While most of my students know intuitively that they shouldn’t shout on the streets that they are preppers, many still ignore so many basic rules it gives me the chills.
Let me tell you this, extreme stress on the body and mind affects everybody—your closest friends and your extended family included. Ideally, prepping is kept within a single family unit. There is simply no reason to tell anyone else about your prepping efforts.
First of all, your neighbors may be a little perturbed by some of your activities, if they are noisy or in some way interfere with their property. You don’t want to get any citations, inspections, or other stressful and unnecessary home visits so keep your activities under the radar. And don’t try to build any crazy zombie apocalypse defenses around your garage door because that will only increase suspicion.
Secondly, making other people aware of your disaster preparedness efforts makes you an easy target for desperate crowds when crisis hits. Can you imagine what’ll happen when your neighbors come home from the ravaged stores empty-handed, their last-ditch efforts to provide food for their kids futile? They are going to be desperate, they are going to be hungry, possibly thirsty, stressed, shocked, maybe physically hurt. Do you think these people will let you stand in the way of them satisfying their very basic needs?
Not to mention, if a few of them get together and figure out how to get to your supplies… you could be in BIG trouble.
A lot can be said about the mob mentality to begin with, but a mob in which everyone is fighting for his or her own survival is the scariest, most merciless, most ruthless mob. Why? Because it’s natural for the have-nots to automatically blame the haves for their troubles. Because you have food and water, because you are more comfortable, because you are safer, you are the enemy. And once you become the enemy, you better be sure you have a way to protect yourself. The simplest and stupidest way to die during a national disaster situation is to get killed for your supplies.
On top of that, our President signed an executive order recently, establishing the authority of the government to confiscate whatever the government may need from individuals, no questions asked.
While some may justify this as means to keep more people alive in a disaster situation, unfortunately preppers can’t help everybody. Why should we be denied the food and supplies that we put so much time and money into purchasing, storing, and caring for?
All the while those who did not prepare get to benefit from our efforts (or at least that’s what they’ll say)… And who really believes that the supplies that are confiscated will actually be distributed? It is the natural inclination of whoever has power to hoard whatever survival means are available.
Every history book is filled with descriptions of elite vs. common folk, peasants vs. royalty, and gang lords vs. slum dwellers. And their social and economic division is usually vast. So, keep your prepping efforts to yourself and use cash to make bulk purchases or purchases of items that are clearly survival related. You don’t want to have your food taken away from you because you were an obvious prepper.
To your survival,
Richard Marshall
