Generally you aim at basics.
* About 3 weeks worth of food (2000 kcal/person/day)
* Week of water (gallon/person/day), some basic water filtration (Sawyer squeeze)
* Some preps may be more in line with local climate (backup heating for cold environments)
* Evacuation bags are very common and are also known as BOBs (but most are garbage with lots of guns and no water). Still good to make some with copies of important documents, some water and spare clothes. Just get your old spare bag and unused clothes, no need to overthink it.
* Think about having more first aid material and skills
* Hygiene can be pain once your toilet does not flush anymore and you can't wash your hands, make some arrangements for that too (ie. bucket and plastic bags are way better than nothing)
* I'd also consider tools, such as headlamp per person, other depends on location and needs. Axe can be useful even in city in case of earthquake. Fixed blade knife is probably most versatile tool and Morakniv companion for 15 USD is usually sufficient. But I would suggest some practice here too, you don't want to get cut during temporary service disruption.
Good luck. As German governmental pamphlet states "Germany is ready, when every German is ready". Replace with your own country :).
In any “without rule of law” scenario you need a real means of protection. While this may be a shocker to some people if you try and fight with a knife, even if you have edged weapons training, there is a great chance you are going to bleed as well.
I hope people who have had the state tell them they don’t need a firearm never have to figure out that should have been their own choice to make.
Guns aren't very common in my country so I'm not worried about gun-toting locals rampaging around. Sure, a few might raid a military base or a farmer's shotgun cabinet, but statistically I think my family would be under far more threat from hypothermia, cholera or an infected scratch.
With that said, the reality is that clean water, sanitation, and heating are pretty darn boring. It's like prepping 101 to have some available water, a shovel, and a barbecue or a fireplace or a basement to keep warm. If preppers do seem to you (apart from media misrepresentation) to focus more on guns, it's likely because they're long past having basics like food and water taken care of, and guns are more varied than any of the other basic needs.
Every place is different, and maybe guns are less important in your country, but they're very important during collapses in America, whether we want the world to be that way or not. Look back on the social breakdowns in America over the past--the LA riots come to mind--and look at how locals used guns to defend their stores and homes from looting. And those looters were just rioting; they weren't hungry or fighting for survival.
You're right the basics are boring, but it's the basics you'll spend 24/7 trying to obtain long after your weapons and ammo have gone rusty. And if you think you'll be making your own ammo, I'd say no-one at all will have the luxury of that kind of engineering time when they're trying to get the ground to grow enough food to eat.
I’ll give you a hint, there’s a reason the Taliban was walking around with Soviet era AK-47s, and Isis was walking around with US-made M-16s.
"Guns and weapons helped no one directly and were even of little to no use in the defense of Sarajevo, since they were toys compared to the shells, bombs and high-powered armaments of the attacking forces."
Guns really are also not "get and forget" kind of think. They can help or get you killed.
They might get you killed by mismanaging them (basically you shoot yourself by accident), by making you overconfident and not escaping in time, by making you a target "to get your guns", by making you suspicious (imagine checkpoints in now occupied parts of Ukraine) and getting killed in interrogation.
Guns are not all advantages in real world situation.
I wish I could explain how ridiculous it is to remove an option from yourself before a situation arises... but if you don’t already understand that, how could I explain it?
I also think having a fire extinguisher and jumper cables / jump box is a disadvantage in your bizarro scenario where “you might shoot yourself” comes up.
It’s a little funny low obviously little experience you have with firearms - but absolutely trust agents of your government who have maybe 2-3 weeks training once during accedemy with them. Those agents are the ones not coming to help though.
Focusing on guns just make it look like prepping is just for "gun-nuts" (as much as I don't share that opinion).
In a without rule of law scenario there is no one coming to help, say to protect you from someone bigger stronger faster or more clever than you that did not have a prepper foresight.
Que the famous Samuel Colt quote, right?
In many places, there are quite heavy restrictions on firearms, and obtaining one without breaking the law might simply not be legal for everyone. Most such countries don't outlaw the use of bows and arrows though...
But for the US, I agree, I don't trust Americans to be civilized when the shit hits the fan - it's every man for himself there. Which is why the country is failing.
Congratulations, you've bought insurance for the medium-term societal collapse for about $600 or so.
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If you don't have a filter -- and even if you do, depending on what your water sources are -- be aware of how much water your planned foodstuffs will consume. Stuff like dried pasta and flour holds very well, but also consumes a pretty large amount of water to get to a usable state. Canned beans and vegetables and such come with their own water in the package, so they don't use your stores.
EDIT: Don't forget that energy will also be constrained, not just water! Presoak your dried beans and pasta to drastically reduce the amount of energy necessary to cook them.
https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/ask-the-food-lab-can-i-s...
Personally, I find it very likely that there will be some kind of short-term (less than 30 days) disruption here, within the next ten years. I live on the countryside and in the north so it's really just a matter of time before the climate changes screws up the weather to such an extent that we get snowed in. Likewise, it's not really that far fetched to expect an extended power outage or flooding.
Medium to long-term disruptions are much less likely (although still possible), but in those cases it's much more important to make sure one's local community can co-operate to make sure actual food production and maintenance of critical infrastructure is handled.
Once that part is handled, prepping for nuclear war, uprisings, alien invasions, zombie apocalypses and so on will be easier (as the basics are covered) and quite a fun hobby. It will also be useful as it will keep skills, that would otherwise be lost to time, alive and well.
I keep about two weeks worth of supplies (food, water, wool blankets, etc) around, because its going to take a long time for federal assistance to arrive.
That way you're more prepared than 95% of people if something catastrophic were to go down, but you've only spent a weekend's worth of time and $20 on a pack of walkie-talkies. There seem to be diminishing returns where you're giving up current quality of life/free time for increasingly smaller 'preparedness' value.
There's a reason most state-level disaster relief advice starts with "stay in your homes" unless there's actual flood waters rising or something - because masses of people suddenly moving about is a pretty good way to create a whole bunch of disruption and disaster.
If things go wrong you will be far more likely to get by if people know you, like you and are prepared to look out for you or throw you a bone. Your neighbours probably won't look after you unless you are an exceptional person, but they may well feed your family once or twice, help you board up or fix a roof (on the tacit understanding that you will do the same for them) or trust you more than the scary bunch in pickup trucks.
Really - social ties would count more than anything. Collective action is much more potent than machine guns.
- [ ] water: a LifeStraw or some kind of filtration system and a couple storage containers (maybe 2 7-gallon containers)
- [ ] food: dried fruits, beans, rice, whatever other dry food you want to pack. if you keep it in a container in your pantry you can just eat it whenever and try to keep it replenished
- [ ] shelter: a tent
- [ ] tools: fixed blade knife, solar flash-light/lantern, fire starter, shovel, axe, rope, tarp, compass, whatever you want to grab from REI or Home Depot.
- [ ] first aid: they sell kits at REI or you can assemble your own
Keep these things in a reliable place, maybe a tote in the garage; and keep your car in good shape (gassed up, tires are good, have a flat tire kit, jumper cables, maybe a spare battery, spare gas); and you'll be pretty reasonably prepared.
Some bonus items:
- [ ] a gun or bow for hunting
- [ ] some seeds for gardening
- [ ] some dry fertilizer for gardening
If you've never had to survive in the wild before, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
All fancy tools and no common sense.
Just buy some canned food(that you like) and few packs of bottled water. You're now more prepared than 90% of people. If you expect to evacuate from a local event, make some backpacking gear fitted with necessities and important stuff you need - tools,drugs/first-aid, documents,high-density foods. Like preparing an unexpected camping trip.
Bomb shelters and bunkers are for truly paranoid expecting doomsday scenarios occurring right on top on them, but basic preparedness is not particularly costly, unless you hoard tons of supplies that you can't use.
Articles like this, however, make me wonder if there is a strategy that will leave me more prepared than the average person, but not involve devoting my entire life & pool of resources to a bomb shelter in the outback. We insure against other unlikely but catastrophic events through various types of insurance - are there any demi-preppers out there?