The Mind of the SHTF-er

[romma]

Well, I live 10 minutes from Millstone III nuclear power plant, directly across the river from a Nuclear Sub base and 120 miles almost directly east of NYC.

If the Mushroom cloud from the smuggled nuke from NY doesn't drift over my house, and Millstone doesn't melt down, and no one hits the Sub Base with a tactical nuke, then maybe I can survive a SHTF scenerio. Other than that, I am prepared for a short term storm type thing at best.

 

[GarandOwner]

SHTF is mostly fantasy senarios where zombies attack or some other more "realistic" situation where you can pretend you would need alot of guns to defend yourself.

Of course in real life, supplies is more useful in SHTF than a gun is. I live in florida, so the hurricane aftermath has always been a real situation. HOWEVER while I do have many guns, they stay in the closet. Experience has shown that looters go mostly for stores, mostly for food and other supplies. It is a smaller crowd that tries to loot for profit.....of course even though I keep my guns locked up, I am madly in love with my 1911 that goes everywhere with me from the comfort of a leather WWII holster. If ever the looters did try to get in my house (which even in hurricane aftermath are fairly rare) Id be more than happy to send them off with a .45 slug as a souvenir.

Dont get me wrong, I love talking about tactics and "what gun I would use" for apocalyptic world chaos like zombies, but as far as realistic situations, there are always those who chime in that supplies is more important than gun choice. While it is not as "cool" as the battle scenarios, it is right.

 

[Prince Yamato]

I think the threads exist so that people can make up stuff and pretend to look tough. They also exist so urban and rural folk can go at each other in "protection vs. hunting" threads. The rural people say things like, "I'd have a ... so I could hunt" and the city people go, "you're not going to hunt poisoned animals in a nuclear war".

I personally think most of the SHTF threads are worthless and 3/4 of the people that post their "strategies" in them are going to die in those scenarios (not from lack of self-defense mind you, because they've got the gun part down), but because their other strategies are not very "strategic".

 

[Saturnine]

I'd consider myself a beginning "survivalist" and while many of us tend to be a bit out there (www.zombiehunters.org - my personal favorite survivalist site) and like to prepare for the worst, there's certainly worse things we could be doing. I'll admit that to some degree it's a hobby and a bit of gear whoring, but it's fun, and more importantly, useful. Since I've gotten into the survivalist stuff, I've become much more self reliant, it sparked interests in things that I normally wouldnt much care for, for example instead of taking my computer and car in to the shop when they broke, I learned to fix it myself.

I plan for what I can afford to plan for, based on what's most likely to happen. For me, that's natural disasters and at most a riot. Food and water comes before firearms and other gear, once that's taken care of I'll expand to cover some of the less essential gear. I might not need everything I buy, but most gear is fun to mess around with. If I end up accumulating 50+ firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition, it wont be to defend against zombie attacks, it'll be because it's a fun and addictive hobby (and bulk ammunition is cheaper).

Some of us are over the top, but then again, how many of you guys would be considered crazy be people who werent into firearms?

 

[welldoya]

WOLVERINES !!! (I'm assuming everybody has seen "Red Dawn" ?)

 

[bruss01]

I've been thru a couple of types of SHTF (car breakdown, flood, power outages, street demonstrations, severe storms). None of it required a gun for me to survive. Although in retrospect, a gun would have been a very good idea, just to be on the safe side. After seeing some major SHTF situations like the NorthEast blackouts, Katrina, Mt. St. Helens, 9/11 and other assorted fusterclucks, I'm convinced that it makes sense now more than ever to have a few "preps" in place.

The way I figure it, every time I've been in a "situation" it came in a form different from what I'd envisioned. When I was younger and had a different view of "risk vs. reward" I would pretty much just take my chances and roll with the punches. To put it frankly, I was lucky a lot. Now that I'm more mature and conservative, I see things like auto insurance as essential, not optional, because sooner or later the law of averages is going to get the better of you. This is my attitude where SHTF scenarios are concerned as well. No matter what I'm expecting, the thing that catches me off guard is going to differ from whatever I may have planned for. So I don't think it's ridiculous to plan for exotic scenarios like Civil War II or a Zombie Outbreak. Are those ever going to happen? Probably not. But on the way to getting set for these outlandishly unlikely scenarios, I'll have put a good deal in place that will turn out to be very beneficial for whatever DOES eventually come down the pike. First aid kit, water storage, a few month's worth of food, some cash put aside, plenty of "loaner" guns and ammo to feed them... I hope I never need them, but I'll be darn glad to have them if the time ever comes.

 

[romma]

I certainly believe that the economy might collapse at some point, and social order can break down, and with that we may usher in a period of SHTF.

 

[Joshua C]

I don't know if I'm dong stuff out of an SHTF standpoint, but Yellowstone is always in my mind....

 

[Justin]

most of the TEOWAKI and SHTF threads have to do with the upwelling of formerly repressed adolescent fantasies of arming and/or leading a group of determined survivors in the aftermath of some cataclysmic event.

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!

We have a winner.