I just see one major flaw: it’s called gangs

Came across this while I was perusing the glocktalk forum and ended watching all four parts of the series. For those of you who don’t have 40 minutes to kill the summary is as follows:

1. People become desperate when hungry
2. People will know if you have resources
3. Bands of people will be able to take your resources
4. You can be well armed and still be overwhelmed by a larger force, over time if not in the first time

Power in numbers

Say what you want about StankMouthCharlie’s demeanor, he brings up a very good point. All human decency is likely to go out the window after food supplies run out in major urban areas, which is likely to happen within 3 days of a disaster preventing transport of food. The more people in the area you live, the more will be knocking down your door when they get hungry.

There is no point in stockpiling resources you cannot defend. If you don’t have the ability to protect your supplies, you’re just doing the work of custodian for someone else’s cache. I have doubts about some preppers such as David Sarti who have supplies that are far more attractive than what they are capable of defending.

As preppers, many of us take pride in our personal abilities to defend ourselves. Indeed, some of us are armed to the teeth. But to quote Charlie you may have 100 guns, how many can you shoot at one time?

Two, and only if you’re John Woo

What this means for urban preppers

Urban preppers have two choices: bug out or hunker down. And if they are not hunkering down with enough people to stop the largest gang in your city, your odds are poor. There is a catch-22 when it comes to prepping for a large group – you will need to prepare more food which will make your preparations more likely to be seen before a crisis and more appetizing after the SHTF.

In the absence of legitimate military training or/and (preferably) heavy arms and armor, defending an urban position would be difficult. Even if gangs could be repelled, it would become a war of attrition as ammunition stores wound down, injuries piled up, and men were lost in conflicts. That’s why I think bugging out is the only rational choice for preppers in metropolitan areas.

Don’t play their game

You need to get out of dodge. If you are going to store food and ammunition, you are better off the lower the population density is in the area. Yes, people will eventually move out of the cities but once they are far from it you will be able to have the advantage of knowing the territory.

Another option is to bug out permanently. I like to think of Chris Nyerges as a great example of this. He has the ultimate mobility as a one man operation. Also, he has nothing of value to steal. Even if you happened to find him wandering around in the woods with a 1911, it wouldn’t be worth risking an altercation for his equipment because at most there would be a bottle of salad dressing.