The thread on Mormon Doomsday Preppers ( http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,482741 ) got me thinking. Many Mormons spend a lot on food storage thinking that they will somehow not have to defend it but in a real doomsday senario all social niceties will go right out the window. Just look how people behave on Black Friday. Imagine how it would be with starving people searching for food. If you're not armed and willing to kill to protect that food storage it will be taken from you. I know serious doomsdayers also stock up on guns and ammo but I don't know of many Mormons doing that. It would seem to me you would be better off stockpiling guns and ammo instead of food. It certainly has a longer shelf life.

What do you think?

aint gonna be no "DOOMSDAY"

some people want it to happen...but i dont think it ever will now...we were on the precipice in the 60's...but not now.

just aint prepping!

As much medication I can manage to stockpile.

Medicine and the ability to use it, will be much more important than food. Even now, trauma is the number killer of people between the ages of 4 and 44. I couldnt see that getting much better.

If you're hurt or injured, you could apply a whole bunch of wheat to it and it wouldn't help. However, if you come to me and I know how to help you, I will trade saving your life for all of your Wheat, (or more likely manufactured goods, ammunition or petroleum distillates), or your stored food.

If this were to occur, the first place I would go would be to hospital pharmacies. People will hit them for narcotics, (which are relatively easy to prepare), but ignore most other medicines. Powdered antibiotics would be my first priority, then steroidal anti-inflammatories like prednisone, and then long-term chronic meds for cardiac disease, et cetera.

In the event that this really happened, there would be an immediate die off of a large number of people who are dependent upon pharmaceuticals to live. That includes me.

This die off, would lessen the demand for what few resources might be available in more urban areas...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2012 06:20PM by John_Lyle.

If you have a gun, you can always use it to obtain more food. Hunting, robbery, murder, etc... ;)

People doing that frightens me. Hence, medication.
Alternate reality would be to get a white power tattoo and make it to Idaho.



j/k!!!

Guns=power=food. Guns would obviously be the best answer.

Don't forger the booze! Stock up on guns and alcohol and you'll be set!

Liquor would be a high value trade item. Stocking up on booze would make getting other things a lot easier. Until people learn how to make their own booze...

Then, again, I'd still take a 12 year old scotch over moonshine and it's attendant dangers and terrible taste.

If you are really serious about preparing you should have close neighbors who are also into doomsday prep. You should have a pact with three or four neighbors in which you will put up a common defense. The problem you face is that you can't stay awake 24/7 to be ready to defend you home and food. And the fire power of one gun isn't very much if the would-be food thieves have multiple people with guns.

The best weapon for defending your food is a semi-automatic shotgun. This is my weapon of choice:

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Beretta-A400-Xtreme-Semiautomatic-Shotgun/1291833.uts



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2012 09:26AM by saviorself.

Use for hunting any size game and also for defense.

You can make someone else eat bullets then take their food.

It is a convenient Hollywood myth that all niceties go out the window. In fact, the survivors will be those who cooperate, not those who compete.

You can have all the guns in the world, but all it takes is one person with a gun to your child's head and you will give it all up anyway. What are you going to do, lock your whole family in a cave for the rest of their lives?

Guns will be necessary and have their place, but don't buy into Hollywood's version of calamity unless you think Reality Shows are real and family life is like a sitcom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L1VkLu29UQE

Reality, or Hollywood?

You know what's better to have in doomsday prep than guns or food? Skills. People can't take those from you, and they might make you a valuable person in your community so people WANT to keep you alive and functioning, not kill you. For example, you could become an expert in medicinal herbs, or you could be known as the neighbor with top-notch first aid skills. You could help people set up water filtration systems. If our whole system of abstract finance collapses, physical goods including all metals may become very valuable, and having the means to melt down copper, iron, etc. may make you a valued person in your neighborhood.

In fact, I'm quite good at dealing with animals. :D

My TBM family members simply cannot think beyond what they are told. I remember having a discussion with them about apocalyptic scenarios, and I said that the best thing to do would be to build a community by sharing your food storage with your neighbors to delay starvation so that the community can take stock of its assets and plan for hunting, farming, trade with other communities, etc. They were completely unable to grasp the concept of sharing and that it would be a more likely way to survive than holing up in your basement and going it alone. They don't want their neighbors to survive. They want to live long enough to watch everyone else die who doesn't go to their church. This year supply crap is nothing but spite.

All the doomsday fans really are vindictive assholes. ;)

Absolutely. Those who revel in the idea of civil breakdown believe that the deck will be reshuffled, and they will emerge as the "winners." But social dynamics and human nature will still be what they are.

In the post-apocalyptic world, tools and seeds are going to be the most valuable items.

Communities will quickly reorganize into smaller, manageable neighborhoods (tribes) with clear boundaries and your tribe will patrol your small area, protecting everyone. The gun people will be doing that while the tool/seed people are planting.

Food storage was only meant to tide us over until clean water can be found and secured and planted food can be harvested.

I imagine the rules of society regarding sharing water and other resources will be enforced by guns in a quasi-frontier form, but I don't see people holing up at all unless there is a nuclear winter (which I don't want to survive, that's for sure)

Anagrammy

Stored food tastes horrible. Guns are fun to shoot. Since the apocalypse is not going to happen, I would go with the later.

I seriously think that a lot of doomsday prepers just like shooting guns, but it is an expensive hobby so they feel guilty about it.

I also know a lot of guys in the gun world who like to talk about the Zombie apocalypse, but what you have to understand that when they do this, they are ninety percent of the time, making fun of the survivalist. Guys who shoot zombie targets, and buy zombie ammo, which is just regular ammo with a green tip, are making a political statement through a joke. They like guns, but are not interested in hearing about your cabin you have hidden up in Idaho.

Prepping is also strongly motivated by people who feel like society has rejected them, either because they are crazy, or belong to a religion that is rejected by the mainstream. They hope that the world will collapse, because they think they will somehow become important in the new one that arises, thanks to all their prep. What they don't realize, is that if our society were to collapse, it will be replaced by a new society made up of whatever local communities survive. People who find themselves on the outside would still be on the outside of whatever new society arose.

It seems for some minds it is easier, even tempting in a perverse way, to think worst case scenario.

However, temporary disruption of supplies and electricity, gasoline etc. due to shortages or natural disasters are much more likely (even inevitable) than the all or nothing- total melt down, hand carts to Jackson county mentality.

Two generators (one to trade), or propane heaters, and some food and meds to last a few weeks, would probably cover most situations.

I know its not near as heroic a visual as standing over your pile of Twinkies blasting away at the zombies.

Poisoned food storage.

Let those fuckers with the guns take whatever they want.

Who's laughing now?

I like .... yay RJ!!!

A gun is no good unless the person using it is trained.

Most people can't hit the broad side of a barn with a pistol. And probably the biggest issue is that most people aren't mentally or morally ready to kill someone. They will hesitate, and lose.

Don't even hold a gun on another person unless your're trained and ready to use it.

TV has taught me the answer is guns. But owning a gun and actually pointing it at your neighbor (who is himself starving to death) is another thing.

I tend to think those who cooperate in local groups will be better than those who isolate themselves with firearms. Sooner or later, you are going to run out of ammo.

You are going to have to have some kind of skill that is valuable to the group. Gardening skills, old fashioned technics for perserving food, first aid skills, engineering and construction skills this will keep you in good standing within the group, and the group will help to keep you alive.

the guns will come in handy for one thing...

shooting and eating other mormons!

enjoy the meal! there's PLENTY MORE where that came from...

Guns can help you get food.

Hey, the local grocery down the street is making that one work, and even Wal-Mart is copy catting...

And look at how the gun manufacturers have been having a business boom right now...

You guys who take this stuff seriously, don't be spending too much time at ldsfreedom.com

One nuclear bomb would ruin everyone's whole day however...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2012 03:17PM by SL Cabbie.

Guns. Particularly a shotgun.

You'd have a harder time shooting zombies in the head with a can of beans then with a shotgun.

You can't really defend your stuff or your friends/family very well with a water bottle. Guns, on the other hand...

Venison>>>dehydrated butter

In the (quite likely) event of tomorrow not being an end-of-the-world doomsday society-shattering apocalypse, guns are far more fun then a barrel of wheat!

This whole thread is scaring me.

You guys sound like a bunch of Bruce R. McConkie/Ezra Taft Benson/Cleon Scousen groupies. FOLKS. There is no Apocolypse. The world as we know it is not ending December 21!!

Get a grip.

(I'm sorry. Somebody had to say it).

;o)