If crazed Americans trample each other over discounted TVs, what will they do to acquire supplies in an actual life-or-death crisis?

Tuesday, December 02, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Tags: preparedness, mob mentality, crazed shoppers

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(NaturalNews) As comedian Bill Burr hilariously points out, if you are stockpiling food and preparedness supplies but don't have a gun to defend it, all you're doing is gathering supplies for the biggest bully on the block.

A recent article by Daisy Luther from The Organic Prepper really nails this point by including photos of Black Friday mobs trampling each other in America, then asking the question, "What would these people act like over something that was actually a matter of life and death?"

It's probably the most important question of the year. America has become a culture where people are so delusional about what's important that they will literally trample each other to death to save a few dollars on some hot new electronics product. Yet in their own home, they have no storable food, no emergency medicine, no emergency water supplies, no backup source of heat, no water filtration devices and no clue how to survive without all the systems that keep society functioning today (the power grid, municipal water supplies, fuel at gas stations, functioning hospitals, local law enforcement, etc.).

What Daisy Luther is pointing out in asking this question is that people who would trample each other over a discounted gaming console would do a lot worse to acquire food if they were starving. They would kill you, in other words, without hesitation of any kind. After all, their mentality is "ME! ME! ME!" and they're willing to literally stomp all over fallen elderly people and children in order to get their hands on the latest gadgets.

Let's stop pretending that desperate people will remain polite in a crisis

The takeaway point on all this is that if you are currently stockpiling supplies but don't have a way to defend those supplies, you're probably wasting your time and effort. The idea that desperate members of society are going to remain polite in a power grid failure, severe food crisis or widespread social chaos is nothing more than a crazy delusion propagated by people who have lost touch with reality. The reality is that the "GET ME SOME at all costs!" mentality routinely demonstrated by crazed Black Friday shoppers is exactly the same mentality that will be amplified and focused to an extreme in a collapse scenario.

In order to "GET ME SOME!", desperate people will be willing to rob, loot, rape, steal, murder and commit arson if that's what it takes to acquire food and other lifesaving supplies. There is no limit to the actions of the desperate masses during times of social chaos and a breakdown of law and order. All mental constructs of social politeness and behavioral boundaries vanish almost overnight, revealing the animalistic dark side of human nature where behaviors are patterned in the lower brain stem, absent rational thought.

This animalistic, irrational mob behavior is very similar to what we might call "zombie" behavior.

Don't be around when the zombies come out (zombie satire section begins here)

(Much of this article is written tongue-in-cheek with some humor, so enjoy the hilarity of what follows...)

The safest strategy in dealing with all this is to be somewhere else when the zombies come out.

City zones are zombie zones, of course, because that's where the masses are the most unprepared and tightly packed in close proximity. The high population densities combined with a city's utter lack of self-reliance -- cities can't grow food within the city boundaries to feed the city inhabitants -- cause every large city in the world to be a potential "zombie zone" when things get bad.

When the SHTF, a far better strategy than stockpiling your urban apartment with a 12 gauge shotgun and 1,000 rounds of 00 buckshot is to simply be somewhere else! Why battle hoards of mindless zombies like a scene out of World War Z when you could be calmly stoking a wood burning stove to heat your quiet cabin in the woods, far from the chaos?

In a collapse, zombies have very limited range, you see. The maximum range for a typical zombie is roughly one tank of gas, which optimistically translates into about 150 - 250 miles. And that assumes few traffic jams on the outbound interstates. In reality, most highways will quickly become parking lots, and people in vehicles won't get very far. This means if your rural retreat (bunker / safe house / cabin / weekend cottage / etc.) is at least 150 miles from any major metropolitan area, you're going to be in relatively great shape as long as you can get there first (or live there full time).

You might also live closer to a city as long as your place is off the beaten path, so to speak. If your retreat is difficult to find or difficult to access, you could safely live closer to the city than 150 miles.

Limiting access to safeguard your family and property

Ideally what you want is a piece of property with just one usable vehicle entrance that can be well defended. The more access points your property has, the more vulnerable you are to zombie-driven vehicles smashing their way to your house where hungry zombies assume you've got food and other supplies.

Ultimately, what you really want is a castle surrounded by an actual water moat. A deep water channel is a superb way to stop vehicles. But unless you're an 18th-century oil baron with money to burn, building a castle with a moat is probably out of reach. So think about far more cost effective ways to protect your perimeter: trees, boulders, steep inclines, and so on. Channel all potential zombie vehicles into a single road that you can easily monitor, blockade or defend if necessary.

One really effective way to block a road like this is to buy an old bulldozer with steel tracks. These can be purchased for surprisingly little cost relative to the cost of land these days. For a little over $10K, you can pick up something like a used Caterpillar D3 tracked dozer that's still functional. You can use the dozer to move large rocks and trees, reshape the lay of your land, or block your entrance against zombie-driven vehicles. Here's a listing page on MachineryTrader.com showing used Caterpillar D3 dozers, in case you're curious. (Scroll down BELOW the featured listings to see the lower priced dozers.)



An old used tractor or other heavy equipment can also serve a similar purpose. In fact, I've known people that have purchased surplus school buses to use for both a potential road blocker and an affordable bug-out vehicle if they need to scoot. Buses are built to surprisingly rugged standards thanks to child safety laws, and they're a lot like big yellow RVs with far more ruggedized construction than a typical RV.

For example, just poking around on the search engines, I've found this 1986 International school bus in Texas for just $5K. It has a 7.3-liter diesel engine which is worth at least half the purchase price all by itself. Where else can you get a working vehicle that carries 44 adults -- or an equivalent mass of anything else -- for just five grand? It even has its own emergency exit!



The description says "There is a properly functioning engine in this vehicle." Sounds sketchy, but it might be a bargain. Sure, it probably burns fuel faster than children snarfing down Lucky Charms, but it's cheap vehicular mass with a multitude of uses in a rural retreat situation... including blocking road access when desired.

Besides, who doesn't want to own their very own diesel-powered yellow monster and relive the glory and splendor of public school transportation?

Hilariously, this second bus listing suggests the following: "GREAT BUS FOR EXPORT TO WEST AFRICA." ...Huh? Is this the Ebola Bus?

Seriously, who looks at a used school bus and thinks to themselves, "Wow, that bus would be just awesome in West Africa right now with the Ebola outbreak and all..."

Anyway, getting back to the zombies, the point of all this is to drill into your head the principle of protecting your stuff. We are all living in a society full of crazy people. They do not honor boundaries of social politeness. They do not plan ahead. And when push comes to shove -- with extra emphasis on the shove -- they are willing to do anything it takes to get what they want.

If your preparedness plans do not account for these "zombies," then you aren't prepared at all.

Check out this graphic that's going viral across the 'net, which basically says it all: