3 ms·

If we're talking some sort of civilizational collapse scenario, you would unquestionably want firearms over food as preparation. First of all you can hunt with

If we're talking some sort of civilizational collapse scenario, you would unquestionably want firearms over food as preparation. First of all you can hunt with a gun. Secondly, you can take other people's food with a gun. Finally you can defend your own food from being taken once you've acquired it by any means necessary.

cobertos 3y ago
Doesn't this require a ton of resources (gas and mobility gear, manpower to find and move food, or continuously migrating your living area) and assume everyone you meet will be an enemy you will want to take food from?
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Based on my reckoning, it would behoove you to hunt first and foremost with a firearm, to secure food for yourself and your family. A single deer could feed a family for a month plus. A cow could feed a family for months. But undoubtedly, skirmishes would happen. Humans are tribal creatures and tribal structures would almost instantly form in such a vacuum.
courgette 3y ago
Above firearms, you want a community where trust exists.
- DennisP 3y ago
  Guns over food seems like a straw man. I was interesting in survivalism a couple decades ago, and every writer I came across put a heavy emphasis on water and food. Guns were something they considered necessary in an environment where you're one of the few with clean water and food. Trying to attack others who'd stocked up wasn't recommended by anyone; if they stocked up on food they'd probably have their own guns. Eventually I read a great little book by someone who'd lived through the currency collapse in Argentina, who said all their rural survivalists got picked off by roving gangs. That doesn't mean the gangs had a great life expectancy either. He advocated staying in town and getting to know your neighbors, setting up a neighborhood watch, helping people start gardens, etc.
  - iisan7 3y ago
    Thanks for mentioning this. A quick search turned up this book, is it the right one? https://archive.org/details/modernsurvivalma0000agui https://archive.org/details/modernsurvivalma0000agui. Fernando Aguirre, 2009. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse. It would be really interesting to compare/contrast his account from others from Ukraine, Syria, the Balkans. What I hear in your comment is that the advice you heard was about having weapons for a strong defensive posture rather than to be used offensively. I guess the strength of both communities and gangs is in their size, they'll win out over the lone wolf fantasy.
    - DennisP 3y ago
      Yep that's the book!
  - danaris 3y ago
    Serious survivalists know perfectly well that what you'll need is water, food, and skills like farming, spinning, sewing, cleaning, digging latrines, etc. Unfortunately, there are a hell of a lot of people in the US who are essentially "survival LARPers" who imagine themselves as heroic alpha (or, better, sigma!) wolves who fight off thousands of degenerates coming for their canned food. ...Hey, did anyone think to get a can opener?
    - chrisco255 3y ago
      A hell of a lot of Americans are descendents of literal frontiersmen and women who were subjected to cow thieves, roving gangs, robberies, Indian raids, revolutions, European proxy wars, dust bowls, depressions, and terrible diseases (with no cures in their day) hundreds to thousands of miles from the closest forts or cities. Yeah no one in the country doesn't own a can opener AND a shotgun or rifle AND know how to can their own veggies. But if you don't have peace, you aren't going to be able to farm in peace. Do you even have acreage to farm? Do you have tools and skills to farm? If not, how would you get access to it?
      - 3y ago
dabluecaboose 3y ago
There is also a point where another gun or another case of ammo doesn't help as much as a case or three of MREs or HDRs
- chrisco255 3y ago
  A single deer can feed a family for weeks. That only takes one shot.
  - dabluecaboose 3y ago
    That only takes one gun Most people can only fire one gun at a time. There is a point of diminishing returns on stockpiling weapons.
kcb 3y ago
Outside of some mass extinction event where we'll probably be dead anyway, I never really understood what exactly the scenario this would be prepping for. Even if all of societies institutions collapsed overnight, the winners are going to be whichever group reorganizes itself quickest. Not to mention some group is likely to inherit a ton of heavy weapons that aren't going to just disappear from the planet overnight.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  This is not an imaginative scenario. Humanity has been through multiple civilizational collapses in its history. The fall of the Roman empire, followed by the Justinian Plague and the famines of 536 AD, is one such example. In the wake of the collapse there were thousands tribes that formed, which gradually recoalesced into modern european nation states (and invariably many of those made a pass at superceding Rome's former glory). It would be likely that many groups would inherit heavy weapons but it's not clear that they would be particularly useful. If victory always went to the most heavily armed, then the U.S. would have handily won the Vietnam war without many casualties. And the Afghanistan war while we're at it.

cobertos 3y ago

Doesn't this require a ton of resources (gas and mobility gear, manpower to find and move food, or continuously migrating your living area) and assume everyone you meet will be an enemy you will want to take food from?

chrisco255 3y ago
Based on my reckoning, it would behoove you to hunt first and foremost with a firearm, to secure food for yourself and your family. A single deer could feed a family for a month plus. A cow could feed a family for months. But undoubtedly, skirmishes would happen. Humans are tribal creatures and tribal structures would almost instantly form in such a vacuum.

courgette 3y ago

Above firearms, you want a community where trust exists.

DennisP 3y ago
Guns over food seems like a straw man. I was interesting in survivalism a couple decades ago, and every writer I came across put a heavy emphasis on water and food. Guns were something they considered necessary in an environment where you're one of the few with clean water and food. Trying to attack others who'd stocked up wasn't recommended by anyone; if they stocked up on food they'd probably have their own guns. Eventually I read a great little book by someone who'd lived through the currency collapse in Argentina, who said all their rural survivalists got picked off by roving gangs. That doesn't mean the gangs had a great life expectancy either. He advocated staying in town and getting to know your neighbors, setting up a neighborhood watch, helping people start gardens, etc.
- iisan7 3y ago
  Thanks for mentioning this. A quick search turned up this book, is it the right one? https://archive.org/details/modernsurvivalma0000agui https://archive.org/details/modernsurvivalma0000agui. Fernando Aguirre, 2009. The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse. It would be really interesting to compare/contrast his account from others from Ukraine, Syria, the Balkans. What I hear in your comment is that the advice you heard was about having weapons for a strong defensive posture rather than to be used offensively. I guess the strength of both communities and gangs is in their size, they'll win out over the lone wolf fantasy.
  - DennisP 3y ago
    Yep that's the book!
- danaris 3y ago
  Serious survivalists know perfectly well that what you'll need is water, food, and skills like farming, spinning, sewing, cleaning, digging latrines, etc. Unfortunately, there are a hell of a lot of people in the US who are essentially "survival LARPers" who imagine themselves as heroic alpha (or, better, sigma!) wolves who fight off thousands of degenerates coming for their canned food. ...Hey, did anyone think to get a can opener?
  - chrisco255 3y ago
    A hell of a lot of Americans are descendents of literal frontiersmen and women who were subjected to cow thieves, roving gangs, robberies, Indian raids, revolutions, European proxy wars, dust bowls, depressions, and terrible diseases (with no cures in their day) hundreds to thousands of miles from the closest forts or cities. Yeah no one in the country doesn't own a can opener AND a shotgun or rifle AND know how to can their own veggies. But if you don't have peace, you aren't going to be able to farm in peace. Do you even have acreage to farm? Do you have tools and skills to farm? If not, how would you get access to it?
    - 3y ago

dabluecaboose 3y ago

There is also a point where another gun or another case of ammo doesn't help as much as a case or three of MREs or HDRs

chrisco255 3y ago
A single deer can feed a family for weeks. That only takes one shot.
- dabluecaboose 3y ago
  That only takes one gun Most people can only fire one gun at a time. There is a point of diminishing returns on stockpiling weapons.

kcb 3y ago

Outside of some mass extinction event where we'll probably be dead anyway, I never really understood what exactly the scenario this would be prepping for. Even if all of societies institutions collapsed overnight, the winners are going to be whichever group reorganizes itself quickest. Not to mention some group is likely to inherit a ton of heavy weapons that aren't going to just disappear from the planet overnight.

chrisco255 3y ago
This is not an imaginative scenario. Humanity has been through multiple civilizational collapses in its history. The fall of the Roman empire, followed by the Justinian Plague and the famines of 536 AD, is one such example. In the wake of the collapse there were thousands tribes that formed, which gradually recoalesced into modern european nation states (and invariably many of those made a pass at superceding Rome's former glory). It would be likely that many groups would inherit heavy weapons but it's not clear that they would be particularly useful. If victory always went to the most heavily armed, then the U.S. would have handily won the Vietnam war without many casualties. And the Afghanistan war while we're at it.