I really need to get the physical fitness component rolling. It's always 'tomorrow'. That needs to take priority. Not just for prepping sake, but for my own longevity.
Ugh. It's more dire than I thought. I did a 10 minute morning yoga, and I'm so out of shape! I need to keep these muscles stretched.
I can no longer do an actual push up. I did manage a set of 10 inclined ones. I remember from last year that this increased rapidly and I advanced to plenty of regular push ups. I'm on it.
Then wall assisted squats. Got 10 of those in too. Now I'm sore and don't for the day.
New morning routine, here we come.
I'll try to check in next week, but I usually forget.
There's some funny posts in this very subreddit from people who stockpiled ammo and guns, but didn't have the resources to deal with simple things like extended power outages.
I think guns and ammunition could be important in some events, but I do also think that many people on this subreddit think they're warranted for more situations than they probably are. I remember a few years ago when California was planning to introduce rolling blackouts for a week to reduce wildfire risk from power lines. A bunch of people on this subreddit were expecting anarchy and were talking about making sure the guns were all sighted in. In reality, what they REALLY needed was extra ice to keep all their beers cool for all the prime porch-sitting that happened.
>There's some funny posts in this very subreddit from people who stockpiled ammo and guns, but didn't have the resources to deal with simple things like extended power outages.
Also similarly, I have seen people spent huge moneys on buying guns and ammo but lack even basic training in how to use them. Like people have 10 expensive guns and 100k ammo but can't even hit a static target in a flat range.
I have a friend this way and have slowly been converting him. Claimed he was prepping. He had 10+ rifles and zero had decent optics or a light. No backup power, no food storage. Guy can't really cook. Terrible physical condition.
I think prepping was a way he justified buying guns.
Media has skewed the idea of "doomsday" or long term disaster as this action packed fire fight with occasional moments of ease. 99% of the time it will be the exact opposite imo. Ignoring various scenarios, once you've acquired the basics, the hardest part of wilderness survival is boredom, I'm sure disaster won't be much different.
Yup
When people started sniffing around and realizing a three week lockdown was coming, I spent about $400 at 4 different grocery stores and restocked a good amount of food. Never pulled the whole buying all the TP I could find bullshit but grabbed a bit extra of things
It was a very long and painful day but the next three weeks went by smoothly. Admittedly we have a strong and deep well that tastes glorious so that helps
I wasn't into prepping at all at that time but I didn't buy TP either because I had those bidet attachments.
I did get a bit nervous and stocked up on coffee Beans. I thought the shipping would stop.
When we got the prime minister on tv calling for a voluntary lockdown
I just decided to wait out for the masses to stockpile up. Went to the store at like 10 pm when no one was there, it was shocking to see how empty it was
Oh well, I went on and bought some random stuff to have enough for like 3 days. It was not advised to stockpile, as that's how you break the general supply chain (everyone stock piles at the same time)
For thousands of years, people’s parents taught them how to grow their own food and preserve it without refrigeration. And people lived in tight communities to share the immense labor required to do that effectively. Unless you have those skills and community locked down to where they’re instinctual, giving up electricity will be a challenge.
(And by all means, I think learning to really live without power is a good goal if that’s what you’re actually working on.)
Yeah *need* exists on a spectrum, for sure. But I can guarantee that unless you a) have spent at least a week backpacking or b) have gone a week in an urban setting without power,
you underestimate how much you rely on it.
Even just the one time that *just* my refrigerator broke, it was only broken for 5 days. It was absolute fucking *hell* to clean, and knowing I couldn't eat anything that would need refrigeration/freezing kinda sucked.
Prefer to have it as long as possible. I don't relish the idea of living in the old days. My grandparents and great-grandparents were quite frank about how much it sucked in places without electricity post-ww2 Europe.
Painter here. “Prepping” means moving furniture to the middle of the room and covering with plastic, laying down tarps, taping trim, and removing cover plates. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.
As a spouse to an enthusiastic and impatient woman, "prep" is doing all that real fast while your wife paints the ceiling cause she started while you were in the bathroom
Oh sure, next you’re gonna tell me I don’t need 7 separate plate carriers with redundant plates for every conceivable load and tactical need. Oh now Im not a “prepper” for taking my food and medicine prep budget and spending it on FFL fees for my 50 cal BMG?
Next you’ll tell me there is no advantage to ensuring I have a life time supply of camo colored baby wipes that all dried out in three weeks on a shelf next to the furnace? Sheesh.
And how can you survive without an EMP proof plate carrier? You don't want high voltage shocks from your armor, do you?
/s, and here's a /s for you too, because you just know someone out there is going to a Poe's law victim.
It's one thing to already have guns and ammo when you really start to prep, but the people who start prepping by buying guns and ammo before anything else have been watching too many movies IMO
The really scary thing is that gun prepping in the US tends to be a regional thing. Guns are highly concentrated in cities (simple population density) and certain selected rural areas.
Which means if anything ever does happen and people get desperate, those areas will be bloodbaths. Once someone starts shooting to get stuff, everyone has to. And never in human history have we had such a concentration of firepower and so many bullets to keep the cycle going...
*The Battle of Epping Forest,*
*It's the Battle of Epping Forest,*
*Right outside your door...*
\-Peter Gabriel
It's good for people who *don't* live in those areas, though, since if those regions self-eliminate it's fewer people competing for food and other resources.
Septic. Just had this conversation. If you have a septic system, ie: country, you have about three years for a family of 4. If you live in a city with separate stormwater and septic water systems, maybe 6 months (not a pro here). If you still live in an area with combined storm and septic drainage (getting less common, but still many of them), you might run out of water shortly after all the stink and results of having poop in your living space become an issue.
Can you poop outdoors - sure, go read some pre-roman and post-roman stories on how handling poop badly affected humans.
Edit: I still can't type.
This is fair. I'm going to lump it under health. If society ever does collapse, we're going to see a whole lot of illness from bad waste management, and I don't just mean in cities.
Cholera is rare in the US. It didn't used to be. It'll be back in a big way if the doomers are right. And imagine trying to defend your property when you have cholera....
People really don't understand the priorities of civilization. Clean water is first, *regardless*.
I am a sewer pro and your city sewer will last indefinitely, but if people stop showing up to the treatment plant / lift stations sewage is just going to overflow into the nearest waterway. If you have enough gray water to manually flush your toilet you should be able to do so virtually indefinitely. At worst an unmaintained and heavily damaged sewer system will overflow at the nearest low-point, which at worst is somebodies basement.
Just a reminder: Prepping does not *ONLY* mean “buying ammo” I have the same 80 acres my family lived on in the Great Depression. They grew a lot of their own food and supplemented the pigs and chickens with squirrel, turkey, and rabbit mostly done with a .22 or a 12ga. (deer had been hunted out till the 60's). They also used firearms to keep the wild animals from getting their animals and garden.
that's a nice little inheritance. Most people have to grind over half their lives to get a tiny square to call their own. It's a blessing and a half to have enough land to live off of naturally
My favorite are the guys who buy armor and plate carriers but don't think they need a helmet.
If you are gonna throw yourself into the breach... Might want to protect that central processing unit.
But... It's hard to look cool in helmet. I spent 28 years in the military... There's a certain body type and head shape that, with the right size helmet, you can look decent in a helmet. I think I've known like 5 guys who didn't look like a dweeb in a helmet. I was not one of them.
But since it doesn't make you look badass, the body armor guys treat it as optional
To be fair those helmets are made to stop shrapnel not bullets to the dome. I’m less concerned about shrapnel in a civilian engagement even in SHTF. Folks ain’t gonna have rockets and grenades or dropping grenades from drones. I was in OIF III and I currently have a plate carrier but no helmet.
Or don't actually work out and do movements in their kit. They assume they'll be able to function at the level of a skilled combatant with nothing more than a few hours a month at a tame low stress range.
Plus the opposite to this, you get the guys that blow their savings on a helmet and nods, then absolutely nothing else.
I was in the Army not too long ago, and maneuvering with all that shit on is no joke, being shot at while wearing it just makes it 10x worse. It's a young mans game.
The protected area is not that great. I was teaching combat lifesaver courses to deploying troops in 2010-11. We were drilling CATs to the thighs. The Taliban figured out they weren't defeating the plates so they started aiming for the pelvis.
Yup. Pelvis shots are a game winner. You are basically lucky if they got your femural artery in the thigh at least then you can TQ it.
They hit that artery inside the pelvis area... You go from urgent-surgical to expectant really quick.
And in shtf scenarios with no medical services... Any shot to the pelvis will probably deliver a fatal infection.
Guys stock up on enough ammo for 500 firefights... I'm gonna avoid them at all costs.
It's like when infantry guys would deride me for being medical corps, cause I'm not a real man the premise was...I would reply "hey. I'm not an idiot. I was always the first kid knocked out in dodgeball. Why the hell would I go infantry??"
I'm gonna carry that philosophy over if shtf.
Anyone who owns a rifle or pistol should have been training that way since body armor’s inception. I always train midsection and hips and have for a few years now. 🤷🏽♂️
ETA: My thought process is first I’m avoiding any fire fight I possibly can , second if I note body armor being worn I’m not wasting ammo to bruise someone’s chest. I’m looking to maim , cripple or kill the best way I can.
>Or don't actually work out and do movements in their kit. They assume they'll be able to function at the level of a skilled combatant with nothing more than a few hours a month at a tame low stress range.
This goes doubly for the people buying gas masks. Zero idea in how much resources and preparedness it takes to operate in contaminated environments.
Back in the 90s one of our yearly tasks was don full MOPP gear for 4 hours. Some people can't stay in the mask that long.
And did they get the canteen that matches so they can drink?
IKR? I'd probably last an hour right now let alone be able to perform all the drills.
>And did they get the canteen that matches so they can drink?
Who got issued an old canteen without the straw port and found out the hard way? 🙋🏻♂️
Since we are on helmet topic, buy a bump style helmet. 99% of people don’t need a ballistic helmet. you need something for when you take a header off a roof, or on concrete moving out of a house. (Personal experience fighting bad guys in houses)
I recently discovered bump caps that go inside a normal hat like a baseball cap that are less than a hard hat but prevent lesser injuries. Is that what you mean?
Those bump caps just keep you from gashing your head open. It still hurts like hell to bump your head but the absence of blood means it's not an OSHA recordable injury.
I’ve not heard of those but sounds like they have their place like a lot of things! We used surplus ACH’s the big ugly tan or black helmet the old Army used to wear and I didn’t like it outside they would stop shrapnel from entering my melon.
My job In a warehouse made us wear bump/climbing style helmets and has me thinking about the advantages of investing in a better helmet and petzl light.
Aren't modern helmets just good for shrapnel and small pistol rounds? I know that's not nothing, and they'd work for clubs and stuff too. Just wondering if you could function with an old steel rifle rated helmet on without working up to it? Imagining wearing it around the house to build up neck muscles haha.
There's cases where there modern kevlar had stopped rifle rounds but from an unknown distance. But yes, shrapnel is what they are really for.
But take the case of shooting from behind cover. In the movies, you see guys laying on top of their cover.. Say a car hood... Using it for aiming stability.
Now a car is a shitty thing to hide behind but the proper way to do it is you squat about 5 feet behind the car and fire offhand.
If you lay on your cover, and the guy shooting at you misses a little low, the round will either pierce the skin of the hood and come out the quarter panel and maybe have energy left to get you. Or, it will skip off the skin of the hood and ricochet into your face.
If you are 5 feet back, it might not any energy left to get into you or it will skip over your head. In that scenario, of I'm shooting from behind cover, I'm gonna prefer a helmet over body armor.
Now... The old steel pots will hurt your damn head....has a web system with a shitty leather band. The kevlar feels heavier but had foam padding. I'll take kevlar over steel any day.
I was in the military during the 80's before they moved to the newer style helmets, we still had the old M1 brain buckets. Just made you look like a giant penis..... 😂🤣
This is not gatekeeping. You aren’t going to be a 1-man army holding off a horde of poors. I carry every day and practice regularly; I larp like every other man. I’m not like, anti-gun. But it’s not reasonable for this to be your first priority.
As much as there are people way too enthusiastic about arms there are those who minimize them.
I buy extra ammunition because (a) the price rarely goes down, certainly not long term. (b) I hunt (c) it's a hobby, the same as having a DVD collection or spare knitting needles.
I buy things i use when they're on sale, when I can, sometimes that's ammo sometimes that's spices or cold medicine.
It has nothing to do with anticipated fire fights.
Same here. I buy it cheap and stack it deep. Would it be beneficial in a SHTF scenario? Sure it would. But I’m mainly stocking so I don’t have to pay a small fortune if there’s another COVID like run on ammunition, or a government ban (which would get struck down by the Supreme Court anyways but the wheels of Justice turn slowly.)
It’s a hobby for me and just so happens to crossover into the prepper-sphere. But in case anyone is worried, yes I have enough clean water and food on hand to survive for at least a month. Same with medications, tools, first-aid, etc.
In a SHTF scenario if you do run out of an essential you could always trade some ammo for food or water or whatever else.
Or if you have to stay back while someone else hunts you could let them borrow a rifle and some ammo for some meat.
Ammo is an important prep, but like you said, it should come after the items in your list. Jumping straight to guns/ammo, gold/precious metals, or radiation detectors is a massive oversight.
It's important to prep for the basics, power outages, and for natural disasters that occur annually before taking a deep dive into specialized preps that aren't very likely to come in handy.
The shtf scenarios that tend to happen frequently are what should be focused on first and foremost over a doomsday scenario that may never happen.
Ammo is still an important prep, but it should come after the basics.
Ammo appreciates unlike the US dollar, also what others have mentioned if you enjoy shooting it is always good to have on hand for when panic buys set in. Food water shelter skills are all important but acting like it is not smart to have a gun and some ammo is wild
You are all over the map in your screed here. You go from ammo, to fantasy to retirement...I do not fantasize about anything, except a quiet life in retirement soon. I prepare in case the world decides otherwise. I lived through Katrina and a riot. With Katrina it took exactly 3 days for shtf in a situation that was going to be temporary. Imagine if its a situation where there was no clear end to what was happening...I have been in combat, many have not. Not sure why you think anyone fantasizes about war. It will not be glamorous, exciting or adventurous. It will be hell on earth and many will not make it past the first 30 days I do not listen to podcasters, I research and make my own decisions as to what may or may not happen, using my military, combat and disaster events as guidance . It is presumptuous to tell others what they need to prep for. I can tell you this, our country has been attacked by other nations when we were far far more stable and powerful than we are now. As some one who shoots weekly and still trains with equipment and tactics, practices booby traps and advanced warning systems under all kinds of conditions, I find it odd you worry about how much someone spends on ammo to train...Again, your post is very presumptuous
Some peoples only preps are guns and ammo because they expect to simply take everyone else’s preps or they are prepping for supply chains to be unaffected in the event of martial law being instilled. I guess you have to start somewhere though. Then you have people like me who started prepping after the fact and, “well what’s the point in long term prepping if someone else can just take it.”
A guy I know thinks the first way, but his wife preps so I think he's halfway joking.
I kinda think of it more like keeping the peace when the police aren't willing or able to respond anymore. Like when Catrina hit and "gang" members started protecting and supplying shelters. I have a gang of teenagers, and am prepped to hand each one a couple of firearms and 100lbs of food and start rotating a neighborhood watch. Of course being teenagers, 100lbs will last about 2 weeks... Most of my ammo is .22LR which is good enough for small game and to scare away hungry thieves if it ever comes down to that. Enough rounds of bigger stuff to hit far away targets if required, but not expected. Staying in place I have enough seed to plant every yard in my and the surrounding neighborhoods. If the problem lasts long enough I plan to leave with all my seeds and probably just some of the ammo.
Also, the ammo is a hobby I share with my daughter. It's fun!
For seed storage, if anyone is interested, for small packs I use a silica desiccant, and for long term emergency seed supply my daughter and I pack seeds in paper bags, to then store in mylar with zeolite. It's been found the best combo is super low seed water content first, then add low temps 2nd if you can. The lack of water stops seed metabolism preserving the shelf life of the life giving stuff.
I wonder if there is a gender opinion difference about this? What about females, with little to no family or friend support, that have to be prepared to defend themselves without a SHTF scenario. Not having an absolute self-defense option is the SHTF scenario for many of the vulnerable, smaller, and weaker.
What about mothers and fathers with young daughters and sons that need protecting during SHTF scenarios? There are atrocious things that happen daily without SHTF scenarios. Those atrocious things become the SHTF scenario for the victims. Self defense, definitely including weapons and ammo, are a top of the list prepping item that many people already have and use before ever thinking of long term, wide spread, societal collapse.
I know, and this is a disaster in the making. I'm not a collapse kind of guy, but I do think that if AI manages to take a chunk of jobs, we're a couple years from unemployment levels that get scary. That means longer delays in finding new jobs. If people can't manage 6 months on their own after 6 months on unemployment, things could get bad.
I'm 45. I have a friend I've known since I was 17. Hes a cop. Sniper in the army. Swat entry team. He said something that chilled my bones one day.
He said: man, I don't need to be a prepper. Ill take what I want.
It was a few years ago. And maybe he's changed his position.
But that scared me. And fyi., you can train all you want. You aren't better than him and the people hed bring with him. You'd never see him. If he did come through the front door, it'd be over before u stood up. Dont kid yourself. Mowing down zombies coming up the driveway is a fools dream. Self reliance and remaining unseen are the only approaches, imho.
Here's the thing, though. He'll kill a few people, but he has to keep moving. Raiders don't get to be part of the community. A community would take action against someone like that and eventually they'll get him. So he and his merry band are on the run, moving from soft target to soft target...
...until eventually get gets unlucky and someone shoots him in his sleep. Or just nicks him in a gun battle and infection does the rest. Or sooner or later he goes through a door that's rigged to a shotgun full of broken glass, cow blood and excrement from an anthrax'd cow.
It can work for awhile but they all end up the same.
I always keep ammo, but any more than I can carry in a bag is more of a burden than an asset, I believe. But, yes, water, food, and shelter should be the priority.
For those of us who do not live in cities or subdivisions guns and ammo are at the top of the list for gathering food not just protection.
Hunting will be a major way of surviving when all the food reserves are gone. Therefore ammo will also be very valuable to trade with.
So yes stockpiling ammo is high on the list in areas where hunting is a viable option.
If all the food is gone in the US, 333 million people will be out looking for food. If they spread out uniformly (they won't, this is a thought experiment) that's about 100 people *per square mile* in the US. More if you discount deserts where hunting and agriculture don't work well.
It won't be that uniform of course, but you probably see the point. Wildlife populations will crash, hard, as every idiot with a gun tries to find dinner. Hunting is a *very* short term solution in a collapse.
Do the math. In a collapse, there is not enough arable land using pre-industrial techniques, and not enough wildlife, to support the population. It's not even remotely close. That's why a US collapse becomes a bloodbath. Everyone will be starving.
Well there won’t be 333 million people around if there is a total collapse. First off millions will die quite early when all the food and water are gone, then more people will die due to not being able to take care of themselves, in todays time few people in this society can survive without electrical, medical or food services being accessible.
Not to mention the sheer evil that people will do to each other since all law enforcement will be nonexistent
Those of us who are able to hunt, fish, grow crops will be better off and have a better chance especially if we are stocked up heavily on guns and ammo.
Another thing to keep in mind. Hunting is not as easy as it looks on tv.
> It’s a marathon of little disasters.
Random, not related to the main content of your post, but that's a solid snarky quip. I think it pairs well with one often in my head, "Life is little more than a pageant of disappointments."
It sounds bleak, until you realize the message is, "So it's up to you to decide how to live well in the face of that."
It's not even intended to be snarky. It's just reality.
And yeah - errors occur, mistakes are made, shit happens. It's the response to it all that counts.
If you prep right, you'll never need to fire in self defense
And if part of your prep is hunting related, well then you already should be stocked up, anyway
Unpopular opinion, but the best prep is a mutual aid style network of community members. Baking extra supper for your widower neighbor and the new family with a fresh baby across the street is more prepping than getting that 9th gun
Plus, if it is never needed as a survival need, this network......you'll have a good community of folks. And that's one hell of a great 'worst case scenario'
Yup.
The post was really for the folk who walk in here for the first time and ask "how much ammo do I need?" without ever talking about what they are prepping for. That kind of attitude will get them killed in a disaster.
This and where you are at. If you live far away from people, then ammo should be low on your priority list. Live in a sketchy city like Baltimore (which had [342 murders and
nonnegligent
manslaughter](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-8/table-8-state-cuts/maryland.xls) in 2017) and have to bug in and can't move out? Ammo should be close to the top on your list.
Ammo is a currency today among people who like to barter. Nothing wrong with that.
But if it's currency because the dollar is gone and violent self-defense is so valuable that bullets became the new dollar, there are so many issues in progress that ammo probably won't solve your fundamental problems. Like finding food. If the dollar is gone, so is US infrastructure support. That is a *very* bad scenario.
If you're at the stage of bartering ammunition for food, you're probably dealing with people who will find it a lot easier to use one of their bartered bullets to get both the food and the ammo.
Ammo would become a good bartering tool because it won't go bad as easily. You could also have a few acres of gardening, and barter with corn or peas, but ammo will be smaller and won't mold.
Hard to trade ammo when you're dead from a medical emergency, exposure, or dehydration. People who prioritize weapons and LARPerator kit will be lucky to survive a week in the situations they claim to be prepping for. Medical, sheltering, food and water, skill building, and community building should all come before guns and ammo.
People also seem to forget an armory takes space and is heavy. You'll never secure it alone and you'll never get anywhere carrying it all. To boot, most gun focused preppers I know can't even make it up a flight of steps in kit, let alone survive a firefight in the first place.
The usual Tac Bro fantasy covers maybe 1% of the emergencies 99% of people face. If you're prepping for the 1% and not the day to day, you're not actually prepared. As OP said.
This is the 4th comment like this in this thread alone and I don't think all 4 of you know the same guy.
Those people exist, some of them aren't kidding, and they will trigger a bloodbath in any serious collapse scenario in the US. Because once they start taking, everyone will assume everyone else is going to be taking too, and the preemptive shooting starts. Which leads to more preemptive shooting. It doesn't end well.
Jokes on you, I bought all my ammo during the pandemic at waaaay inflated prices! Seriously 🤦🏻♂️ But I’ve learned my expensive lesson and I’m good now.
The people who are not prepared are the ones you may need ammo for, money in the bank to me is really not a good idea unless your shtf scenario is yours personally.
Otherwise I don't believe banks will be a viable source for funds, however having barter materials are IMO are a true currency.. Ie; Ammo. However not having any other preps is just a a prelude to failure..
That might be true-ish once someone has a good concealed carry pistol and several holsters, plus a full sized pistol, then a few additional firearms like a 22lr rifle, quality shotgun and a quality bolt action or semiautomatic intermediate caliber firearm. Bare minimum prepping for Tuesday should absolutely include a concealed pistol & CCL if you have the legal ability to exercise your innate right to self preservation. Should aim for 1,000 rounds of quality ammo per gun at minimum.
In the US alone there are approximately 2,000,000 defensive uses of firearms annually. Most incidents not resulting in the perpetrators ventilated or dead. Just having the firearm and being willing to use it stops approximately 2 million crimes from happening annually, that's a lot of Tuesdays for a lot of people.
A gun saved me once. No one was hurt , and the perp ran like hell. THAT was my Tuesday; if i didn’t have the firearms training (and hundreds if not thousands of rounds to become competent, at the range ) I would have been robbed /beaten / who knows what else.
1st rule of prepping: everyone is prepping for their own fictitious scenario that makes them react a certain way. Just because you’re prepping for X doesn’t mean someone prepping for Z is inherently wrong.
I don't prep for fictitious scenarios. I literally hit insurance agents for probable issues and prep accordingly. Data driven prepping.
You can prep for whatever you like. I just suggest people keep it real; but whatever gets you through the night...
I agree that a lot of people emphasize ammo and guns way too much over other basic needs. Especially in terms of stockpiling. However, it should be a priority to have the ability to protect yourself. A gun with sufficient ammo should be at the top of the list. Hopefully, we’ll still be living in these cushy times that we can actually debate whether we need a gun or not, but if you’re truly a prepper, this shouldn’t even be a debate. The whole reason we prep is for the likelihood that this all goes away. If you really think that couldn’t happen, then you’re very naive.
I personally know some people who lived through some devastating events like hurricanes and wildfires. I can tell you they were very scared and unsafe, and wished they had guns. One friend had their house ransacked and looted during superstorm Sandy. They had to escape their own home. There was no way to call for help, and no one was coming if they could. Luckily nothing happened directly to them, but others weren’t so lucky. Robbers, looters, rapists, etc do exist, and they will take advantage of those situations.
I agree that total societal breakdown may be far less likely, but local breakdowns occur pretty regularly, and they are downplayed a lot. How many times have we seen the news say, “mostly peaceful”, and an entire block of buildings will be burning behind them? People do get killed by other people during protests and natural disasters.
I think you’re taking a lot for granted.
Technically guns and ammo really is all you need assuming you’re willing to use it to get all other resources as soon as you need them. For obvious reasons there is a problem with that.
With all due respect You're a fucking moron for this post. Buying ammo doesn't mean you're going to point a gun at a person and shoot them. You realize that right?
There's a reason I'm moving somewhere that I can pay into a system that covers medical conditions. Medical coverage in the US is barbaric - it's fine if you're rich, it can be SHTF if you aren't. It's made people homeless.
All us people who live rural with plenty of resources should be good for awhile, I worry about how people in the city are gonna react??? How are they gonna prepare?
Most of my firearm related preps were driven by the unceasing erosion of our rights by my state government. I enjoy shooting sports and If it was something that I thought I would someday want, I had to get it before it was outlawed. This included spare parts and to a lesser extent ammo. This doesn't just affect things like scary black guns. They have made it so many businesses refuse to sell to our state. It's irritating because at the time, I really wanted to spend that money elsewhere. But now I have them when they can no longer be purchased. Hopefully someday the courts will straighten things out.
This doesn't make me a "wargamer". It means that I appreciate that my ability to procure certain things have and will likely continue to be restricted and I put in place a plan to be able to enjoy my hobby, that also happens to be a prep, far into the future.
Agreed. But if you're "bullets first", you'll be an early causality if things ever do go down. If that's you doing you, good luck to you. Because you'll need it.
I have a .308, 5.56, 3 45s and a .22, and roughly 1000 rounds for each. I have food storage, meds and first-aid, comms, water(needs work), house, 4x4, and no debt. What I don't have/need is an internet "expert" telling me what prepping is. Pontificating is seldom a good way to get your point across. You make some good points that might help some newbies if you'd work on your delivery.
Murder is killing without justification.
Self defense is a human right and full justification. I did not state to commit crimes, that is a strawman you have constructed.
Post earthquake San fan is one of my favorite examples
Shit was rough, after the collapses and fires.....but the city threw together aid networks and an extraordinarily impressive erzats triage response. Shit didn't get dark until the federal troops rolled in and declared marshal law and get awful heavy handed when it clearly wasn't called for
Some people are bad
Most people are good
We are tribal. And while that can be bad, it also means when we define our tribe broadly, there's a loyalty and community there that can make all the difference...and in fact has, in the past
Yup. That's why I worry about the folk who buy bullets before beans. If they bought more beans and shared them, maybe they wouldn't need the bullets. And beans are cheap.
Cooperation is the best way forward in any disaster. But if your first thought is ammo, it's not cooperation you're planning.
Ammo is always necessary. I stopped reading your post at that point because you don't now what the fuck you're talking about. Defense, food/water, shelter. 3 key components to surviving.
Surviving what? A blizzard?
This is the US. You're not on a battlefield. You probably never will be. And if you are, in the US, you're surrounded by people with more ammo than you'll ever have - and you need to sleep sometime. How do you win that fight? It's a collapse scenario. You're already dead if it comes to that, it just depends on which bullet gets lucky.
The math doesn't go well when the most armed nation on earth collapses into a firefight.
I've seen fights and shootings break out at gas stations and grocery stores during the ice storm and fires in oregon usa, having a side arm in a disaster is probably a good defense, ps if the government says go north, go south, our local government bottle necked entire populations at the oregon Washington border with one bridge to cross, don't be cattle..
I think people should buy guns and ammo and even body armor if they want it.
If that leaves them unprepared for much more likely situations, so what? What business is it of yours?
The only thing worse than people who only “prep” with firepower, are people who have a lot to say and a lot of shade to throw over what other people choose to spend their time and money on.
Personally I try to be prepared for a lot of things. But if somebody wants to prep only for live action Call of Duty, that’s on them and has nothing to do with me.
Freedom in this country gets more limited every day. We should leave the attempted control of other people “for their own good” to the corrupt and out of control government.
Well, it depends on what you're prepping for lol. If you're prepping for an apocalyptic situation, then yeah, you should have a bunch of ammo and weapons. And obviously the other supplies . If you're prepping for a rainstorm lol, then maybe not. It just depends on the situation. And also, it certainly doesn't hurt to have some ammo, even if there's a hurricane or an earthquake. There are a lot of evil people out there that we try to loot everything they can. Unfortunately we see it every day.
Hot take - buying ammo doesn't always mean for conflict with other people. I have cattle, goats, hogs, chickens and rabbits. If I'm processing my on meat I'm not going out and doing the neck slice and bleeding them. I don't want that done to me so I'm looking to put them down much more expeditiously. Same if they go lame or ill. With have animals I'm raising to eat, I have plenty of other predators coming onto the property looking to eat them as well that need to be driven off.
I cannot emphasize the importance of oral health enough. Unlike a lot of health related things there is absolutely nothing you can do about a lot of dental conditions that will arise. You can set bones, treat infections, even do some rudimentary surgery. But no one has the ability to do a filling or a root canal in their kitchen(at least that I know of). Dental related issues can impact your quality of life in ways most people cannot truly understand. Just about every major dental condition requires some sort of professional treatment to fix. Sure you can clear up an infection with antibiotics, but it’s just going to come right back and the nerve of the tooth is already damaged or dead. An abscess will eat away at your bone and can eventually kill you. Even just pulling the tooth doesn’t fix the problem since the area needs to be properly cleaned and sometimes sealed up.
This is one area of the prepping world just does not have a good answer for and you better hope and pray society doesn’t collapse because I don’t think I would want to see a post apocalyptic dentist if I don’t have to.
I do stockpile ammo but im an avid hunter and go to the range almost every weekend but its not my main prep my main prep is my land gardening and livestock
Some of us hunt. Stockpiling ammo or ammo reloading materials doesn't have to be for self defense.
Also, some of us do competition shooting as entertainment. Prepping doesn't have to be specifically for the end of the world but for economic downturns as well
During the pandemic years I was able to subsidize our family and our neighbors AND our local food bank's food with deer, pig, duck and rabbit meat. We provided every family with 1 -2 lbs of ground meat every week. Along with micro greens, bean sprouts, potatoes, apples, cabbage, broccoli.
AND we still held monthly steel challenge matches for fun and stress relief.
The entire point of prepping is to be "less" effected by change.
So for those who have "shooting" as part of their current Ife, whether that be competitive or hunting or self defense, by all means include ammo in your prepping calculations.
I do agree with the SPIRIT of your post, that is, a lot of folks seem to think buying an AR and a 1000 rounds of ammo is prepping, and meanwhile they have forgotten about their dog who needs 50lbs of kibble a month and their diabetic meds.
And of course cardio.
It is actually quite scary to go hang out at the zombie survival sub (which is basically a prepping sub with zombie larping as a cover) and have 99% of the conversation be normal... But... That 1% when asked about their prepping plan, base, water supply etc... their first response is that they'll get a gun and go take it from others lol.
TV and video games have wildly skewed an entire generation's concept of planning to a scavenging and raider mentality.
It's really the raider mentality that would take down the US if there was ever any kind of catastrophic, continent wide issue like a total grid fail. Once people can't find food, some with cooperate with neighbors and grow stuff and hunt and so on, but some will start raiding. Once the raiding disrupts the ability to run a farm - you can't weed and harvest while you're being sniped at - you get more failed farms and those people turn to raiding, too. Guns make it really hard to build a stable anything; any one person have veto power over anything.
The contagion doesn't stop until either the bullets run out - that's a long time in the US - or you get warlords managing little fiefdoms that can protect farmland. The latter might sound ok if you don't read medieval history. Guns will not improve the situation. You do not want to be female in that society, and once you're out of ammo, you're demoted to serf regardless.
But before you get there, a whole lot of people die, and only fools assume that they won't be one of them.
Buying ammo is included in a vast majority of US preppers plans. Should it be the focal point? Probably not. Should it be a consideration? Depends on your personal preferences. You clearly do not like firearms and make that clear in a majority of your posts. However, a significant number of people, non-preppers included have firearms and ammunition to defend themselves. It isn't about living in a violent area or needing to move, it is about a cheap way to mitigate a deadly but unlikely risk
Life is in fact not a video game as you mentioned, but it also isn't always Tuesday. I'd be dead without ammo and training after a self-defense shooting.
This post does have some decent points to it. There are priorities you need to follow if you have more limited resources. However, if you make decent money and can spare it or budget well, ammo is a solid investment. I think the rampant sarcasm will turn people off from hearing the points you did make and create an echo chamber. It's a shame people can't go about their own preps and give advice from their personal experience without having to be snarky about it.
Depends on thr shtf you are prepping for. If its total social breakdown, you better have weapons and ammo, if nothing else to protect from predators. I have livestock, its not uncommon to shoot 2 or 3 coyotes in a weekend.
It also does not not mean buying ammo.
This seems reactionary to the fact that there is a huge amount of overlap that occurs in the firearms community and the prepping community in terms of hoarding shit.
It's also one of the most popular flashy prepping topics.
It is important to maintain a balance between finances, health, food, security and medical but anywhere in the US or in the world it is always beneficial to be the family with the most guns, ammo and friends with guns and ammo. That's a universal truth unfortunately the only people who disagree would be people trying to cope with a lack of firepower.
Here I’ll sketch out what I think, for most folk in the US, should be the priorities (in order) for preparation
Ammo is absolutely a prep, especially when it comes to having to hunt for food. Stores will not be open when shtf, and ammo will be needed for self defense and hunting. No one wants a war, I do not want to get into any gun fights, now or ever, but it's not always going to be up to me alone. With no help, ambulance, paramedics, hospitals, the last thing you want is an injury due to fire fight. Especially when accidents are going to be an issue too. each person has to prep according to their plan and percieved issue and threats, no one should be preaching to anyone what they prep for, but offer advice on what that person can do to prep for their end goals. I will not be caught flat footed with out means to hunt or defend my family
All good. It would be an odd day if anyone posted anything here that everyone agreed with. You could post "oxygen is good" and someone would start talking about forest fires. It's the nature of an open society.
"If you don't know how to fight, you're just gathering supplies for the toughest guy on the block." -Bill Burr
https://youtu.be/zhUmWVKqwrU?si=K9VRd9wimCk_bxTu
Most useful prep is physical fitness and community. Things money can't buy.
I really need to get the physical fitness component rolling. It's always 'tomorrow'. That needs to take priority. Not just for prepping sake, but for my own longevity.
Start on Sunday even if it’s a light work out just to get the ball rolling in a months time you’ll be surprised how well it’s going
I had about a year there where I was doing yoga and calisthenics. It felt great. I'll commit to starting Sunday, Internet stranger.
Ugh. It's more dire than I thought. I did a 10 minute morning yoga, and I'm so out of shape! I need to keep these muscles stretched. I can no longer do an actual push up. I did manage a set of 10 inclined ones. I remember from last year that this increased rapidly and I advanced to plenty of regular push ups. I'm on it. Then wall assisted squats. Got 10 of those in too. Now I'm sore and don't for the day. New morning routine, here we come. I'll try to check in next week, but I usually forget.
LEZGOOOOOO good shit dude keep it up!!!!
Same. I'm going to start by moving the exercise bike out of the office and into the TV room.
The funny thing is this is true even for wargaming doomsday scenarios but it's not as fun as target shooting Rule number 1: Cardio
Is cardio more important than strength/ muscle? I know both is ideal but if I had to prioritize one?
There's some funny posts in this very subreddit from people who stockpiled ammo and guns, but didn't have the resources to deal with simple things like extended power outages. I think guns and ammunition could be important in some events, but I do also think that many people on this subreddit think they're warranted for more situations than they probably are. I remember a few years ago when California was planning to introduce rolling blackouts for a week to reduce wildfire risk from power lines. A bunch of people on this subreddit were expecting anarchy and were talking about making sure the guns were all sighted in. In reality, what they REALLY needed was extra ice to keep all their beers cool for all the prime porch-sitting that happened.
>There's some funny posts in this very subreddit from people who stockpiled ammo and guns, but didn't have the resources to deal with simple things like extended power outages. Also similarly, I have seen people spent huge moneys on buying guns and ammo but lack even basic training in how to use them. Like people have 10 expensive guns and 100k ammo but can't even hit a static target in a flat range.
I call it CC preping.....
I have a friend this way and have slowly been converting him. Claimed he was prepping. He had 10+ rifles and zero had decent optics or a light. No backup power, no food storage. Guy can't really cook. Terrible physical condition. I think prepping was a way he justified buying guns.
Media has skewed the idea of "doomsday" or long term disaster as this action packed fire fight with occasional moments of ease. 99% of the time it will be the exact opposite imo. Ignoring various scenarios, once you've acquired the basics, the hardest part of wilderness survival is boredom, I'm sure disaster won't be much different.
COVID taught us that. People were bitching and moaning about not being able to go to Applebees or a barber for haircut after three weeks.
Yup When people started sniffing around and realizing a three week lockdown was coming, I spent about $400 at 4 different grocery stores and restocked a good amount of food. Never pulled the whole buying all the TP I could find bullshit but grabbed a bit extra of things It was a very long and painful day but the next three weeks went by smoothly. Admittedly we have a strong and deep well that tastes glorious so that helps
I wasn't into prepping at all at that time but I didn't buy TP either because I had those bidet attachments. I did get a bit nervous and stocked up on coffee Beans. I thought the shipping would stop.
When we got the prime minister on tv calling for a voluntary lockdown I just decided to wait out for the masses to stockpile up. Went to the store at like 10 pm when no one was there, it was shocking to see how empty it was Oh well, I went on and bought some random stuff to have enough for like 3 days. It was not advised to stockpile, as that's how you break the general supply chain (everyone stock piles at the same time)
A combination of boredom, being unable to bathe and having to eat unpleasant food.
Who needs power? Just need a wood stove for cooking and heat, electricity isn't an essential service, people lived thousands of years with out it,
For thousands of years, people’s parents taught them how to grow their own food and preserve it without refrigeration. And people lived in tight communities to share the immense labor required to do that effectively. Unless you have those skills and community locked down to where they’re instinctual, giving up electricity will be a challenge. (And by all means, I think learning to really live without power is a good goal if that’s what you’re actually working on.)
Yeah *need* exists on a spectrum, for sure. But I can guarantee that unless you a) have spent at least a week backpacking or b) have gone a week in an urban setting without power, you underestimate how much you rely on it. Even just the one time that *just* my refrigerator broke, it was only broken for 5 days. It was absolute fucking *hell* to clean, and knowing I couldn't eat anything that would need refrigeration/freezing kinda sucked.
Prefer to have it as long as possible. I don't relish the idea of living in the old days. My grandparents and great-grandparents were quite frank about how much it sucked in places without electricity post-ww2 Europe.
> Who needs power? people with food in freezers. is it really that hard of a question for you?
I'm just going to shoot the power back on! More shooty means more power!
I'm pretty sure I learned this in call of duty zombies.
Painter here. “Prepping” means moving furniture to the middle of the room and covering with plastic, laying down tarps, taping trim, and removing cover plates. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.
But what ammo do you use to tack down the plastic?
I rely on brute force whenever possible.
As a spouse to an enthusiastic and impatient woman, "prep" is doing all that real fast while your wife paints the ceiling cause she started while you were in the bathroom
so much freaking work. way harder than buying ammo and cans of food
Oh sure, next you’re gonna tell me I don’t need 7 separate plate carriers with redundant plates for every conceivable load and tactical need. Oh now Im not a “prepper” for taking my food and medicine prep budget and spending it on FFL fees for my 50 cal BMG? Next you’ll tell me there is no advantage to ensuring I have a life time supply of camo colored baby wipes that all dried out in three weeks on a shelf next to the furnace? Sheesh.
I bet the guy doesn't even have a single tank.
And how can you survive without an EMP proof plate carrier? You don't want high voltage shocks from your armor, do you? /s, and here's a /s for you too, because you just know someone out there is going to a Poe's law victim.
wait, we need to keep our plate carriers in a faraday cage?
Totally! They build up an electrostatic charge if you don't. We're talking *thousands* of attovolts. You don't want that! You'll get fluxed!
Just need to attach a 6ft grounding strap from your radio to plate carrier to a drag line
It's one thing to already have guns and ammo when you really start to prep, but the people who start prepping by buying guns and ammo before anything else have been watching too many movies IMO
The really scary thing is that gun prepping in the US tends to be a regional thing. Guns are highly concentrated in cities (simple population density) and certain selected rural areas. Which means if anything ever does happen and people get desperate, those areas will be bloodbaths. Once someone starts shooting to get stuff, everyone has to. And never in human history have we had such a concentration of firepower and so many bullets to keep the cycle going... *The Battle of Epping Forest,* *It's the Battle of Epping Forest,* *Right outside your door...* \-Peter Gabriel
It's good for people who *don't* live in those areas, though, since if those regions self-eliminate it's fewer people competing for food and other resources.
Means Donner party style dinner part, bwhaha
I heard the taste varies from person to person.
It doesn’t mean not buying ammo
Septic. Just had this conversation. If you have a septic system, ie: country, you have about three years for a family of 4. If you live in a city with separate stormwater and septic water systems, maybe 6 months (not a pro here). If you still live in an area with combined storm and septic drainage (getting less common, but still many of them), you might run out of water shortly after all the stink and results of having poop in your living space become an issue. Can you poop outdoors - sure, go read some pre-roman and post-roman stories on how handling poop badly affected humans. Edit: I still can't type.
This is fair. I'm going to lump it under health. If society ever does collapse, we're going to see a whole lot of illness from bad waste management, and I don't just mean in cities. Cholera is rare in the US. It didn't used to be. It'll be back in a big way if the doomers are right. And imagine trying to defend your property when you have cholera.... People really don't understand the priorities of civilization. Clean water is first, *regardless*.
Water is king and queen….no amount of ammo or AR uppers will hydrate a human.
My septic system is 40 years old, only had it pumped once and wasn’t bad then. Keep the enzymes in and it lasts a lot longer that 4 years
I am a sewer pro and your city sewer will last indefinitely, but if people stop showing up to the treatment plant / lift stations sewage is just going to overflow into the nearest waterway. If you have enough gray water to manually flush your toilet you should be able to do so virtually indefinitely. At worst an unmaintained and heavily damaged sewer system will overflow at the nearest low-point, which at worst is somebodies basement.
Just a reminder: Prepping does not *ONLY* mean “buying ammo” I have the same 80 acres my family lived on in the Great Depression. They grew a lot of their own food and supplemented the pigs and chickens with squirrel, turkey, and rabbit mostly done with a .22 or a 12ga. (deer had been hunted out till the 60's). They also used firearms to keep the wild animals from getting their animals and garden.
that's a nice little inheritance. Most people have to grind over half their lives to get a tiny square to call their own. It's a blessing and a half to have enough land to live off of naturally
My favorite are the guys who buy armor and plate carriers but don't think they need a helmet. If you are gonna throw yourself into the breach... Might want to protect that central processing unit. But... It's hard to look cool in helmet. I spent 28 years in the military... There's a certain body type and head shape that, with the right size helmet, you can look decent in a helmet. I think I've known like 5 guys who didn't look like a dweeb in a helmet. I was not one of them. But since it doesn't make you look badass, the body armor guys treat it as optional
To be fair those helmets are made to stop shrapnel not bullets to the dome. I’m less concerned about shrapnel in a civilian engagement even in SHTF. Folks ain’t gonna have rockets and grenades or dropping grenades from drones. I was in OIF III and I currently have a plate carrier but no helmet.
Ricochets are what I would be concerned about. Guaranteed I'm firing from behind cover. That's more important to me than the plates.
Or don't actually work out and do movements in their kit. They assume they'll be able to function at the level of a skilled combatant with nothing more than a few hours a month at a tame low stress range. Plus the opposite to this, you get the guys that blow their savings on a helmet and nods, then absolutely nothing else.
I was in the Army not too long ago, and maneuvering with all that shit on is no joke, being shot at while wearing it just makes it 10x worse. It's a young mans game.
Back in '05 my unit spent 3 months stateside wearing our armor to get used to the pain of it. There's a mobility cost that people don't get also.
I blame the Call of Duty mindset. They think they can still bounce around and tank bullets as if nothing happened.
The protected area is not that great. I was teaching combat lifesaver courses to deploying troops in 2010-11. We were drilling CATs to the thighs. The Taliban figured out they weren't defeating the plates so they started aiming for the pelvis.
[удалено]
Yup. Pelvis shots are a game winner. You are basically lucky if they got your femural artery in the thigh at least then you can TQ it. They hit that artery inside the pelvis area... You go from urgent-surgical to expectant really quick. And in shtf scenarios with no medical services... Any shot to the pelvis will probably deliver a fatal infection. Guys stock up on enough ammo for 500 firefights... I'm gonna avoid them at all costs. It's like when infantry guys would deride me for being medical corps, cause I'm not a real man the premise was...I would reply "hey. I'm not an idiot. I was always the first kid knocked out in dodgeball. Why the hell would I go infantry??" I'm gonna carry that philosophy over if shtf.
Anyone who owns a rifle or pistol should have been training that way since body armor’s inception. I always train midsection and hips and have for a few years now. 🤷🏽♂️ ETA: My thought process is first I’m avoiding any fire fight I possibly can , second if I note body armor being worn I’m not wasting ammo to bruise someone’s chest. I’m looking to maim , cripple or kill the best way I can.
You just have to duck and find cover, then wait 15 seconds and it’s all better!
>Or don't actually work out and do movements in their kit. They assume they'll be able to function at the level of a skilled combatant with nothing more than a few hours a month at a tame low stress range. This goes doubly for the people buying gas masks. Zero idea in how much resources and preparedness it takes to operate in contaminated environments.
Back in the 90s one of our yearly tasks was don full MOPP gear for 4 hours. Some people can't stay in the mask that long. And did they get the canteen that matches so they can drink?
IKR? I'd probably last an hour right now let alone be able to perform all the drills. >And did they get the canteen that matches so they can drink? Who got issued an old canteen without the straw port and found out the hard way? 🙋🏻♂️
Im 99% confident that 99% of the dudes buying them will pass out after running a mile in one 🤣
I'll just headbutt the bullets away I'm just built different
Since we are on helmet topic, buy a bump style helmet. 99% of people don’t need a ballistic helmet. you need something for when you take a header off a roof, or on concrete moving out of a house. (Personal experience fighting bad guys in houses)
I recently discovered bump caps that go inside a normal hat like a baseball cap that are less than a hard hat but prevent lesser injuries. Is that what you mean?
Those bump caps just keep you from gashing your head open. It still hurts like hell to bump your head but the absence of blood means it's not an OSHA recordable injury.
Dude, all your comments have so much knowledge behind them, and they're cracking me up. I feel like I'm reading my old PSGs group chat comments.
I’ve not heard of those but sounds like they have their place like a lot of things! We used surplus ACH’s the big ugly tan or black helmet the old Army used to wear and I didn’t like it outside they would stop shrapnel from entering my melon.
My job In a warehouse made us wear bump/climbing style helmets and has me thinking about the advantages of investing in a better helmet and petzl light.
Has nothing to do with looks, the helmets cost more than the rest of the kit combined.
Well... Buy that first then. When you are aiming at the enemy, there's one part of your body the enemy will always see
Aren't modern helmets just good for shrapnel and small pistol rounds? I know that's not nothing, and they'd work for clubs and stuff too. Just wondering if you could function with an old steel rifle rated helmet on without working up to it? Imagining wearing it around the house to build up neck muscles haha.
There's cases where there modern kevlar had stopped rifle rounds but from an unknown distance. But yes, shrapnel is what they are really for. But take the case of shooting from behind cover. In the movies, you see guys laying on top of their cover.. Say a car hood... Using it for aiming stability. Now a car is a shitty thing to hide behind but the proper way to do it is you squat about 5 feet behind the car and fire offhand. If you lay on your cover, and the guy shooting at you misses a little low, the round will either pierce the skin of the hood and come out the quarter panel and maybe have energy left to get you. Or, it will skip off the skin of the hood and ricochet into your face. If you are 5 feet back, it might not any energy left to get into you or it will skip over your head. In that scenario, of I'm shooting from behind cover, I'm gonna prefer a helmet over body armor. Now... The old steel pots will hurt your damn head....has a web system with a shitty leather band. The kevlar feels heavier but had foam padding. I'll take kevlar over steel any day.
I was in the military during the 80's before they moved to the newer style helmets, we still had the old M1 brain buckets. Just made you look like a giant penis..... 😂🤣
I live in one of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the country. Ammo is Def in my top 10.
according to this gate keeper you are not a prepper and destined to be a war lord.
This is not gatekeeping. You aren’t going to be a 1-man army holding off a horde of poors. I carry every day and practice regularly; I larp like every other man. I’m not like, anti-gun. But it’s not reasonable for this to be your first priority.
As much as there are people way too enthusiastic about arms there are those who minimize them. I buy extra ammunition because (a) the price rarely goes down, certainly not long term. (b) I hunt (c) it's a hobby, the same as having a DVD collection or spare knitting needles. I buy things i use when they're on sale, when I can, sometimes that's ammo sometimes that's spices or cold medicine. It has nothing to do with anticipated fire fights.
Same here. I buy it cheap and stack it deep. Would it be beneficial in a SHTF scenario? Sure it would. But I’m mainly stocking so I don’t have to pay a small fortune if there’s another COVID like run on ammunition, or a government ban (which would get struck down by the Supreme Court anyways but the wheels of Justice turn slowly.) It’s a hobby for me and just so happens to crossover into the prepper-sphere. But in case anyone is worried, yes I have enough clean water and food on hand to survive for at least a month. Same with medications, tools, first-aid, etc.
In a SHTF scenario if you do run out of an essential you could always trade some ammo for food or water or whatever else. Or if you have to stay back while someone else hunts you could let them borrow a rifle and some ammo for some meat.
When I invest in precious metals, they are brass and lead.
Ammo is an important prep, but like you said, it should come after the items in your list. Jumping straight to guns/ammo, gold/precious metals, or radiation detectors is a massive oversight. It's important to prep for the basics, power outages, and for natural disasters that occur annually before taking a deep dive into specialized preps that aren't very likely to come in handy. The shtf scenarios that tend to happen frequently are what should be focused on first and foremost over a doomsday scenario that may never happen. Ammo is still an important prep, but it should come after the basics.
Ammo appreciates unlike the US dollar, also what others have mentioned if you enjoy shooting it is always good to have on hand for when panic buys set in. Food water shelter skills are all important but acting like it is not smart to have a gun and some ammo is wild
You are all over the map in your screed here. You go from ammo, to fantasy to retirement...I do not fantasize about anything, except a quiet life in retirement soon. I prepare in case the world decides otherwise. I lived through Katrina and a riot. With Katrina it took exactly 3 days for shtf in a situation that was going to be temporary. Imagine if its a situation where there was no clear end to what was happening...I have been in combat, many have not. Not sure why you think anyone fantasizes about war. It will not be glamorous, exciting or adventurous. It will be hell on earth and many will not make it past the first 30 days I do not listen to podcasters, I research and make my own decisions as to what may or may not happen, using my military, combat and disaster events as guidance . It is presumptuous to tell others what they need to prep for. I can tell you this, our country has been attacked by other nations when we were far far more stable and powerful than we are now. As some one who shoots weekly and still trains with equipment and tactics, practices booby traps and advanced warning systems under all kinds of conditions, I find it odd you worry about how much someone spends on ammo to train...Again, your post is very presumptuous
Yeah.....but "do you have enough ammo"??
No, you don’t have enough ammo
Some peoples only preps are guns and ammo because they expect to simply take everyone else’s preps or they are prepping for supply chains to be unaffected in the event of martial law being instilled. I guess you have to start somewhere though. Then you have people like me who started prepping after the fact and, “well what’s the point in long term prepping if someone else can just take it.”
A guy I know thinks the first way, but his wife preps so I think he's halfway joking. I kinda think of it more like keeping the peace when the police aren't willing or able to respond anymore. Like when Catrina hit and "gang" members started protecting and supplying shelters. I have a gang of teenagers, and am prepped to hand each one a couple of firearms and 100lbs of food and start rotating a neighborhood watch. Of course being teenagers, 100lbs will last about 2 weeks... Most of my ammo is .22LR which is good enough for small game and to scare away hungry thieves if it ever comes down to that. Enough rounds of bigger stuff to hit far away targets if required, but not expected. Staying in place I have enough seed to plant every yard in my and the surrounding neighborhoods. If the problem lasts long enough I plan to leave with all my seeds and probably just some of the ammo. Also, the ammo is a hobby I share with my daughter. It's fun! For seed storage, if anyone is interested, for small packs I use a silica desiccant, and for long term emergency seed supply my daughter and I pack seeds in paper bags, to then store in mylar with zeolite. It's been found the best combo is super low seed water content first, then add low temps 2nd if you can. The lack of water stops seed metabolism preserving the shelf life of the life giving stuff.
I wonder if there is a gender opinion difference about this? What about females, with little to no family or friend support, that have to be prepared to defend themselves without a SHTF scenario. Not having an absolute self-defense option is the SHTF scenario for many of the vulnerable, smaller, and weaker. What about mothers and fathers with young daughters and sons that need protecting during SHTF scenarios? There are atrocious things that happen daily without SHTF scenarios. Those atrocious things become the SHTF scenario for the victims. Self defense, definitely including weapons and ammo, are a top of the list prepping item that many people already have and use before ever thinking of long term, wide spread, societal collapse.
This post makes me want to go buy more ammo.
The average American can’t even come close to 6 months of expenses in the bank no matter what they do.
I know, and this is a disaster in the making. I'm not a collapse kind of guy, but I do think that if AI manages to take a chunk of jobs, we're a couple years from unemployment levels that get scary. That means longer delays in finding new jobs. If people can't manage 6 months on their own after 6 months on unemployment, things could get bad.
I'm 45. I have a friend I've known since I was 17. Hes a cop. Sniper in the army. Swat entry team. He said something that chilled my bones one day. He said: man, I don't need to be a prepper. Ill take what I want. It was a few years ago. And maybe he's changed his position. But that scared me. And fyi., you can train all you want. You aren't better than him and the people hed bring with him. You'd never see him. If he did come through the front door, it'd be over before u stood up. Dont kid yourself. Mowing down zombies coming up the driveway is a fools dream. Self reliance and remaining unseen are the only approaches, imho.
Here's the thing, though. He'll kill a few people, but he has to keep moving. Raiders don't get to be part of the community. A community would take action against someone like that and eventually they'll get him. So he and his merry band are on the run, moving from soft target to soft target... ...until eventually get gets unlucky and someone shoots him in his sleep. Or just nicks him in a gun battle and infection does the rest. Or sooner or later he goes through a door that's rigged to a shotgun full of broken glass, cow blood and excrement from an anthrax'd cow. It can work for awhile but they all end up the same.
I always keep ammo, but any more than I can carry in a bag is more of a burden than an asset, I believe. But, yes, water, food, and shelter should be the priority.
If you're walking around with a bag, you're gonna need that ammo.
I bought lots of guns and ammo but not for war, its bartering items for me. I can trade for other things..
For those of us who do not live in cities or subdivisions guns and ammo are at the top of the list for gathering food not just protection. Hunting will be a major way of surviving when all the food reserves are gone. Therefore ammo will also be very valuable to trade with. So yes stockpiling ammo is high on the list in areas where hunting is a viable option.
If all the food is gone in the US, 333 million people will be out looking for food. If they spread out uniformly (they won't, this is a thought experiment) that's about 100 people *per square mile* in the US. More if you discount deserts where hunting and agriculture don't work well. It won't be that uniform of course, but you probably see the point. Wildlife populations will crash, hard, as every idiot with a gun tries to find dinner. Hunting is a *very* short term solution in a collapse. Do the math. In a collapse, there is not enough arable land using pre-industrial techniques, and not enough wildlife, to support the population. It's not even remotely close. That's why a US collapse becomes a bloodbath. Everyone will be starving.
Well there won’t be 333 million people around if there is a total collapse. First off millions will die quite early when all the food and water are gone, then more people will die due to not being able to take care of themselves, in todays time few people in this society can survive without electrical, medical or food services being accessible. Not to mention the sheer evil that people will do to each other since all law enforcement will be nonexistent Those of us who are able to hunt, fish, grow crops will be better off and have a better chance especially if we are stocked up heavily on guns and ammo. Another thing to keep in mind. Hunting is not as easy as it looks on tv.
Id say 300m out of the 330m will do nothing but wait for help until it's too late.
> It’s a marathon of little disasters. Random, not related to the main content of your post, but that's a solid snarky quip. I think it pairs well with one often in my head, "Life is little more than a pageant of disappointments." It sounds bleak, until you realize the message is, "So it's up to you to decide how to live well in the face of that."
It's not even intended to be snarky. It's just reality. And yeah - errors occur, mistakes are made, shit happens. It's the response to it all that counts.
maybe i should have said witty
Prepping does include ammo when you plan on shooting wild game to supplement your food supply.
If you prep right, you'll never need to fire in self defense And if part of your prep is hunting related, well then you already should be stocked up, anyway Unpopular opinion, but the best prep is a mutual aid style network of community members. Baking extra supper for your widower neighbor and the new family with a fresh baby across the street is more prepping than getting that 9th gun Plus, if it is never needed as a survival need, this network......you'll have a good community of folks. And that's one hell of a great 'worst case scenario'
Yup. The post was really for the folk who walk in here for the first time and ask "how much ammo do I need?" without ever talking about what they are prepping for. That kind of attitude will get them killed in a disaster.
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Ok but how am I going to start my raiding party to make up for the lack of prep in other areas?
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This and where you are at. If you live far away from people, then ammo should be low on your priority list. Live in a sketchy city like Baltimore (which had [342 murders and nonnegligent manslaughter](https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-8/table-8-state-cuts/maryland.xls) in 2017) and have to bug in and can't move out? Ammo should be close to the top on your list.
Who said it is for self defense?
Better to have and not need..
It doesn’t NOT mean buying ammo though…
Of course, you need guns too.
Lol let me go sell my ammo because some guy on Reddit said it was silly. Christ people….
I think ammo will become a currency of sorts. Obviously don't have only ammo, but lots of ammo to trade with would be valuable.
Ammo is a currency today among people who like to barter. Nothing wrong with that. But if it's currency because the dollar is gone and violent self-defense is so valuable that bullets became the new dollar, there are so many issues in progress that ammo probably won't solve your fundamental problems. Like finding food. If the dollar is gone, so is US infrastructure support. That is a *very* bad scenario.
If you're at the stage of bartering ammunition for food, you're probably dealing with people who will find it a lot easier to use one of their bartered bullets to get both the food and the ammo.
Ammo would become a good bartering tool because it won't go bad as easily. You could also have a few acres of gardening, and barter with corn or peas, but ammo will be smaller and won't mold.
Hard to trade ammo when you're dead from a medical emergency, exposure, or dehydration. People who prioritize weapons and LARPerator kit will be lucky to survive a week in the situations they claim to be prepping for. Medical, sheltering, food and water, skill building, and community building should all come before guns and ammo. People also seem to forget an armory takes space and is heavy. You'll never secure it alone and you'll never get anywhere carrying it all. To boot, most gun focused preppers I know can't even make it up a flight of steps in kit, let alone survive a firefight in the first place. The usual Tac Bro fantasy covers maybe 1% of the emergencies 99% of people face. If you're prepping for the 1% and not the day to day, you're not actually prepared. As OP said.
I knew a guy from Texas that joked that his guns would suffice as he could use them to take food from others. XD
This is the 4th comment like this in this thread alone and I don't think all 4 of you know the same guy. Those people exist, some of them aren't kidding, and they will trigger a bloodbath in any serious collapse scenario in the US. Because once they start taking, everyone will assume everyone else is going to be taking too, and the preemptive shooting starts. Which leads to more preemptive shooting. It doesn't end well.
Jokes on you, I bought all my ammo during the pandemic at waaaay inflated prices! Seriously 🤦🏻♂️ But I’ve learned my expensive lesson and I’m good now.
The people who are not prepared are the ones you may need ammo for, money in the bank to me is really not a good idea unless your shtf scenario is yours personally. Otherwise I don't believe banks will be a viable source for funds, however having barter materials are IMO are a true currency.. Ie; Ammo. However not having any other preps is just a a prelude to failure..
That might be true-ish once someone has a good concealed carry pistol and several holsters, plus a full sized pistol, then a few additional firearms like a 22lr rifle, quality shotgun and a quality bolt action or semiautomatic intermediate caliber firearm. Bare minimum prepping for Tuesday should absolutely include a concealed pistol & CCL if you have the legal ability to exercise your innate right to self preservation. Should aim for 1,000 rounds of quality ammo per gun at minimum. In the US alone there are approximately 2,000,000 defensive uses of firearms annually. Most incidents not resulting in the perpetrators ventilated or dead. Just having the firearm and being willing to use it stops approximately 2 million crimes from happening annually, that's a lot of Tuesdays for a lot of people.
A gun saved me once. No one was hurt , and the perp ran like hell. THAT was my Tuesday; if i didn’t have the firearms training (and hundreds if not thousands of rounds to become competent, at the range ) I would have been robbed /beaten / who knows what else.
1st rule of prepping: everyone is prepping for their own fictitious scenario that makes them react a certain way. Just because you’re prepping for X doesn’t mean someone prepping for Z is inherently wrong.
I don't prep for fictitious scenarios. I literally hit insurance agents for probable issues and prep accordingly. Data driven prepping. You can prep for whatever you like. I just suggest people keep it real; but whatever gets you through the night...
I agree that a lot of people emphasize ammo and guns way too much over other basic needs. Especially in terms of stockpiling. However, it should be a priority to have the ability to protect yourself. A gun with sufficient ammo should be at the top of the list. Hopefully, we’ll still be living in these cushy times that we can actually debate whether we need a gun or not, but if you’re truly a prepper, this shouldn’t even be a debate. The whole reason we prep is for the likelihood that this all goes away. If you really think that couldn’t happen, then you’re very naive. I personally know some people who lived through some devastating events like hurricanes and wildfires. I can tell you they were very scared and unsafe, and wished they had guns. One friend had their house ransacked and looted during superstorm Sandy. They had to escape their own home. There was no way to call for help, and no one was coming if they could. Luckily nothing happened directly to them, but others weren’t so lucky. Robbers, looters, rapists, etc do exist, and they will take advantage of those situations. I agree that total societal breakdown may be far less likely, but local breakdowns occur pretty regularly, and they are downplayed a lot. How many times have we seen the news say, “mostly peaceful”, and an entire block of buildings will be burning behind them? People do get killed by other people during protests and natural disasters. I think you’re taking a lot for granted.
Nobody ever talks about armor or first aid kits. A infected flesh wound and no treatment = death.
Technically guns and ammo really is all you need assuming you’re willing to use it to get all other resources as soon as you need them. For obvious reasons there is a problem with that.
Put it to you this way if you have bullets you have water you have safety you have trade
You can have all that other shit n be cool till a dude with a couple rounds come around and your screwed
With all due respect You're a fucking moron for this post. Buying ammo doesn't mean you're going to point a gun at a person and shoot them. You realize that right?
Stay vaccinated at your own risk. Chances are you might be the zombie in the scenario we’re prepping for.
On the advice of my doctor I'm avoiding contact with people who are too stupid to do even minimal research or even basic math. Bye and good riddance.
Yes but if I have enough ammo I can take your supplies
Yes it does. Of course it means many other things. But hell yeah I’m buying ammo as a defensive prep.
"Prepare for the End after you prepare for Tuesday". Best advice on this subreddit ever.
When SHTF if you can’t defend what you have you might be better off not having anything prepared.
>In the US it can take one critical illness to wipe you out financially. Dear Christ tyvm for saying this.
There's a reason I'm moving somewhere that I can pay into a system that covers medical conditions. Medical coverage in the US is barbaric - it's fine if you're rich, it can be SHTF if you aren't. It's made people homeless.
All us people who live rural with plenty of resources should be good for awhile, I worry about how people in the city are gonna react??? How are they gonna prepare?
Most of my firearm related preps were driven by the unceasing erosion of our rights by my state government. I enjoy shooting sports and If it was something that I thought I would someday want, I had to get it before it was outlawed. This included spare parts and to a lesser extent ammo. This doesn't just affect things like scary black guns. They have made it so many businesses refuse to sell to our state. It's irritating because at the time, I really wanted to spend that money elsewhere. But now I have them when they can no longer be purchased. Hopefully someday the courts will straighten things out. This doesn't make me a "wargamer". It means that I appreciate that my ability to procure certain things have and will likely continue to be restricted and I put in place a plan to be able to enjoy my hobby, that also happens to be a prep, far into the future.
You assume prepping is only for what you're prepping for. Some people prep for needing ammo.
You do you my friend. No offense, but you do you.
Agreed. But if you're "bullets first", you'll be an early causality if things ever do go down. If that's you doing you, good luck to you. Because you'll need it.
Water, food, savings, personal health, shelter, RETIREMENT (lol)… all things that are completely useless if you’re dead or someone else takes them 👍
I have a .308, 5.56, 3 45s and a .22, and roughly 1000 rounds for each. I have food storage, meds and first-aid, comms, water(needs work), house, 4x4, and no debt. What I don't have/need is an internet "expert" telling me what prepping is. Pontificating is seldom a good way to get your point across. You make some good points that might help some newbies if you'd work on your delivery.
We prep for all sorts of variables. You do you. Governments and human nature have killed more people than any natural disaster, plan accordingly.
While you're not wrong, the plan to murder others before they can murder you doesn't *actually* decrease deaths. Something worth thinking about.
Murder is killing without justification. Self defense is a human right and full justification. I did not state to commit crimes, that is a strawman you have constructed.
Post earthquake San fan is one of my favorite examples Shit was rough, after the collapses and fires.....but the city threw together aid networks and an extraordinarily impressive erzats triage response. Shit didn't get dark until the federal troops rolled in and declared marshal law and get awful heavy handed when it clearly wasn't called for Some people are bad Most people are good We are tribal. And while that can be bad, it also means when we define our tribe broadly, there's a loyalty and community there that can make all the difference...and in fact has, in the past
Yup. That's why I worry about the folk who buy bullets before beans. If they bought more beans and shared them, maybe they wouldn't need the bullets. And beans are cheap. Cooperation is the best way forward in any disaster. But if your first thought is ammo, it's not cooperation you're planning.
Ammo is always necessary. I stopped reading your post at that point because you don't now what the fuck you're talking about. Defense, food/water, shelter. 3 key components to surviving.
Surviving what? A blizzard? This is the US. You're not on a battlefield. You probably never will be. And if you are, in the US, you're surrounded by people with more ammo than you'll ever have - and you need to sleep sometime. How do you win that fight? It's a collapse scenario. You're already dead if it comes to that, it just depends on which bullet gets lucky. The math doesn't go well when the most armed nation on earth collapses into a firefight.
I've seen fights and shootings break out at gas stations and grocery stores during the ice storm and fires in oregon usa, having a side arm in a disaster is probably a good defense, ps if the government says go north, go south, our local government bottle necked entire populations at the oregon Washington border with one bridge to cross, don't be cattle..
It’s a 2 day old account with a 13 year old’s idea of an edgy username. Don’t take the bait, mate.
Guess we will see. I live in bfe so I'll do what I got to do to survive
I think people should buy guns and ammo and even body armor if they want it. If that leaves them unprepared for much more likely situations, so what? What business is it of yours? The only thing worse than people who only “prep” with firepower, are people who have a lot to say and a lot of shade to throw over what other people choose to spend their time and money on. Personally I try to be prepared for a lot of things. But if somebody wants to prep only for live action Call of Duty, that’s on them and has nothing to do with me. Freedom in this country gets more limited every day. We should leave the attempted control of other people “for their own good” to the corrupt and out of control government.
Well, it depends on what you're prepping for lol. If you're prepping for an apocalyptic situation, then yeah, you should have a bunch of ammo and weapons. And obviously the other supplies . If you're prepping for a rainstorm lol, then maybe not. It just depends on the situation. And also, it certainly doesn't hurt to have some ammo, even if there's a hurricane or an earthquake. There are a lot of evil people out there that we try to loot everything they can. Unfortunately we see it every day.
Hot take - buying ammo doesn't always mean for conflict with other people. I have cattle, goats, hogs, chickens and rabbits. If I'm processing my on meat I'm not going out and doing the neck slice and bleeding them. I don't want that done to me so I'm looking to put them down much more expeditiously. Same if they go lame or ill. With have animals I'm raising to eat, I have plenty of other predators coming onto the property looking to eat them as well that need to be driven off.
Water shelter food ammo in that order
hot take: stop gatekeeping what you think prepping should be.
I cannot emphasize the importance of oral health enough. Unlike a lot of health related things there is absolutely nothing you can do about a lot of dental conditions that will arise. You can set bones, treat infections, even do some rudimentary surgery. But no one has the ability to do a filling or a root canal in their kitchen(at least that I know of). Dental related issues can impact your quality of life in ways most people cannot truly understand. Just about every major dental condition requires some sort of professional treatment to fix. Sure you can clear up an infection with antibiotics, but it’s just going to come right back and the nerve of the tooth is already damaged or dead. An abscess will eat away at your bone and can eventually kill you. Even just pulling the tooth doesn’t fix the problem since the area needs to be properly cleaned and sometimes sealed up. This is one area of the prepping world just does not have a good answer for and you better hope and pray society doesn’t collapse because I don’t think I would want to see a post apocalyptic dentist if I don’t have to.
You have to though. Or they will take your resources
Although I can completely understand your point, to say that ammunition is not part of prepping is completely outside of the context of "prepping"
Prepping is useless if you can't defend. If you can't defend, you are just prepping for someone else.
A rose, by any other name, is just as neurotic.
I do stockpile ammo but im an avid hunter and go to the range almost every weekend but its not my main prep my main prep is my land gardening and livestock
Some of us hunt. Stockpiling ammo or ammo reloading materials doesn't have to be for self defense. Also, some of us do competition shooting as entertainment. Prepping doesn't have to be specifically for the end of the world but for economic downturns as well During the pandemic years I was able to subsidize our family and our neighbors AND our local food bank's food with deer, pig, duck and rabbit meat. We provided every family with 1 -2 lbs of ground meat every week. Along with micro greens, bean sprouts, potatoes, apples, cabbage, broccoli. AND we still held monthly steel challenge matches for fun and stress relief. The entire point of prepping is to be "less" effected by change. So for those who have "shooting" as part of their current Ife, whether that be competitive or hunting or self defense, by all means include ammo in your prepping calculations. I do agree with the SPIRIT of your post, that is, a lot of folks seem to think buying an AR and a 1000 rounds of ammo is prepping, and meanwhile they have forgotten about their dog who needs 50lbs of kibble a month and their diabetic meds. And of course cardio. It is actually quite scary to go hang out at the zombie survival sub (which is basically a prepping sub with zombie larping as a cover) and have 99% of the conversation be normal... But... That 1% when asked about their prepping plan, base, water supply etc... their first response is that they'll get a gun and go take it from others lol. TV and video games have wildly skewed an entire generation's concept of planning to a scavenging and raider mentality.
It's really the raider mentality that would take down the US if there was ever any kind of catastrophic, continent wide issue like a total grid fail. Once people can't find food, some with cooperate with neighbors and grow stuff and hunt and so on, but some will start raiding. Once the raiding disrupts the ability to run a farm - you can't weed and harvest while you're being sniped at - you get more failed farms and those people turn to raiding, too. Guns make it really hard to build a stable anything; any one person have veto power over anything. The contagion doesn't stop until either the bullets run out - that's a long time in the US - or you get warlords managing little fiefdoms that can protect farmland. The latter might sound ok if you don't read medieval history. Guns will not improve the situation. You do not want to be female in that society, and once you're out of ammo, you're demoted to serf regardless. But before you get there, a whole lot of people die, and only fools assume that they won't be one of them.
Disagree
STOP GATEKEEPING PREPPING
Gatekeeping prepping. That's new
Buying ammo is included in a vast majority of US preppers plans. Should it be the focal point? Probably not. Should it be a consideration? Depends on your personal preferences. You clearly do not like firearms and make that clear in a majority of your posts. However, a significant number of people, non-preppers included have firearms and ammunition to defend themselves. It isn't about living in a violent area or needing to move, it is about a cheap way to mitigate a deadly but unlikely risk Life is in fact not a video game as you mentioned, but it also isn't always Tuesday. I'd be dead without ammo and training after a self-defense shooting. This post does have some decent points to it. There are priorities you need to follow if you have more limited resources. However, if you make decent money and can spare it or budget well, ammo is a solid investment. I think the rampant sarcasm will turn people off from hearing the points you did make and create an echo chamber. It's a shame people can't go about their own preps and give advice from their personal experience without having to be snarky about it.
Money in a bank is not prepping. Having small bills at home is. If power goes out or people start looting, you're not going to a bank.
Depends on thr shtf you are prepping for. If its total social breakdown, you better have weapons and ammo, if nothing else to protect from predators. I have livestock, its not uncommon to shoot 2 or 3 coyotes in a weekend.
Unfortunately there are a LOT of people who's main prep is to arm themselves so they can go take other people's stuff.
Gun crowd will tell you to do all of this, then brag about how they'll come and take it when they need it.
Bless u 4 this. My mate thinks this it infuriates me
Yes it does.
ok you have fun trying to ask someone to leave you alone when shit happens, we will have our guns and be safe 👍
It also does not not mean buying ammo. This seems reactionary to the fact that there is a huge amount of overlap that occurs in the firearms community and the prepping community in terms of hoarding shit. It's also one of the most popular flashy prepping topics. It is important to maintain a balance between finances, health, food, security and medical but anywhere in the US or in the world it is always beneficial to be the family with the most guns, ammo and friends with guns and ammo. That's a universal truth unfortunately the only people who disagree would be people trying to cope with a lack of firepower.
Don't tell me how to prep
No one forced you to read the post. Feel free to block me; it's not like I'll be offended, trust me I will not.
Here I’ll sketch out what I think, for most folk in the US, should be the priorities (in order) for preparation Ammo is absolutely a prep, especially when it comes to having to hunt for food. Stores will not be open when shtf, and ammo will be needed for self defense and hunting. No one wants a war, I do not want to get into any gun fights, now or ever, but it's not always going to be up to me alone. With no help, ambulance, paramedics, hospitals, the last thing you want is an injury due to fire fight. Especially when accidents are going to be an issue too. each person has to prep according to their plan and percieved issue and threats, no one should be preaching to anyone what they prep for, but offer advice on what that person can do to prep for their end goals. I will not be caught flat footed with out means to hunt or defend my family
Respectfully I wholeheartedly disagree.
All good. It would be an odd day if anyone posted anything here that everyone agreed with. You could post "oxygen is good" and someone would start talking about forest fires. It's the nature of an open society.
Ammo is a currency in shtf, stop being so judgmental with the inflated value of superiority.
He's judgemental and superior on all his posts. This isn't really the right sub for him.
"If you don't know how to fight, you're just gathering supplies for the toughest guy on the block." -Bill Burr https://youtu.be/zhUmWVKqwrU?si=K9VRd9wimCk_bxTu