HJL,
I enjoyed reading A Simpleton’s Guide To Preps: The Best And The Overrated, by B.H. He (she?) gave some excellent arguments against gold, generators, batteries – in one type of situation, but life is never that simple. The thing about crisis is we don’t get to choose what it looks like. It might be the lawless TEOTWAWKI they are describing. It might equally be a totalitarian jackbooted police state with severe deflation. It might be global thermonuclear war, or it might just be a national economic malaise, such as what Fernando FerFAL Aguirre went through in Argentina, 2001.
In FerFAL’s situation, those things which B.H. called “overrated” (gold, gas, antibiotics, etc.) rise in usefulness. FerFAL said that when it was over, he went right down to the pawn shop every payday and bought bags of junk gold, because at that time gold was only about $200 and he chose junk gold because no one could/would test the purity of anything traded, so bullion went for junk prices. He was grateful for his generator and batteries during the rolling blackouts, which inevitably happen in poorer countries.
You also do want a 3rd, 4th, or 5th firearm so that you may arm every member of your family, plus at least one for breakage, loss, etc. You also might want one type of firearm for one situation and another for a different situation. I can see the rationale of having a long-range hunting rifle, a shotgun, a “house” handgun, and a concealed weapon (or two!) for trips to the store in a dangerous neighborhood. However, they don’t have to be fancy. B.H. is correct that you want to avoid using prepping as an excuse to buy more of them, but don’t throw out the baby. FerFAL also was grateful for his gun collection.
It’s also an urban myth (a rather dangerous one) that you would not want to survive a nuclear attack.
It’s also a myth that medicines and antibiotics have a short shelf life. Search SurvivalBlog and you”ll find plenty of discussion on the true shelf life of many medicines. Hint: It’s longer than what is stamped on the package.
With all that said, he is absolutely right about one thing: Become a faithful, obedient Christian. So praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!
HJL Replies: It’s important to remember that when you are just starting out, prepping for every situation is overwhelming. The article by B.H. strikes a good balance on prioritizing what to prep for. When you have been prepping for three or four years, the NBC stuff starts ranking higher because you have the more likely stuff covered. When you have been prepping for 20 years, the question is never about the 4th gun; it may be about the 15th gun. It’s all a matter of perspective– where are you in your preps and what is left to cover.
o o o
Hugh,
Great article, but I cringed at the end section here; #8 NBC Equipment Why? Exactly! “WHY?”
The author stated that, “…there are some survival situations that are worse than death” implying little desire to waste trying to outfit to survive NBC weapons of mass destruction.
I can understand anyone budgeting their resources away from threats they think least probable of occurring. However, writing off prepping for a threat that you’re assuming would and could only come full blown enough to erase all hope for living means you’re hurting if it shows up not quite as big or not all at once as you expected and you hadn’t prepped for it at all. If that happened to me, I’d lose it for sure.
For many that’ll wish they were dead after a nuke detonates, it’ll have been a totally avoidable tragedy that they are at that time in such dire straights– be it injuries, radiation sickness, or family members dead or suffering.
The fact is, regarding nukes, most casualties, from both the initial blast and radioactive fallout downwind later, will have been easily avoided by the majority at risk if they’d known beforehand what to do. This is especially true, if they’d also understood that most everywhere would not become “…poisoned for centuries…”.
For instance, up to 15 times more people will be at needless risk of death or injury in the blast zone than will quickly be gone in the immediate “ground zero” area of total, unsurvivable destruction. This is the case all because they won’t know to do prompt “Duck & Cover”. Also, few know that even a last minute expedient, cramped, and uncomfortable shelter-in-place, for those downwind dealing with fallout later, will get most families through that first 48 hours as the radioactivity loses 99% of its lethal intensity. Finally, yes, while “ground zero” of a ground burst may become a Chernobyl wasteland forever, few grasp that most of the surrounding vast area outside that zone, along with all that countryside downwind, that initially required sheltering from radioactive fallout, most likely won’t be affected for long at all.
Tragically, though, knowledge that could be readily learned and the simple proven techniques that are easily grasped and employed are not widely sought out, as the majority of our population erroneously think it’s futile, bordering on lunacy, to even try to survive anything nuclear. They’ll all suffer greatly for it, and many may even eagerly invite death to escape it. This is tragic, needless loss and suffering.
Google the updated free 2-page article; “The Good News About Nuclear Destruction!” for more in-depth nuke prep info.