The fears aren’t unfounded. Clinton’s gun ban crippled many gun stores and increased the prices of assault weapons already in circulation to such a degree that the average Joe couldn’t afford them anymore. Buying guns now is hedging bets that when the next draconian gun law passes (and it will with a Obama win) people will have already purchased the guns targeted, meaning they can’t be seized and they’ll be immune from the inevitable price jump.

But Obama isn’t Bill Clinton and these aren’t the 90s Democrats in office. Gun buyers are counting on two things that may well not happen. The first is that guns already purchased will be “grandfathered” in, meaning they’ll be exempt from new laws. But that relies on Democrats fearing a backlash from gun owners, led by the N.R.A. and Republicans. I don’t see that in the Democrats who are preparing for full filibuster proof control of the government.

The second is that the Democrats won’t consider gun house to house confiscation. Again I don’t buy that from today’s Democrats. The Clinton’s were Centrist Democrats and they’re justice department militarized the A.T.F. and allowed them to kick in plenty of people’s doors, including those who turned out to be innocent. Today’s Democrats have rejected the centrism of the Clintons, and with that the hope of Democrats reasonableness. Purchase a gun they have their eye on now, and you’ll be getting a no knock warrant served on you in about a year and a half.

I’m purchasing more guns now rather than later too, but I’m factoring in what Democrats will be willing to do now that they have absolute power and a base that has shifted far enough to the left as to be indistinguishable from European socialists. On the other hand the Dems have to be aware that a large segment of their base owns guns, so they can’t make a full press to ban them out of hand. I’m using these general guidelines:

• Assault Weapons will be banned and it is unlikely Dems will Grandfather previously owned weapons. Curio and Relic license holders may be safe with collector’s arms such as the SKS. I’m not saying that you should dump your precious AK, but why shell out $500+ on a second one now that someone will be confiscating it?
• Handguns will be restricted. Look for at least magazine capacity limits, more likely some sort of universal licensing scheme. As in my former abode of New York City handguns will likely end up a privilege of the wealthy only. I’d purchase a revolver if looking for a handgun, because it’s more politically correct and move to a “red state” where the local legislature may challenge restrictive federal regulations.
• Ammunition costs will increase. They already have due to material costs but the Democrats have floated measures like bullet taxes which are again designed to price the poor and middle classes out of exercising their Second Amendment rights. Decide on a few caliber’s you’ll need in an emergency and lay in a large supply. I started my battery with a 20ga Mossberg 500 (with the dreaded pistol grip!) and my newest acquisition is a Stoeger 20ga Coach Gun. So I’m buying up all the 20ga I can, plus .410 and .45 colt for my other emergency arms. Doing it now will save you money in the long run.
• The ATF will be checking on your arsenal. If you live in a state where person to person paperless sales are still legal I’d go that route and cache arms in case the ATF goes nuclear after TEOTWAWKI. Otherwise pattern your gun collection to look more “sporty.” Cowboy action shooting is a fast growing sport for example, so lay in some side by sides and single actions. The Democrats will redefine guns as sporting goods so make sure your arsenal can pass as a typical sporting collection.

Look, it’s possible that the Democrats in charge will run to the center or, even better, bow to the “Blue Dogs” and not move on guns at all. It’s also possible I’ll stumble on buried treasure while planting my tomatoes. Neither are things it’d be wise to count on.

Survivalism has become more mainstream and with it the desire of more Americans to own top of the line assault weapons, the theory being that they’ll need quasi-military firepower to survive the hordes of zombies/road warrior extras/illumnati foot soldiers that populate their post-apocalyptic fantasies. The hard truth is that if you can’t make your way through the world, apocalypse or not, with a shotgun and a good knife you aren’t surviving TEOTWAWKI, period. The Democrats are going to limit your ability to purchase the military style gear many armchair survivalists think will protect them in the bad times, so it’s time to start planning for a world where your hunting and self-defense needs will be filled by old fashioned rifles and shotguns.

From The Smirking Chimp:

If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, D.C., which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed.

[...]

If Obama officially wins, McCain is likely to challenge it, charging the Obama campaign with some of the very crimes engaged in by McCain himself. Our reaction should be exactly the same in the event of a McCain challenge as in the event of a McCain “victory.” We should not sit back for even a split second and wonder how it will work out. We should not try to organize a plan on the spur of the moment to travel to key battleground states. We should be prepared already to immediately travel to Washington, D.C., head straight for the White House, occupy Lafayette Square Park, the Ellipse, and surrounding streets, block entrances, and shut the place down until Obama is recognized as the president elect or we are guaranteed a credible election with universal registration and hand-counted paper ballots.

We may be there for days or weeks or months. But we must be there. We must be there by the millions. We must show each other, and the nation, and the world that we have had enough, that we will not stand for one more stolen election, that we will not give in to fear, lies, theft, and intimidation. If they choose to attack our nonviolent gathering of citizens, let them do it right in front of George W. Bush’s White House with the world’s media watching. We will not back down.

In other words, no matter who wins Swanson wants to initiate the kind of civil unrest that would leave the country in chaos. Again, Swanson may not hold sway over many (though he has a following) but in this case I think he’s simply got his finger on the pulse of the most radical of the left.

Politics aside, are you ready for a couple of weeks of civil unrest? Can you hole up in your house for an extended period of time? If it isn’t safe do you have a plan to bug out?

It pains me as an American ot say this but in the two weeks before this election you need to prepare for Rodney King Verdict level riots whether obama wins or not.

If you haven’t you need to get together enough supplies to be able to stay off the streets for at least a couple of week. If you live in a big city you may want to make arrangements to either being out of the city around then or have a plan in place that will get you out of harms way, without getting stuck on the highways.

I’m personally “bugging in” and the wife and I have about 2 months of food on hand at any given time. I’ve purchased extra ammunition and we have everything we need to stay in the house for weeks if need be. Make a list and put together your supplies now. Here’s some things that you may want during civil unrest or political instability in addition to the food, water and medical supplies you’ve hopefully put away.

• Fire Extinguishers-dont’ skimp either. "Activists" have been becoming more violent and Molotov cocktails are going to be the most common weapon you run into in a politically driven riot. Emergency services will be working overtime in a real riot, so be prepared to put out any fires started yourself.
• Dust Mask/Safety Goggles-The RNC protesters nearly blinded an octogenarian by throwing chemicals in his eyes, and the people who will be rioting are coming from the same pool. i expect bleach/drain cleaner/urine to be thrown around with reckless abandon. Add some latex gloves in to clean up the chemicals that get thrown on your car.
• Clean Clothes-If America’s political fault line cracks plan on not going to the laundromat for awhile, and there may be disruptions in electricity or water service in a worst case scenario, leaving that washer/dryer combo useless. I’ll have all my clothes clean and ready come election night.

• Plywood/Tools-November will be a bad month to have a window broken, and if there is civil unrest of the scale Swanson is planning you’ll be waiting a while to get them prepared. Be ready to make any small repairs around the house yourself, keep your power tools charged and invest in a set of manual tools in case power is out for an extended period.

These are just a few things on top of the usual preparations you should have already taken. I cannot reiterate enough the need for you to be able to live off the supplies in your house for at least a month and for every family to have an emergency plan.

If Swanson and company get their wish and “shut the country down” you will be on your own, are you ready for that? If not, then you have a lot of work ahead of you.

From Fox Business:

The Dow celebrated the one-year anniversary of its all-time high by closing below the 9000 threshold for the first time since June 2003 and ending in the red for the seventh straight day.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression continues to engulf Wall Street, carving out 5,500 points from the index since last October, including 2,200 points over the past seven days alone.

The Dow Jones Industrial fell 678.91 points or 7.33%, to 8579.19, the broad S&P 500 dropped 75.02 points, or 7.62%, to 909.92 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 95.21 points, or 5.47%, to 1645.12. The consumer-friendly FOX 50 dropped 54.54 points, or 7.37%, to 685.16.

“Having an eight-handle on the Dow is a scary picture but it’s just representative of what we’ve seen over the last 10 trading days. It’s pretty scary business,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co. “It’s just unheard of. We’re getting to that point where it’s impossible not to think we’re hitting a bottom.”

Thursday’s plunge came despite an absence of any major negative developments. Instead, the markets focused on the continued uncertainty of the credit crisis and fears the global economy will slide into a recession.

As has been the case for much of the past week, the markets fell off a cliff at the end of the day, with the Dow tumbling 500 points in the final hour.

“I think we’re in the middle of what is panicked selling,” Scott Wren, senior equities strategist at Wachovia, told FOX Business. “I don’t know if we’re at the moment of maximum pessimism, but I think we’re pretty close.”

And the media has had nothing to do with that for the last eight years. World markets aren’t faring any better:

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) — Asian stocks fell, with the region’s benchmark index headed for its worst week on record as a credit freeze deepened, worsening the outlook for the global economy.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia slumped 5.5 percent after higher borrowing costs showed interest-rate cuts by global central banks have failed to encourage banks to lend. Yesterday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell below 9,000 for the first time since 2003. BHP Billiton Ltd. lost 7.2 percent after crude oil declined to the lowest in a year.

“Investors are pricing in a reasonably significant and protracted recession,” said Troy Angus, who helps manage $3.1 billion at Paradise Investment Management in Sydney. “The market’s anticipating corporate earnings in Australia to go down 20 percent at least.”

Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock Average plunged 4.5 percent to 8,742.48, set for the lowest since June 2003. Australian shares headed for their worst week since the 1987 stock market crash. South Korea’s Kospi index fell to its lowest since June 23, 2006, while a plunge in futures triggered a halt in program trading.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.5 percent to 90.92 as of 9:28 a.m. in Tokyo. The measure is headed for a 12 percent weekly decline, the worst since the index was created on Dec. 31, 1987.

The regional benchmark dropped 42 percent this year as mounting mortgage-related losses at financial firms caused credit to dry up, toppling banks including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and slowing global demand for Asia’s exports.

As I write this the Hang Seng is down 8%, Iceland is facing the end of it’s banking business, The Nekkei is down 9 and Yamoto Life has filed for bankruptcy.

Looks like it’s TEOTWAWKI for real kids. Get your money where you have access to it and buy tangibles like canned good, guns and toiletries. The way the economy is going they’ll be worth more than their weight in gold.

Cross posted on Red Alerts

That and a little thing called 9/11.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

A Clearfield County man who gave undercover federal agents explicit instructions on how to make what he called “bean can grenades” has been arrested on weapons charges.

Bradley Kahle, 60, of Troutville, who said the election of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would prompt a civil war, is being held pending a detention hearing tomorrow in Johnstown.

He is one of four men now charged in separate but related investigations by the U.S. Attorney’s Office related to possible militia activity.

The other three men, also in custody, were indicted by a federal grand jury last week. They will have detention hearings in Pittsburgh tomorrow.

According to an eight-page affidavit filed in Mr. Kahle’s case in U.S. District Court today, undercover officers have been meeting with him for more than a year.

On Sunday, federal agents served a search warrant on his home, finding 16 improvised explosive devices in a “gun reloading room.” They were made out of cardboard cylinders and sealed on both ends with epoxy, with non-electric fusing systems. Agents also found cans of fragmentation and bags of lead shot.

At a previous visit to his home on April 10, according to the affidavit, Mr. Kahle showed two undercover agents several firearms, including assault rifles and a sniper rifle, as well as 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

Kahle sounds like an old fashioned crazed survivalists, which I franky see nothing wrong with. But my advice to fellow survivalists is to save the bomb making until post-TEOTWAWKI especially if you live in the north east or anywhere liberals hold sway.

h/t N.T.A. Cross posted at Red Alerts.

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

 At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu, said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.”

The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

The story goes on to detail the grumbling of people who don’t realize their support for “green” this or that (especially Ethanol) has led the world to the brink of starvation. There is much complaining about the current trend of of big box stores limiting purchases of rice and other staples. Then the survivalists chime in:

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.

“It’s sporadic. It’s not every store, but it’s becoming more commonplace,” the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. “The number of reports I’ve been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I’d say in the last three to five weeks.”

Spiking food prices have led to riots in recent weeks in Haiti, Indonesia, and several African nations. India recently banned export of all but the highest quality rice, and Vietnam blocked the signing of new contract for foreign rice sales.

“I’m surprised the Bush administration hasn’t slapped export controls on wheat,” Mr. Rawles said. “The Asian countries are here buying every kind of wheat.”

Mr. Rawles said it is hard to know how much of the shortages are due to lagging supply and how much is caused by consumers hedging against future price hikes or a total lack of product.

“There have been so many stories about worldwide shortages that it encourages people to stock up. What most people don’t realize is that supply chains have changed, so inventories are very short,” Mr. Rawles, a former Army intelligence officer, said. “Even if people increased their purchasing by 20%, all the store shelves would be wiped out.”

Panic inducing stuff. Speakng as a crazed survivalist myself (with the fallow blog to prove it) I say Rawles, a man who uses radical leftist websites to “prove” America’s on the verge of collapse,  isn’t over stating this one. Food shortages are real and even one season of corn crop lost here to trendy eco-nonsense has serious repercussions for the rest of the world.

I’m a free marketer but in this case Bush should be looking into some export caps, because the food shortages world wide will have a cascading effect as countries buy out our stock of food, causing more shortages and ultimately more chaos. If you’re going shopping stock up on long lasting foods you’ll be able to break out 4-8 months from now when shortages drive prices up beyond the ability of many to afford.

Me? I like my canned chicken breast, baked beans and canned fruit. But you’ll want a bigger variety, especially if you have kids. Beans are a good source of protein and most canned vegetables have a long enough shelf life to make storing them when they’re on sale easy.

Don’t panic, but be prepared.

Cross Posted at Red Alerts.

The “buy gold” phenomenon now sweeping the net is the best example of rumor based marketing aimed at vulnerable groups of people willing to accept sometimes preposterous claims due to their ideological or cultural views. Gold retailers are have been marketing their services to Americans by playing on the financial fear mongering of a left leaning MSM whose anti-Bush tax cut agenda is best served by convincing people that things are worse than they actually are.

Six years of propaganda, a chaotic middle east gearing up for World War III and China’s manipulation of world currency has substantially weakened the dollar, which is not all bad news by the way, though it does often make stock holdings more volatile. Congress demanded that credit be extended to poor people a decade ago or so, and now all that lending has led to a high default rate, which also hurts stock holders, causes market turmoil and basically makes people panic.

So is gold the answer to that?

Gold can be a wise investment for investors betting against the dollar or worried about long term dollar devaluation, but for the survivalist planning for TEOTWAWKI gold is not the answer. I know, gold prices are soaring and that makes what I’m about to tell you counterintuitive, but the fact remains that survivalists who put their savings into gold are playing a sucker’s bet that will haunt them well after they emerge from whatever apocalyptic scenario they envision.

First things first. Gold is like anything else, it’s only as valuable as long as the demand for it is. Gold prices are soaring in part because of good marketing by gold dealers and affiliate marketers. Many of the sites you’ve recently visited extolling the virtue of gold are what are called M.F.A. websites.

M.F.A. stands for “Made for Adsense” and they’re a powerful money making tool for web marketers. Google’s Adsense program is popular with web marketers because you make money anytime a visitor to your site just clicks an ad; they don’t have to buy anything. Different ads pay different amounts and the best way to guarantee high payouts is to write articles containing keywords that bring up high paying ads.

Guess what term has some high paying Adsense payouts. The payout for just one click can be $1 or more. Compare that to payouts for most subjects, which are often in the pennies per click.

Putting up a site with plenty of content discussing buying gold will bring up high paying ads. Thus site developers have an incentive to put up these sites. As more of the sites crop up, more people link to them, read them and begin internalizing their message, which the developer may or may not even buy into.

If you’re getting your info from a site that looks like this, consider the source.

Consider the message too. Gold sellers want you to believe that all currency is essentially valueless (which in a certain sense it is) but that gold has a value that transcends societal instability or world wide civil unrest. To prove this they point to gold’s wild climb in value, which if anything should prove to you that the gold market is as volatile as any other market.

Gold is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it, nothing more, nothing less. Gold popularity stems from its ability to be easily worked into various forms, like rings or bracelets, making it one of the first forms of portable wealth civilization had. If you’ve ever read the old Epic poems like Beowulf or The Niebulungenleid you will find that ancient lords and ladies were called “ring givers” and similar. That’s because gold rings were used as payment to vassals for their loyalty.

But times have changed. People don’t purchase farmland and cattle with a gold earring anymore, and modern money is a state monopoly. There is no way to be 100% sure that after civil unrest or worse, collapse, that people will trade gold at the levels you bought it at, if at all.

Imagine yourself in the closest America had to a TEOTWAWKI scenario, post-Katrina New Orleans. As the days go on and people emerge to trade you grab your trusty gold coins and hit the makeshift market. You plunk down the ounce of pure gold you bought for $800 and change (you bought at a premium) at the table of some enterprising fellow and then … what?

He gives you roughly $800 worth of goods and services for a coin he may or or may not get $800 bucks for when things normalize? He takes your word for it that it’s worth at least $796 or so?

Or he gives you less for it than if you traded in something he could really use?

People are nowhere near as far sighted as you think and unless you live in a community of gold hoarding survivalists, Ron Paul supporters or maybe Ren Festers, the chances of you trading gold coins for services post-TEOTWAWKI and getting anything near their value is a sucker’s bet.

Gold is a good investment in general, though profit wise currency trading seems as good as gold, pardon the pun. But gold isn’t guaranteed to keep its value any more than any other material. As a survivalist I’m all about the guarantee. I use my wealth now to prepare for worst case scenarios by stocking supplies and trade goods. Things like long storing foods, blankets and candles will have value no matter what the situation.

I have no idea, if civilization really collapsed, what the local economy will look like but I think the safest bet is having goods and a set of skills people will pay for. I’m not willing to bet my family’s lives on gold.

After a short term crisis when the banks reopen your gold will be valuable. But so will your check book. Any disaster in which gold would preserve your wealth would probably not be severe enough that having a diverse portfolio would hurt you either. Gold is a good buy, as long the demand keeps the prices going up, but like anything else the bubble will burst eventually.

But that’s just my two cents. Double down on gold if you want, just give me time to set up a site with plenty of Adsense.

S&W sells the book along with gun and some basic camping gear for $1469.

The .460 S&W is considered a little less uncomfortable to shoot than the .500, so I expect most people considering the $1469 MSR priced box of goodies will go for that caliber, which has the added bonus of being able to chamber both .454 Casull and the venerable .45 LC rounds. But the .460 is still, in my humble opinion, too much gun for the average survivalist. Unless you spend all your free time at the range, and have an enormous tolerance for recoil, these new mega calibers are not for you. Just how much recoil are we talking about? Watch this vid and see what happens to this guy shooting a .460 around 19 seconds in:

Yeah, that’s alot of recoil. Granted the .460 is bear gun strong but people have been killing bears with guns for a long time now without using calibers that will make the casual handgunner develop a flinch that will affect accuracy and allow the bear in question to get a good mauling in before your next shot.

You’ll also note that the above video is of a much beefier handgun than the snub nose in the kit, which will have more kick to it due to the loss of weight. In a life and death bear attack, accuracy and fast follow up shots are what’s going to save your life, and a snub nosed .460 won’t give either to anyone but the most accomplished big bore handgunner.

Here’s what passes for rapid firing a .460: imagine if you will that a bear is charging the shooter who missed the first shot, and wounded the brute on the second (strong language warning):

A gun is a tool, like a hammer or a knife, and like a hammer or knife it is great for self defense, but its main purpose, for the survivalist, is to put meat on the table when you can’t go to a store. In bear country big bores may make sense but for the majority of us in the lower 48, who are looking for a gun to take us through some Katrina-style rough patches, the .460 is a dead end.

A revolver is an excellent platform for a survival gun, because it’s simple, reliable and less likely to break. In an emergency anyone can be taught to operate one quickly, and a misfire won’t stop the gun from working. But in a TEOTWAWKI-style disaster, you’re not just going to be defending yourself against huge omnivores, you’ll be hunting small game like squirrels and rabbits, fending off packs of feral dogs and you’ll need to have stocked up on bulk ammunition which means going for a reasonably priced caliber. The .460 excels at none of these.

The best all round survival gun is probably the shotgun, with 12ga being the top dog, though I admit to owning and being quite happy with an NEF Survivor in .410/.45. In the sprawling megalopolis of the Northeast, the little .410 does everything I need it to do. When I need to “load for bear,” I grab Federal’s 225 grain semi-wadcutter hollow points.

But in terms of a survival handgun I’d choose either a double action .357, .44 or .45. The .357 is best because most of them can also chamber lower powered .38 specials. While not an ideal bullet for small game, you could conceivably kill a rabbit without wasting too much meat, and still have plenty of oomph left in the other cylinders.

.44’s and .45’s aren’t going to leave much behind but a smear on small game, though deer and similar sized animals are routinely harvested with these calibers. But if it’s stopping power you crave these are more manageable than a .460. If you don’t mind damaging the rifling of the barrel over time (and we are talking about emergencies), I’ve seen plenty of .44 shot loads for taking small game, but I’ve never even met someone who has used them so I can’t recommend them. Taurus offers a .45./.410 revolver in various configurations that’s just eccentric enough to pique my interest. They’re actually being made to fill a demand for anti carjacking guns in Latin America, so I’m not sure how suitable they are for survival use, but let’s just say I’m still hoping for a Judge for Christmas.

Remember that you may be a weight-lifting, gunrange owner with a high tolerance to recoil, but your family, who may need to fire your hand cannon in extremis, are not likely to spend countless hours at the range to get proficient with one of these pocket monsters. And the majority of preparedness-minded people aren’t going to either. Add to that the price tag, for which you could buy multiple revolvers and dozens of Blastmatches, and what you have is kitsch in a can.

When your car or truck leaves the roadway and plunges into a body of water, it can easily sink in 3 minutes (or significantly less, depending on the weight of the car, length of the drop, angle of impact, and integrity of the door seals.) Because of the speed with which submersion occurs, waiting for first responders to rescue you simply isn’t an option. Instead, advance preparation is key if you hope to escape from your vehicle.

How do you prepare for a situation like this?

Always wear your seatbelt.
Sure, a seatbelt may give you one hell of a bruise on impact, but you’re less likely to experience head trauma if you’re safely strapped into your seat. Remaining conscious gives you a fighting chance if your car is filling with water. Plan to keep your seatbelt on as long as possible to avoid disorientation as the water rushes into the vehicle.

Understand the physics of vehicle submersion.
Once a car begins to sink, the doors and windows cannot be opened due to the immense water pressure. If you are unable to open a door or window before the car starts to sink, you will have to allow enough water into the car to equalize the pressure.This video provides an excellent visual illustration of how the pressure changes as a car becomes completely filled with water:

Make sure you have the necessary tools.
Despite what you see on TV, car windows are nearly impossible to break without a specially designed tool. One highly recommended device is the ResQMe - this ingenious little tool combines a spring loaded window breaker with a razor that can cut through stuck seatbelts. It is inexpensive (just under 10 bucks at Amazon), and is sold as a keychain to help you ensure that you actually have it when you need it.

Other popular options include the BodyGard Multifunction Emergency Tool and the LifeHammer Emergency Hammer. Just remember that windshields (and sometimes side and rear windows) are made from laminated glass that is difficult to break. Check your vehicle handbook to ensure that you have a tool designed to break the windows on your particular car.

Make sure you have the necessary skills.
Have you read the instruction manual for your auto glass breaker? Do you know how to swim?

Plan and rehearse.
Know exactly what steps you will take if your vehicle ends up in the water, always have the necessary tools in your car, and make certain you know how to use those tools. Think about how you will help passengers follow your plan. Practicing these measures, even just going over them in your mind, will help you remain calm, avoid panic, and remember your survival skills when you really need them.

image credit: dubaddict

Here’s a promo video chock full of tips for the beginning urban farmer:

The long answer is that TEOTWAWKI is both a concept and a bit of an ideology. TEOTWAWKI is literally a society changing, and likely world changing, apocalypse. When a survivalist talks about TEOTWAWKI he or she is talking about a scenario where there is total break down of civil order, where society ceases to exist and anarchy reigns. They may believe that TEOTWAWKI will happen in the context of massive natural disasters, World War III (or really the aftermath of it) or some believe that the world is slowly, inexorably sliding into a new dark ages. No matter how it’s envisioned, from a massive meteor strike to a suicidal conflict between nuclear armed opponents, TEOTWAWKI scenarios imagine the total destruction of our civilized world and the birth of a savage post-apocalyptic wasteland.

As a concept, it is actually quite useful even if you have faith that society can rebound from any disaster, natural or otherwise, because it gives you a standard of preparedness to shoot for that will take you through almost any disaster you can imagine. If you’re prepared to live through the absolute end of the world, a bad hurricane should be a breeze. When you put together a disaster plan, don’t just think about what you’d do in a blackout after a storm, don’t just plan on spending two or three days indoors after a blizzard. Instead imagine a world where you can’t buy groceries or gas, where there is no electric grid and no police force to protect you. Imagine that feeding, clothing, sheltering and protecting yourself and your family was up to you and you alone for an indefinite period of time.

Suddenly a few candles and some canned beets doesn’t seem like such good preparation, huh? That’s why TEOTWAWKI is such a useful concept for anyone wanting to be prepared for whatever life throws at them, because it sets the bar high enough that once you’ve gotten all your gear and plans together, you will literally be ready for anything.

As an ideology, I have mixed feeling about it. The idea of TEOTWAWKI has taken on an almost religious tone amongst some survivalists, and similar to the Y2K panic of the 90’s it’s easy to believe while reading some of the survivalist websites out there that people are not so much preparing for TEOTWAWKI as wishing for it. TEOTWAWKI is the survivalist version of the rapture in some extreme cases, the ultimate punishment met out by the survival gods on those who didn’t prepare for the worst.

But more importantly the TEOTWAWKI scenario envisions a very different kind of America than I do. I have seen community after community pull together after a disaster to help each other, from 9-11 to the big blackout a couple of summers ago, and I don’t see a time when barbarity will rule over us all. Anarchy in the legal sense may take place after some great disaster, but your neighbors and friends will still be your neighbors and friends, and those relationships are the foundation for civilization, and the keys to its survival.

I however am an optimist. I expect the best, but prepare for the worst.