Doomsday Preppers...

Did you catch the new show "Doomsday Preppers" last night on National Geographic channel?

I watched the first one and recorded the second to watch tonight.

Just a quick rundown on the first show.

The first group, the people in Texas with the home made out of shipping containers. Wow. Those people have their shit together. 50,000 pounds of food! 22 seemingly well trained people! A good plan that has been practiced! I think when all hell breaks loose these guys have a good chance.

The hippie in California that will survive on the streets, under the radar, eating weeds. Ok. Ummm. He will be dead in about 10 minutes of any actual SHTF situation. He has no guns and no sense. Sure, knowing which weeds will kill you and which won't is a pretty good skill. Hanging out in Los Angeles in an apocalypse situation is just stupid. I might be a little generous with the 10 minutes.

The big guy with the yapping little dogs and the HAM radio. I think with some help this guy would be ok for quite a while. He has a nice supply of food and resources for growing more. He has a few weapons and practices with them regularly. His health is a huge concern. If he could recruit a few good former military guys or girls, he would be living large.

The chick in Houston with the big back pack. Hmmm, she will never make it out of Houston alive, never. Even when the "experts" reviewed her and said that her evacuation route was jacked up she disagreed. Holy shit, in her practice run she felt unsafe and tempted to pull her pistol. Imagine the streets full of hungry, horny scumbags looking for anybody with anything. Dead.

It was also kind of interesting that each of these groups had a different SHTF scenario in mind in their prepping. The first group would be prepared for about any likely, or unlikely, scenario.

I found it a little disturbing that the "experts" shot down all four of the groups reasons for prepping. You know, it wasn't that long ago that nobody saw the collapse of Greece coming, or the monetary meltdown of most of the EU. For these people to shoot down these scenarios as virtually impossible shows either some sort of a bias or they aren't paying attention to world events. There HAVE been EMP situations on this planet. There have been financial meltdowns. We have had oil shortages. All of these situations could come up, especially with the deteriorating conditions all around the world.

Just my take on it.

But, while I criticize some of these groups, most of them make me realize how inadequate my own preps are. It did give me some good ideas and a little better vision of what being prepared really means.

Are you prepping yet?

Since I started this blog in January 2009 I have occasionally made mention that we should be serious about the upcoming meltdown in our Country. Almost every day now some "expert" predicts that we are headed for something major, and soon.

If you look at all of the chaos around the world it's hard to imagine that we can remain insulated from it forever. One day soon some group will decide to take their anger to the next level and it will get ugly from there. Don't take my word for it, watch or read the news.

Even the police know it's coming. Why do you think they are stocking up on automatic weapons and urban tanks? What police department in this Country really needs that kind of firepower to deal with their day to day activities? They don't. Our government is arming them with equipment comparable to what our military has. They know something is coming. The worst part for me is, I think many of these police departments are looking forward to using their fancy new gear against civilians. In my life I have known a bunch of police officers. Most of them have been great guys who are doing a job that not a lot of people are able to do. I have also known cops who are on some kind of weird power trip. They long for a chance to crack some body's head open. Can you imagine that guy with a tank and a few M4 carbines? Or how about a semi auto grenade launcher? You get the picture, right?

With this in mind, have you done anything to prepare? Do you have a little food and water stocked away? Have you gotten a bug out bag ready to go? Have you analyzed your skills and identified areas you might want to brush up on?

Believe me, I don't want to think about shit hitting the fan either. But you know, I have people that are depending on me to keep them safe. I can't do that without being prepared. We don't have near the food and water saved up that I would like. It isn't cheap or easy and we don't have unlimited storage space. We do what we an though.

Something to keep in mind on food storage, stock up on what you eat now. Can you imagine what would happen to your digestive system if you suddenly went to a beans and rice diet when it's not normally in your diet? Suddenly having an intestinal crisis in the middle of a social meltdown could get ugly. Use your head when buying goods to stock away.

We started out by buying 3 or 4 extra cans of food every time we went to the grocery store. Remember to rotate and use the oldest items first. Canned food will last a long time, but not forever. By starting out small you can get a little jump start without spending a ton of money at once.

Don't forget water. We save gallon milk jugs and fill them up. I also have a couple of bigger containers filled up and stashed away. There are some things to keep in mind when storing water, doing a Google search on the subject will give you more information than you can read in a month.

I try to pick up a box of ammo every time I go to Walmart. It might be shotgun shells, .22 shells or some kind of pistol ammo. In my opinion, ammo is something you can never have too much of. I try to rotate it to a certain degree. When I go to the range I try to grab the oldest stuff I have easy access to and take it. Rifle ammo I try to buy in bulk online. I learned the hard way not to buy 7.62x39 at Bass Pro. I refuse to pay $1.00 per round. Cabela's runs the 7.62x39 in their ad on a regular basis. You can still get it cheaper online if you buy it in bulk. Every once in a while you can find a deal at a gun show. The key to gun show buying though, is to know exactly what you are looking for and exactly what it would cost everywhere else.

Talking about guns, there are a million websites out there that will give you a million different perspectives on what gun you should have for a SHTF situation. I'm not going to presume to know enough about your situation to tell you what you should have. Guns are a personal thing any way. You don't want a gun you aren't comfortable with. And the guns I consider personal protection tools are different than what I would use to hunt up dinner. I'm not going to hunt a squirrel with an 18" barreled shotgun with buck shot in it and I'm not going to protect my home with a .22. Two different missions. But that brings up a good point. There really isn't a do all, single solution kind of a gun. A shotgun comes close, but unforeseen circumstances may make you wish you had other options.

If I were going to make a suggestion on firearm choice it would be this, you need a rifle, a shotgun and a pistol. Which ones are going to be up to your needs and comfort level. Do your research. Go shooting. Take a class.

Well, I've wasted enough of your time with this. If you ahve any specific questions, email me. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I will tell you what I know from experience and then I will point you to people who know more than me for the rest...

Thinking about survival skills...

Back in October, I wrote a little about the most basic of survival skills. Since then I have thought a lot about what various skills I would like to enhance. I have downloaded and read several things on the flora in my general area. I want to know what plants are good and which are bad. I want to know if any of them have a medicinal purpose. I have compiled all of this information with the other things already on my thumb drive.

If you haven't started one of these yet, you should think about it. It's nice to have the documents you will need all in one place. If you plan to get information on your local plants, be sure to get good color pictures. I have found that there are lots of things in my general area with the same basic description, but are very different from one another. In a survival situation, getting sick from a misidentified poisonous plant might endanger your entire party.

Another skill I have been thinking a lot about is archery. I've never been a bow hunter and have very limited experience in the area. Both of my Girls have bows and are actually decent shots with them. Normally bow hunting isn't something that would interest me, but as I think more about the survival of my family in a bad situation, the more it seems to make sense. There are times when a gun shot would attract unwanted attention, and my pellet rifle just wouldn't have the knock down power needed. That's where a bow would come in handy.

One other skill that I think Joe Texan and I may figure out together is reloading. I am fortunate that I have a good friend, Big Mullet, who has been reloading for a long time. He can give us pointers on the right gear and what newbie mistakes we can avoid. I would like to be able to reload shotgun shells first and then maybe into pistol and rifle ammo.

I guess the point to this post is that we should all be thinking about the huge amount of skills that would help us to better survive a bad situation. There are so many things I would like to know, but I don't have an unlimited amount of time. Deciding on what will give me the best advantage is the key.

Comment with what skills you have decided to work on...

Here are some places to download documents on prepping and survival...

Modern Survival Online

Survival Spot

Resisting the New World Order

Truth is Treason

The Survivalist Blog

RAEMS Wilderness

There are about a million other places to download stuff from. You may have to filter through and disregard some of the weird stuff and just get the things that will help you in your situation. The key is to have as much knowledge available as possible.