency plan. Items to consider may include:

          Three-month supply of food that is part of your normal daily diet.
          Drinking water.
          Financial reserves.
          Longer-term supply of basic food items.
          Medication and first aid supplies.
          Clothing and bedding.
          Important documents.
          Ways to communicate with family following a disaster.” – https://www.lds.org/topics/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng

          the church has been teaching being ready for emergencys for forever. here is a talk from october 1980 where one of our church leaders ezra taft benson (who served as secretary of agriculture under eisenhower and was vocal against socialism and communism) talks about the church counseling members. this is the first paragraph.
          “For over forty years, in a spirit of love, members of the Church have been counseled to be thrifty and self-reliant; to avoid debt; pay tithes and a generous fast offering; be industrious; and have sufficient food, clothing, and fuel on hand to last at least one year.” – https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1980/10/prepare-for-the-days-of-tribulation?lang=eng

          btw they havent stopped teaching any of that. and there have been very timely emphasis on being out of debt (oct 2001 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2001/10/the-times-in-which-we-live?lang=eng)

          all of these articles were all directed to the world not just our members. if you are interrested in learning more go to mormon.org or ask any members of the church that you know. they can get you in touch with people that are always willing to share what they know.

        • actually its more like work up to three months supply and build on up from there as you can. youre not supposed to get into debt getting it as that would be counterproductive. in fact they advise us to be prudent and not panic and go to extremes.
          from the churches site for being prepared, ProvidentLiving .org under emergency preparedness

          “Family Emergency Planning
          Church members are encouraged to prepare a simple emergency plan. Items to consider may include:

          Three-month supply of food that is part of your normal daily diet.
          Drinking water.
          Financial reserves.
          Longer-term supply of basic food items.
          Medication and first aid supplies.
          Clothing and bedding.
          Important documents.
          Ways to communicate with family following a disaster.”

          the church has been teaching being ready for emergencys for forever. here is a talk from october 1980 where one of our church leaders ezra taft benson (who served as secretary of agriculture under eisenhower and was vocal against socialism and communism) talks about the church counseling members. this is the first paragraph.
          “For over forty years, in a spirit of love, members of the Church have been counseled to be thrifty and self-reliant; to avoid debt; pay tithes and a generous fast offering; be industrious; and have sufficient food, clothing, and fuel on hand to last at least one year.” – Prepare For The Days of Tribulation by Ezra Taft Benson

          btw they havent stopped teaching any of that. and there have been very timely emphasis on being out of debt (oct 2001 The Times in Which We Live by Gordon b Hinckley)

          all of these articles were all directed to the world not just our members. if you are interrested in learning more go to mormon.org or ask any members of the church that you know. they can get you in touch with people that are always willing to share what they know.

        • and yes we welcome anybody to can with us or do anything else with us. after all all of our church buildings say visitors welcome. and if you are happy with your religion or whatever your beliefs are you can politely let those around you know and theyll be fine with that. you dont have to be a member of our church to use our resources or the knowledge we have (keeping in mind copyright laws and things like that blah blah blah). we give it out willingly to whoever is interested.

      • Most of us won’t survive most anything over time. Any real prepping considers some form of community. Survival eventually returns to getting along and getting on with others.

  11. This from a womb-to-the-tomb, cradle-to-grave, government-doing-what-people-should-do-for-themselves Tommy Toe-rag. That’s enough dashes for one day.

    As my dear old pappy used to say, be ready so you don’t have to get ready.

    • As an expat Brit born again U.S. citizen, it’s not arrogance so much as 2 world wars in less than 100 years that cost them nearly 2 million casualties and frankly their only way to survive was by banding together under strong governmental leadership.

      Granted since the end of ww2, the politicians have been relying on, strengthening and hand feeding the nanny state to the masses. Believe it or not though there are glimpses of the old bulldog spirit (idiot lib journos excepted), and the worm is starting to turn, and very awkward questions asked of Brit leaders. The Brit spirit of independence isn’t dead so much as covered over in a veneer of political correctness.

      • The English of WWI an WWII were a different breed than today. Currently the English are a bunch of little snot nosed spoiled socialist momma’s boys sucking off the government.

        • I swear its eugenics at work. Britain killed all its most fit leaders in multiple world wars. Any positive outgoing traits continue to be purged using the military, leaving a people who can’t even bring themselves to stop a man beheading someone in the streets, let alone stop an assault on a woman.

  13. I hate the term prepper. I have maybe 5 days worth of food & water, unless I just went shopping. Then, maybe, I have 12 days. I got propane for the grill & water storage for the livestock if I’m desperate for water.

    Other than that, it’s just stupid people buying crap they don’t need! Most of them will die of heart disease because they’re obese.

  14. I’m a prepper. “who the f— are you? DOGS! bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark GET EM!!!,/strong> bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark Aieeeee get him GET HIM bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark bark

  15. The Brits and the Euros are used to having us supply their security umbrella. That’s why they’re so complacent. The way things are going though, at some point soon they won’t have to worry about our “individuality” any longer, and they’ll have to protect themselves.

    It’s the same on a micro scale. The same people who tease me for carrying a Leatherman, a pen, some ibuprofen, and a couple bandaids in my purse are the first to ask me for help.

    • BINGO!!

      I catch grief over EDC and general preparedness, but those types are the first ones who need help and rely on others for it, be it first aid or bushcraft. They also say they know where to go when it hits the fan. Wrong.

  16. I’ve experienced snow storms, earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes. I’ll keep a few supplies on hand, thank you.

  18. Knowledge is power! I know this: every time the phone rings it’s when I’m on the throne and can’t get to the phone. When the SHTF hope you are near the gear you need, and or have a means to get to it.

  19. “Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities”

    I worked for FEMA and other disaster recovery organizations for years. The last people I am going to rely on is the US Gov, and they are the best in the world. Being prepared for a disaster doesn’t mean preparing for the end of the world. Hurricanes, tornados, and other natural and man made disasters happen every day. Having a plan and tools to survive without outside help is the responsible thing to do.

    Last place I want to be during one of these events is a FEMA tent city or standing in line all day for a government handout. Have enough to survive the people who have to rely on the government limited resources. I figure 3-6 months.

  20. “Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities, he said.”

    As Chubby said, the government was sure prepared when hurricane katrina hit, right? They didn’t go disarming innocent civilians (illegally; pesky 4th amendment) instead of defending stores from looters!

    Prepping is not a destructive activity. It has no downsides (except the time and money spent), doesn’t hurt anyone, and will actually save lives in the event of an emergency.

  21. “Where there are real dangers, to take an individualistic approach is usually exactly the wrong thing to do. So the kinds of things that the preppers are preparing to protect themselves from are much better handled on a community-wide basis than they are in your own home.”

    The oh-so-famous proof by assertion. Note the lack of evidence to support his theory. And finally, as it can’t be left unsaid: sociologists tend toward which end of the political spectrum? Might it be…statism? Surprise! He has a statist solution to the problem.

  22. Switzerland has nuclear war shelters enough for 114% of its population. If you don’t build your own you’re taxed to pay for the public shelters.

    The USA has shelters for only some small percent, has plans for post attack Constitutional continuity, plus a new program budgeted for trillions to rebuild its old, somewhat obsolete, offensive nuclear weapon capacity.

    If the few take this nuclear war stuff so seriously (and, supposedly, they should know) doesn’t it make sense to be prepared to keep the wolf (in whatever sheep’s clothing they come knocking) from the door after they make the biggest possible, but inevitable, screw-up imaginable?

    Don’t overestimate the concern of the bomb sheltered few for the well being of the many. Stock up.

  23. “Prepping” As in “being prepared”? That was a basic concept in Boy Scouts… is it somehow anti-American now? Being prepared? When I live in earthquake country?

  24. Is it so bad to want to be self sufficient, and to be able to help others? Is that arrogant or…just common sense, as it were?

    My attitude about prepping extends even to my work. My truck is my office, and just because we have weekly supply meetings doesn’t mean I don’t snap up every spare piece of equipment I can get my hands on, or try to stuff “just a little bit more” perishables into my vehicle. It’s just as much for my benefit as it is for my teammates’. I want to be able to keep working so I can get the job done – I want *them* to keep working so they can get the job done. It just makes sense.

    • The Left finds self sufficiency offensive. You must live in supplication to the government. Ask permission to be armed, to go about, and to do certain things. Those who are prepared to do without the guidance of the government are a threat to bureaucrats and their control schemes.

        • Does not only apply to disasters. Normal, everyday, having a job, earning your own way, does the same thing. When govt. orders you to do something (lose weight, get vaccinated, turn in your guns) you can tell them to stuff it.

  25. Katrina, Sandy, Snowpocalypse 2012 with 2 weeks of power outages, Ferguson riots and looting, Toledo water contamination? Yep, no reason to have any food, water and firearms prepared. The government had all of those situations fully under control, or not.

    I love how the media can’t take a look into their archives and see all of the times where the government failed and the people had to survive on their own for a period of time. It’s just smart to have something stored to get you through a bad stretch until services are restored.

  26. Six months of food and growing. We only go shopping once a month but every time we buy at least a couple weeks extra so our stockpile is steadily growing without it feeling like any one month is too expensive.

    Now that we started I can’t imagine not prepping. I’ve started looking at non preppers as if they are already dead. It may not be fair but its hard not to see people who go shopping every few days or every week as nothing but people who are two weeks away from being zombies.

  27. We are expanding our prepping. I don’t live my life by the opinions of socialist loses. I also see the weather is getting bad and know folks very close by were without power for more tha n a week in the dead of winter. WE had windstorm here last spring where people had no power for 6 days. And the world is going to hell. How easy would it be for our N.Korean buddies to cripple our power grid? As Barry told SkyNET…

  28. Hurricane Sandy. Suburban NYC. Three days of gas lines and shouting matches and even fist fights were a regular occurrence here in my peaceful little town. Now imagine month without ready access to fuel. I’ll be pretty happy to have a few guns around because in times of crisis, it can turn ugly fast.

  30. Long term survival: no. A few weeks of food, water, ammo, and batteries. I have a child I have to protect, living in Florida its ignorance to think we won’t loose power at least once a year.

    Besides its a lot cheaper to stock and store food than to eat every meal from the store.

  31. I am sure that if the British people were thrust into another scenario like that of WWII, they would lose. Why do we listen to a people who have set themselves up for defeat? If you really listen to the British people, they aren’t relying on their government to come to their aid, they are relying on aid from the US government if something happens.

    • I agree completely. Just in the past few weeks as they had an unidentified submarine operating in their waters, they had to ask for help because they didn’t replace their Nimrod antisub aircraft when they retired them. An island nation with no significant antisub patrol capability. Why pay for it when the Americans will supply it for you?

  32. As someone who grew up in New Orleans and is all too familiar with the break down of society due to natural disaster; the man who said the .gov is equipped to deal with major disaster is a fool.

    Unless you are ready for a week without protection, food, water, and electricity while the cavalry comes you are in for a rude and possibly deadly awakening. Even the .gov advocated being ready for a ‘zombie apocalypse’ as a way of getting people prepared for natural disasters.

  33. I always have to chuckle when i see William Devane on the gold commercial and he says “what’s in your safe?”……well billy boy i have what counts in times of trouble…

  34. While prepping is an individual responsibility, I thought the following quote from the article was significant. “U.S. prepping population at 3 million and growing.”

    We should create a national organization to fight stand against/prevent attacks. Is there such an organization?

    I don’t have much money but would support that!

  35. Any “collapse”, whether financial, economic, the USD, or whatever form it could take, will certainly be a controlled collapse/demolition with the people at the top remaining in control and benefitting the whole way through. Prep for that.

  36. I hate the term “prepper”. Everytime I hear it I think of some suburban mall ninja dad or some obese guy who owns a bunch of AR15s but has no food or water stored up. I see it as hobby-tier activities, nothing more.

  37. There are serious risks to our society. Our electrical power grid could be easily disrupted for a period of eighteen months or more by the following:
    1. A solar storm of the magnitude of the Carrington event of 1859.
    2. An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear weapon set off in the stratosphere.
    3. Terrorist attacks on multiple power station transformers and transformer manufacturers with conventional weapons (AK-47 rifles, .50 BMG rifles), especially during summer peak usage.

    If electrical power were widely disrupted for as little as three weeks, our society and way of life would likely be permanently damaged. The US government has started in the direction of protecting us against these threats with HR 3410 which passed in the house this year but died in the Senate (see below). I’ve included links to information from the government (including NASA) and legitimate news organizations about these threats below.

    H. R. 3410, Critical Infrastructure Protection Act (CIPA) passed the house in 2014 but died in the Senate.
    Summary: Critical Infrastructure Protection Act or CIPA – Amends the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to require the Assistant Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate to:
    (1) include in national planning scenarios the threat of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) events; and
    (2) conduct a campaign to proactively educate owners and operators of critical infrastructure, emergency planners, and emergency responders at all levels of government of the threat of EMP events. (…)

    Quote from testimony by:
    (Congressional) Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack http://www.empcommission.org
    “The electromagnetic fields produced by weapons deployed with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical power systems, electronics, and information systems upon which American society depends. Their effects on critical infrastructures could be sufficient to qualify as catastrophic to the Nation.

    Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism April 2013 Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country’s Power Grid
    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778

    Scientists say destructive solar blasts narrowly missed Earth in 2012
    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA2I1SV20140320?irpc=932

    Near Miss: The Solar Superstorm of July 2012
    http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

    Experts Warn Civilian World Not Ready for Massive EMP Caused Blackout
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/21/experts-warn-civilian-world-not-ready-for-massive-emp-caused-blackout/

    Report: US Could Be Plunged Into Blackout by Minimal Attacks
    http://time.com/23281/report-u-s-could-be-plunged-into-blackout-by-minimal-attacks/

    States work to protect electric grid from solar storms and nuclear attacks
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/07/states-work-to-protect-electric-grid-from-solar-storms-and-nuclear-attacks/

    Q&A: What You Need to Know About Attacks on the U.S. Power Grid
    http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2014/02/05/qa-what-you-need-to-know-about-attacks-on-the-u-s-power-grid/

    Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid
    http://www.lloyds.com/the-market/tools-and-resources/research/exposure-management/emerging-risks/emerging-risk-reports/business/solar-storm

    How a solar storm two years ago nearly caused a catastrophe on Earth
    http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/07/23/how-a-solar-storm-nearly-destroyed-life-as-we-know-it-two-years-ago/

    Do Solar Storms Threaten Life as We Know It?
    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2009/04/do_solar_storms_threaten_civil.html

    Truth About Solar Storms
    And what they mean for humans here on Earth.
    https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-truth-about-solar-storms-1ab160203da4

  38. It’s good to be prepared to survive natural disasters, extended power outages, etc. Then there are some preppers who believe they are going to outlast a real apocalypse by storing food and hoarding supplies and ammo. Especially ammo in small calibers.

    In Arizona there is a prepper group in Wickenburg, made up mostly of a very large family that runs much of the town. Some claim the group has more than one million rounds of .22 LR in various storage caches, and that they’ve spent north of $30,000 in the past several years accumlating .22, as it appears to be the prepper’s round of choice.

    This is too much of a good thing.

  39. So the kinds of things that the preppers are preparing to protect themselves from are much better handled on a community-wide basis than they are in your own home.”

    I agree. The problem is that most of our communities and our government are not taking the need seriously and/or are not very good at it. We accept response times of a week to ten days to be acceptable in a disaster. That is inadequate.

  40. This guy is supposed to be an intellectual? Good grief, where to even begin:

    1) Yes, major disasters, in terms of restoring things, are often better dealt with by higher authorities, BUT, in terms of how to survive during the disaster, the government generally won’t be much help to you. Hurricane Andrew, Wilma, and Katrina all showed this. The L.A. riots in 1992 showed this. The recent Ferguson riots showed this. The U.K. riots that happened a few years ago showed this

    2) He is making the classic leftwing confusion in confusing society and government. Yes, if you can survive via a community versus by yourself, it’s better to do it as a community. If you live in a rural community who all can prep together, that is something very wise to do. It was done not too long ago by a community I forget where in response to being cut off by a flood, but they took care of themselves, which was a great aid to the National Guard as the Guard was then free to take care of other people who were helpless.

    Taking care of things via a community versus the government taking care of things or helping people are two different things.

  41. I got into guns because of prepping, about four years ago. It had nothing to do with the economic events of the time, though I lived through it perfectly aware of what was going on. It wasn’t even TWD, it was actually WWZ. That book flipped the switch on myself and a few fellow Eagle Scouts, so we just started going back into the woods and buying better gear and it was barely a stone’s throw from there to being ready for disaster. It did a lot of good in our lives, not in the sense of preparation, but for getting back to what makes us really happy.

    Getting into guns was like coming home to my family after 30 years of amnesia. At first I told myself it would just be a fancy target plinker for the range, a 10/22 with an AR kit over it and all the goodies, to compete against myself and try to get better every visit, but that story went up in smoke in short order and I went full-collector. Now I’m proud to say it’s time for a bigger safe. I never did get a 10/22, but it’s still on the list. I did get a real AR, and then another, and… you know how that goes.

    I was against guns at one point in my life because my mother was, but my heart was never really in it, I was a little boy and the draw is just always there. There was a long time of dormancy where even the Columbine massacre didn’t hit my radar as a gun thing, it was a depression thing or a just plain insanity thing. I remember talking about it as I walked to the bus stop from school with friends, nobody thought the guns were at fault any more than a hammer is at fault for framing a house. It was a lack of understanding that guns are to be respected and life is to be respected above all else. Even if you have to kill someone who is trying to take another life.

    I bought my mother her first gun last Christmas. She was not expecting it, but she did love it.

  42. lol, the government can barely function now when there isn’t a disease outbreak or solar flare or economic collapse or whatever. Why do these tards think it will work better once everything starts falling apart. Clearly the gov will be of no help.

    The only tiny consolation is that in the event of an end of the world scenario, these people will not survive to pass on their blind faith.

Comments are closed.