Are most survivalists crazy??

reply to post by Feltrick


It's a valid point and the doom-porn markets certainly cashed in last year -

Of course most of them are not crazy; although some definitely have paranoia issues.

I would say, however, that most are willfully ignorant, easily manipulated people unable to recognize that they are being exploited

blkcwbyhat
reply to post by NavyDoc

 

granted,being prepped for a SHORT term SHTF is fine,but night vision and 20k rounds of ammo is almost begging for a crisis,or just an armchair Rambo fantasy

You can look at it that way. 20k not really that many rounds and it is a valuable barter idem. The night scope is simply making sure you are at better than average level of survival capacity.

reply to post by blkcwbyhat


I've only read the OP so apologies if I'm only repeating what others have posted.

Of course some 'preppers' are 'crazy' - a certain percentage of all sections within society would be deemed 'crazy'.
And you've got realise that 'normal' 'preppers' wouldn't make good TV viewing would they.
But I guess more than an expected number would be viewed as 'crazy' by the rest of society - but so what? Personally I've never given a toss what anyone thinks of me or how they wish to pigeon hole me.

I'm not a 'prepper', but I've got to say that if I had the wealth, resources and other necessary wherewithal to do so I suspect I'd do something to safeguard the well being of my family in the event of some sort of major social upheaval or natural disaster.

Am I 'crazy' - who really cares?

reply to post by blkcwbyhat

Are they crazy? They are if they tell folks what they have, and where they keep it...which seems to happen a lot on this forum.

JohnnyCanuck
reply to post by blkcwbyhat

 

Are they crazy? They are if they tell folks what they have, and where they keep it...which seems to happen a lot on this forum.

edit on 2-2-2014 by JohnnyCanuck because:
(no reason given)

I find it rather strange that the media will focus on the crazy 6% preppers and not the folks that know what they are doing to preserve, protect, and defend the American way of life for themselves and their family.

Personally, my prepping began in 1989 with the doom-porn in our area via Dr. Iben Brown in reference to earthquakes and Dr. Ravi Batra's Great Depression of 1990. Having read Dr. Batra's book, we realized that every bit of preparation suggested by him was a good suggestion whether the depression came or not. So we took measures and got ready. It didn't happen. We were fine, better than fine, we were debt-free and it felt so good that we vowed not to go to that place again. Then came Dr. Brown with his predictions of earthquakes and we realized we were woefully unprepared in that area also. So we put together a small survival kit and designated an entire closet to our "earthquake stash", food, medical supplies, candles, batteries, paper goods, all the things on the lists put out on how to be prepared. The predicted date came and went and we had no earthquake. We cycled the contents of the closet but didn't give it up because it gave us a measure of security.
Then we decided to leave the city and build a house on the farm. When I designed the house, I had our survival in mind and the space required to properly house our supplies. By the time the Y2K doom rolled around we were fully stocked and ready. We were no worse off from having been prepared.
Now you must understand when I say prepared, I do not mean that I went out and bought all the stuff that the survival people are selling. I don't intend to survive on MREs thank you very much. I can walk into the woods and find better food almost any time of the year. No, I simply stock up foods we normally eat when the prices are lowest. I grow as much food as I can manage and preserve whatever is left after our family has eaten all we can hold. Same for paper goods, like toilet paper and paper towels. This is where designated space in your place can make a big difference. If you have space and a willingness to organize your supplies so that you rotate them so they don't go to waste, you will be amazed at the savings you'll realize.
The only substantial amount of money we've put out in our prepping was for the whole-house, propane-fed generator we had installed in '08. Less then 3 months later, January '09, we had an ice storm that knocked out a major electric transmission line. No household or commercial establishment had power unless they had a working generator---for three days. No water for those on the municipal water system due to the power outage. Cell phone towers went down within 24 hours because their batteries went down. While the city got their transmission system working after only three days some folks were without power for 3 weeks. Ours was out for 10 days.
We had 3 or 4 days of warning us that the ice storm was approaching. Every radio station, tv station, newspaper and Aunt Nellie were telling people to prepare; and yet about 300 people were lined up in front of a closed WalMart with another 200 or so across the street at Kroger, demanding that the stores be opened because they needed....whatever...
We kept our fireplace going, cooking some of the most delicious "survival" meals, baking brownies and pizzas in a Dutch oven on the hearth. We ran the generator about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening (to keep the freezers frozen) because we had no idea how much propane it would consume. Our only failure to prepare was in the timely ordering of propane, leaving us to face this encounter with only a quarter of a 500 gallon tank of gas. As it turned out, we got our propane delivery before the power was restored, so it was all good. We had a fabulous time, cooking and eating and visiting with friends and family who had failed to prepare for an extended power outage.
We currently have a thin coating of ice on everything outdoors. It began in the late afternoon and the ground is now white with ice pellets. So, this afternoon when I heard our generator kick on to do its weekly battery charge, I had a very comfortable feeling in knowing that if this ice causes another IceMare, we'll be fine. Our adjustment to our system after our first experience was to double our propane storage capacity and never let it fall below 50%. We found that we could live quite comfortably on 2 hours of electricity a day. There was no cell phone service but our landline and internet worked fine.
Perhaps it is a product of being raised during WWII and the Cold War that many of us feel a need to have that type of security while others can't be bothered. It does take a bit of planning and organization but the efforts all seemed worth it as we spent the IceMare enjoying ourselves and sharing with others instead of huddling miserably beside a propane heater and eating MREs---or worse still---in one of the "warming centers" set up across the city where the cell-phone addicts howled, cried and whined constantly about having no service... I like to call it surviving with style.
But stories like ours and all the other preppers who survived quite nicely during disasters don't generally interest the media. They'd rather film the fools at the closed-up WalMart or the huddled masses in "shelters."

waltwillis

JohnnyCanuck
reply to post by blkcwbyhat

 

Are they crazy? They are if they tell folks what they have, and where they keep it...which seems to happen a lot on this forum.

edit on 2-2-2014 by JohnnyCanuck because:
(no reason given)

I find it rather strange that the media will focus on the crazy 6% preppers and not the folks that know what they are doing to preserve, protect, and defend the American way of life for themselves and their family.

Yea and its really funny coming from them when everybody knows that the government itself has underground bunkers with generators, air conditioning, food stores for years ect. Some laugh at the common guy getting his hands on night vision when the government has satellites that can read the name on a golf ball from miles above the earth.

diggindirt


We kept our fireplace going, cooking some of the most delicious "survival" meals, baking brownies and pizzas in a Dutch oven on the hearth. We ran the generator about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening (to keep the freezers frozen) because we had no idea how much propane it would consume. Our only failure to prepare was in the timely ordering of propane, leaving us to face this encounter with only a quarter of a 500 gallon tank of gas. As it turned out, we got our propane delivery before the power was restored, so it was all good. We had a fabulous time, cooking and eating and visiting with friends and family who had failed to prepare for an extended power outage.

We had a week long power outage a few years back. I had propane lanterns and a propane cooking stove, batteries for the radio and a wood burner. Did well, slept warm and ate good.

Logarock

waltwillis

JohnnyCanuck
reply to post by blkcwbyhat

 

Are they crazy? They are if they tell folks what they have, and where they keep it...which seems to happen a lot on this forum.

edit on 2-2-2014 by JohnnyCanuck because:
(no reason given)

I find it rather strange that the media will focus on the crazy 6% preppers and not the folks that know what they are doing to preserve, protect, and defend the American way of life for themselves and their family.

Very Well Said!
Thanks!


Yea and its really funny coming from them when everybody knows that the government itself has underground bunkers with generators, air conditioning, food stores for years ect. Some laugh at the common guy getting his hands on night vision when the government has satellites that can read the name on a golf ball from miles above the earth.

To our grandparents, it wasn't called "prepping", it was simply called "everyday life"....

We could learn some things from them....

"Whackadoodle" is all about context.

I grew up in an extremely rural area. If your car broke down on a back-road, you might not see another vehicle for hours. And especially ahead of a killer storm, people might be going home to hole up before the first flakes fall, and might not come down that road for days.

A bag in your car when you live in the sticks isn't "whackadoodle". It's just Darwin.

Same with owning a gun when you live in a crappy neighborhood. Or again, out where the police response time exceeds on hour.


In that world, crazy is when there's a grass-fire across the horizon, and you call the fire department in town, which owns precisely three trucks. And expecting them to put it out. That's plain crazy.

reply to post by tovenar


Let us see who the crazy ones are after the listen to this retired CIA leaked report.
thecommonsenseshow.com...

blkcwbyhat
reply to post by semperfortis

 

yup,you can quote all the "experts' you want...what is SHTF?? They all sound like a rambo wannabe to me! Learn to dehydrate,can,preserve food.....guns and ammo won't make you live longer,it just puts off the end

The Tactical Guy

As I was leaving my house, I stuffed my Glock 10mm "man gun" Mexican style in my pants. My backup is a fully customized 1911 with all the IPSC add-on options in my $500.00 leather pancake holster custom made by Belgian Monks who have devoted their lives to silence and holster making. These are the ones used by SEAL Team 6, which I used to be a part of, but all records of my activities were destroyed in a fire "accident".

I put on my Royal Robbins photographer vest to match my pants while wearing a T-shirt underneath reading "From My Cold Dead Hands". That way, nobody can see what I'm packing.
I had my Centennial .38 Special in my ankle holster, just like the gun rag guys carry.

Lastly, I had my "Covert Sniper" I.D. Card in my wallet with my "Concealed Weapons Permit Badge". I was ready for anything.

I drove my Bug Out Truck to the 7-11 for some beer, 'cause you never know. It is a performance styled Subaru BRAT with 4 cylinders of ground pounding fury.

I pulled up to the 7-11 store and noticed a nefarious looking Girl Scout eyeballing me from the back of her mothers' SUV. A likely cover.

The mother returned to the truck and went for the keys in her purse, but I knew from my years of combat honed instincts that she was actually making a furtive movement for an offensive weapon.

I attempted a tactical shoulder roll, but fell flat on my face, kind of flopping on the pavement to avoid any incoming rounds and to make it look like I meant to do that. The store owner called 911, which is good because I then did a roll and attempted to draw my Glock.

Unfortunately, since I did not have a holster, the gun "went off", and the bullet creased my privates.



But I was prepared for that and bit down on a 9mm casing to take my mind off the pain as I dove for the garbage barrel.

That's when I noticed the Girl Scout shouting something to her mother who began to take cover. I knew they were closing on me so I drew my custom trusty 1911 Wilson Combat...I knew that they would be impressed with that. I then duck walked to the front of her SUV, but my gut kinda got in the way and I fell on my rear, which caused me to swallow my 9mm casing.
I then tried to roll to my right, but didn't want to scuff my holster, so I just threw myself into the telephone pole, but I landed on my right side anyway. So I fired one shot towards the woman's SUV to pin them down as I recovered my wind.

And before the mother knew what was happening, I charged her and I threw my groin into her knee. I knew that as I vomited on the ground in front of her that I had interrupted her OODA loop. I had the advantage now. As she ran screaming for the Girl Scout, (I knew she was going for backup) I made for my Super Charged BRAT Tactical truck. I jumped into the drivers seat forgetting that I had left my rare Israeli contract AR 15 Bayonet on the seat, honed to a razor's edge. I could handle it though. Half of my butt is an implant from war wounds.

As I attempted to start my truck, police and paramedics arrived on the scene. My truck would not start and instead backfired once and caused the police to Tase me. At which point I tactically soiled myself while in convulsions. My custom 1911 then fell out the window, but I still had my Centennial .38. I knew that I had to take out the woman with the purse.

So I aimed my revolver at her at which point the first police officer fired once striking me in the chest. Fortunately, I was wearing my level 3A body armor. I didn't want to hurt the cops--they had obviously been duped by the evil temptress who was now embracing her partner in crime and crying to the police in the background. I knew it was a ruse.



I pulled out my concealed weapons permit badge and showed it to the officer who shot me and yelled out, "I'm one of you guys!". He continued to cover me and ordered me to drop my .38 so I laid it down. I still had my bayonet after all, attached to my butt.

The cop walked toward me and upon reading the badge, maced me right in the eyes. Fortunately, my Oakley shooting glasses stopped most of the spray and I was able to rip free of the Taser cords easily. It only cost me one nipple, easily replaced. I dove for the passenger side of my truck and began to run zig-zag for a ditch. Unfortunately, the bayonet sticking out of my rear slowed me down. I knew it would have to be hand-to-hand now.

I knew the cop couldn't take me when I saw he merely carried a Glock 17, not a man's gun. So I immediately threw my eye into his right hook, followed by a knee into his Mag light. As I lay thrashing on the ground, I took the heel of my Bates Enforcer boot and kicked at the cops ankle. I knew from my classified experiences in Tajikistan that once breaking the ankle, the cop would fall down and I could "stun kick" him in the head, knocking him out but not hurting him.

Apparently the cop had also been to Tajikistan because he side stepped me and struck me in the back with his ASP baton, but my trauma plate absorbed it. I then drew my Benchmade auto knife and was promptly tased again, but I was ready for it this time and only wet myself a little bit.

Next thing those cops knew, I was unconscious. That'll teach 'em.

reply to post by waltwillis


Without a doubt, the greatest post I have ever had the pleasure of reading on this website!