Prepper Guns: Firearms, Ammo, Tools, and Techniques You Will Need to Survive the Coming Collapse (2016)

WHY GUNS FOR PREPPERS?

What’s It All About?

Prepping is a lot more than just collecting beans, bullets, and Band-Aids.
It’s about staying alive now, before The End Of The World As We Know It happens, as well as after.

This book is not going to teach you how to plant a garden, cut up a cow, or build a bunker. It will not teach you about safe drinking water or heirloom seeds. Those are all important topics, but they are not the subject here. This is a book about the guns you will need to survive.

After all, without those, the rest is pointless. If you can’t defend yourself, somebody else will drink your water, pick your garden, and eat your beef.

We will take an in-depth look at the tools needed to stay safe during a survival situation, to protect your property, and to supplement your food sources with fresh protein. Simply put, this is a gun book, not a survival book. It won’t teach you how to survive, but it does explore the guns you will need to accomplish that goal. If you can’t defend yourself or your loved ones after TSHTF, then none of you will survive.

That’s a brutal statement, but it’s the truth. If things fall apart, you will be on your own. It doesn’t matter where you live; sooner or later bad people will find you. If there are no police, no government, and no rules, there will be people trying to rob and likely kill you. This book explores the tools to prevent that.

If you don’t have the tools, ability, and willingness to protect yourself, your family, and your survival gear, you won’t last long in a hostile world.

The idea that you can survive a massive natural or manmade disaster or a total social and/or economic collapse unscathed without the means to defend yourself, your family, and your property is naive, foolish, and a self-imposed death sentence.

I know that a lot of people don’t believe that. They will read this with a condescending snicker, all the while making remarks about tinfoil hats and crazy people. I sincerely hope they are never proven wrong and that nothing bad happens.

Those people refuse to think about the possibilities because it scares them, while others have such a profound belief in our society that they will not even consider the possibility that it can fail. There are other, naive people who believe in the inherent goodness of man and that it’s possible to reason with desperate and/or evil people under any circumstance. If any of this is describing you, this is probably not your book.

But if you believe in personal responsibility and think that protecting yourself and your family are not only moral, but also your primary job in a crisis, read on.

It’s not hard to find examples of what happens when the “system” breaks down. Just look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It was chaotic, and a lot of the cops turned out to be worse than the looters. Speaking of the looters, a few were shooting at the helicopters that were showing up to rescue people, probably including themselves. How insane is that? You simply cannot assume that anything will remain predictable or that people will remain civil or act with any sort of logic.

The rules won’t apply anymore, and when they no longer constrain the population, the worst of the worst will surface. Then, the law of the jungle applies and only the strongest will survive. The difference with man is that we rose above the animals and developed tools. The strongest now is not about muscle, claw, and fang; the strongest today is the smartest and the best prepared.

Like they say, God made man, but Colonel Colt made them equal. It’s an old and worn out cliché, but it’s true. Only we have much better guns today than when the Colt Army revolver was winning the West and that phrase was born. A tiny old lady with a pocket-sized handgun can defeat a prison-hardened, street-fighting, 200-pound man in a fight to the death. But only if she is smart, well prepared, and of a mindset to fight back.

If we experience the complete economic and social collapse that so many are predicting, you will be on your own. If you have prepared and have some food and supplies set aside, great; that proves you are smart. After all, what’s the downside? If nothing happens, the world gets back on track, and the danger abates, you will have too much food. Is that really a problem? If it is, it’s a problem that a lot of the world would love to have. I have traveled pretty extensively in the Third World and when you hear about “first-world problems” there is a lot of truth in that worn out platitude. If you find you have too much food, donate it to a worthy cause. Problem solved.

If the system breaks down, you are on your own when evil knocks at the door.

If you have too many guns, donate them to me. Again, problem solved.

The sad truth is that living in the “first world” has made us soft, complacent, and a bit foolish. If you doubt that, the next time you are in any public place filled with people, look to see how many of them have their noses buried in their phones, are wearing ear buds, or are in any other way oblivious to their surroundings. Do you really think that those people have any “situational awareness” or that they would have a clue how to react if there was an attack?

If it’s warm, take a look at how many of them are wearing flip-flops. How can they deal with a crisis where they will need to run or perhaps navigate a debris field of broken, shattered materials with such foolish footwear? These people are not thinking about what can happen because they have complete and blind faith in the system. So far, they have been right. The odds are that nothing bad ever will happen and they can go on being sheep without ever understanding that’s what they are. But if something tragic and catastrophic were to happen, they would quickly go from sheep to mutton.

How many of them do you think are prepping? How many do you suppose are carrying a gun right now? How many do you think will survive even the early days of a major crisis?

Remember, it can happen at any moment. Prepping means being ready now as well as continuing to plan for the future. Prepping means preparing for any contingency, not just the end of the world. If you find yourself in a terrorist attack at the mall this weekend and are killed because you didn’t have a gun or a plan, then the end of the world will no longer be much of a concern. For you, it just happened.

Prepping means being ready now. You can’t schedule a problem; it will happen when it happens and you must be ready. It could be a junkie trying to carjack you or it might be the total collapse of society. You can’t predict it and you can’t plan to be ready “that day” instead of now.

My friend and fellow gun writer Joseph von Benedikt posted this recently on Facebook:

“Two days ago, a pit bull leaped into my niece-in-law’s van and attacked her. Thankfully she had her Ruger LCR handy. The dog bit down on the gun and a portion of her hand—they were literally in its mouth—when she shot it. The shot knocked the pit bull back, where it started chewing on her leg while she emptied the .38 into it. It died against the gas pedal. Kudos to a courageous, prepared mama—her four little children were in the van with her.

Not all potentially deadly self-defense encounters involve humans.”

Joseph makes a very valid point: Danger comes from more than just two-legged predators. Can you imagine the carnage a savage pit bull could have done to a bunch of kids trapped inside a van? Because that woman was prepared to protect her children, they were protected. But stop and think: How many moms today pack a gun while driving their kids to the mall? Most of them have been conditioned to believe that having a gun puts the kids at risk, rather than protects them. They are foolish and naive, but they are in the majority in America today.

I have a liberal neighbor who is a prepper. He likes to shoot guns and he owns a few, but he will not carry a gun for defense. Nor will he keep one ready. Despite the fact that he is retired and lives with his wife in a rural location, he locks the guns up, unloaded, and puts the ammo in a different location. He buys into a lot of liberal misinformation, and he has been convinced that he has a greater chance of having the gun taken away and used against him than he does for protecting himself with it. Nothing I can do will change his mind. No logical argument or physical demonstration will change his belief. He may be a gun owner, but he is in the same category as the fools wearing flip-flops with their noses in their phones if the shit ever hits the fan. He has stored a lot of food and planted a beautiful garden, which will make some predator fat and happy.

I live in Vermont, which was once the safest state in the nation. While that’s changed, mostly due to importing a lot of liberal social causes, it’s still in the top five pretty consistently. But a few years ago a pit bull belonging to a homeless guy attacked a sixty-four-year-old man in the parking lot of the store where my wife shops for food. As I recall, the man lost his arm as a result. This happened in a “safe” place in a “safe” state, in good light, in the parking lot of a shopping plaza in a good neighborhood.

The point is, it can happen anywhere.

Back when Vermont was still at the top of the list of safest places to live, a woman who used to be our neighbor was abducted and murdered. A scumbag, who I won’t name, was enjoying some quality family time, drinking and smoking crack cocaine with his mother. The mom headed for bed and asked him to turn down the music. So of course, he and his buddy, another low-quality POS, killed her and her boyfriend. Then they carjacked our old neighbor, a sweet grandmother, as she showed up early for work at another food market. Her job was to arrive early and get everything ready in the bakery so that fresh bread and rolls were available when the store opened. It was three o’clock in the morning and nobody was around. It’s also notable that the carjacking took place in sight of the city police station.

They drove to New York and kicked her out in the snow. When she started praying out loud, they beat her to death, smashing her head with a boulder. The dumbasses were still driving her car when they were arrested in Arkansas. The “buddy” did the taxpayers a favor and hanged himself in jail, while the first guy admitted his guilt and was convicted under federal law and given the death penalty. Surprisingly, or not, the “do-gooders” in Vermont were more appalled that he received a federal death sentence than they were about his crimes.

More than fifteen years later he is still wasting oxygen and, in fact, a liberal, anti-death penalty, activist judge just gave him a new trial due to a technicality concerning a juror. I would not be surprised if they released him back into our community.

It’s a fact that the country is deteriorating fast and the threat level from predators of all kinds is rapidly escalating, no matter where you live. The woman with the pit bull hitchhiker lives in Utah, another “safe” place. Bad things can happen to anyone and in any place.

The government is putting you in danger, not protecting you. If you think you are safe, or that you can call a cop when a problem shows up and he will save you, then you probably believe in unicorns and global warming. There is only one person who can protect you and that is you. You can play the odds and hope nothing will happen and perhaps you will be fine, perhaps not. Or you can decide not to be a victim and take steps to protect yourself and your family. Thank God the mother in Utah chose personal responsibility.

If you decide to carry a gun, remember this simple acronym: ABC. Always Be Carrying. You can’t decide when and where a problem will happen. You can’t schedule an attack, and you can’t depend on it occurring when it’s convenient to carry a gun. It can happen in a cold, deserted parking lot late at night, in a crowded, well-lit residential area, a busy shopping mall, or on a remote country road. No place is exempt, particularly when you consider that there are a lot of threats out there, both two-legged and four-legged, and their numbers are growing every day.

I am sure this nice woman in Utah didn’t decide that was the day a pit bull would attack her, and I know our neighbor had no idea that she would be doing anything other than baking bread on that cold Vermont day. But the outcome for these ladies was very different, because one of them decided to take charge of her personal safety. I don’t mean to criticize our neighbor; she did nothing wrong, except trust the system we are told from birth will protect us.

Don’t let some piece of shit excuse for a human decide your fate. Make a decision to protect yourself, buy the gun(s) that you need, learn the proper way to defend yourself, and ABC.

That’s the first step in prepping.

In addition to everyday personal safety, prepping (as we are primarily discussing it here) is getting ready for a huge structural change in our world and society. You should be armed now, but the requirements for your guns will change if predictions come true. You must prepare for that as well.

The gun you carry now may be fine for today’s problems. But, you must think ahead and try to envision every scenario. In many possible situations, you will find that your needs will be much different.

If the collapse happens, there are going to be millions of people who did nothing to prepare. Many of these people live off the “system,” which means they expect the lights to be on, the water running, the sewers working, and the grocery stores to be stocked. They have no self-reliance skills and have their heads buried so deep in the sand that any crisis will catch them completely unaware and unprepared. They will have no idea of how to cope and panic will be their first reaction.

Most of them are probably good people. People who play by the rules, go to work every day, pay their taxes, and would never think about taking something that does not belong to them. But what happens when the system they depend on, the system they have total faith in, fails? These are people with a strong sense of entitlement. How will they react when all of a sudden they are not getting the goods and services they believe they are due?

What happens when their belief system is shattered? When everything grinds to a halt? Their water is no longer safe to drink, sewage is running in the streets, they have no food and no way to get any more food. Other people are attacking or threatening them, and they have no defenses, no way to fight back, and no governmental protection.

Perhaps they have been forced out of their homes by looters, fires, terrorists, or even organized troops. They are lost, disillusioned, hungry, and scared. They are watching their children starve, or perhaps they are sick and need medical help. These people are desperate.

Now suppose they discover you have food, water, shelter, and medicine?

“So, I’ll just share,” you say, “I am a giving person.”

Very noble—I admire you. But what happens when the next group shows up? Will you also share with them? What about the next group and the one after that?

I know it is harsh and brutal to think about, but how are you serving your loved ones by giving away all the food, equipment, and medicine that you put aside for just such an emergency? It won’t take long before you are in the same sinking boat as all those people who didn’t prepare. Your efforts saved nobody and your actions will have doomed yourself and your family.

Now, consider that you have decided your family comes first. What happens when these desperate people show up at your front door? You tell them “No,” but they won’t listen. You order them to go away, but they ignore you. There are no police to call, no one to help you, no 911. The people who refuse to leave know that and will probably decide to take all of your food and equipment. How do you plan to stop them? By “reasoning” with them as several people have suggested to me in past discussions? Good luck with that one. They are hungry and you can’t eat “reason.” The facade of civilization has crashed, and they are no longer the good people who paid their taxes, worked nine to five, took their kids to ball games, and would never steal. Those people are gone. This is survival, and in survival situations the rules don’t always apply.

In a survival situation the world is going to be harsh and brutal. Most people refuse to think about any of this just because it is so awful to contemplate. But if you have the mindset that you are going to survive, you must think about it. This will no longer be the cushy, civilized world we left behind. The soft and the softhearted are going to die. If you want to survive, as horrible as it is to contemplate right now, you will need to harden your heart. You will need to decide that survival for yourself and your family is the number one priority in life and act accordingly.

It will not be easy, but I believe that we can still maintain a moral compass during this time. That at the end we can hold our heads up and defend our actions to those who sit in judgment. But the line of that compass is going to have to change. The way we think about our lives and the world we live in will need to be much different.

Now imagine that it’s not one or two people trying to take your food, but a dozen, or fifty, or a hundred. They have left morality behind and are doing anything they can to survive. Mob mentality will be controlling their actions, and that means they will do anything to get your food and supplies. If they succeed, you and your family are dead. Are you not morally bound to repel the aggressors and save your family?

So then, tell me; how will you do that?

If you do not have the ability to defend yourself, your loved ones, and your property, and if you survive the encounter, you and your family will be joining the ranks of hungry, homeless, desperate people. If they take everything you have, you are now in the same boat they are. That means you must now abandon all morality and find weaker people that you can steal from to survive. That also means you will probably need to murder some of those people, because they will fight back. Do you think you can justify that on Judgment Day?

No?

Well then, you have only two options left. One is death. The other is to prepare yourself physically and mentally to defend your food, your property, and your family.

There are over 321 million people in the United States. Most have done nothing to prepare for a crisis. If you are among the few who did prepare, it will have done you no good if you can’t defend what you have. This book is about the tools to defend yourselves, your loved ones, and your property. It’s not a book about survival strategy, battle tactics, or how to build a remote wilderness compound. This is a gun book. It looks at the diversity of firearms, ammunition, and accessories currently available to United States citizens. It explores the pros and cons of each and makes a few conclusions and recommendations on what might be best for you and why. How can you pick the proper guns and gear if you don’t know what’s what? If you don’t understand the differences between an AR-15 and an AK-47 except to know that one is American and the other Russian in design, how do you pick the one that’s best for you? This book looks at practical issues like ballistics, expected ammo supplies in a time of crisis, and the ease of mounting a quality optical sighting system on the gun.

I suppose from now on, I’ll leave the moral issues for somebody else to debate. I have already made up my mind. My family comes first.

I will not steal another man’s property, but I also will not let him steal mine. Nor will I let him harm my family or me. I think the morality is clear here. I recognize that some do not see it as clearly, but for those of you who have made your choice, this book will help you decide on the tools you will need to survive.

If it gets as bad as some say it will, guns and ammo will be the coin of the land. If we see the social and economic collapse that so many are expecting, the currency will change. If the dollar crashes and is worth only enough to wipe your ass when there is a toilet paper shortage, then you need a means to buy food and supplies. In a survival situation, guns, ammo, and reloading supplies will be worth more than gold. Stockpiling more than you need simply means you will be wealthy after the crash and have more options.

We will explore why the guns you may have now for hunting are inadequate for defensive use and why depending on them could get you killed. If you think you can survive this with your deer rifle, read on to find out why you are wrong.

It’s a dangerous world out there and it is becoming more and more dangerous every day. Millions of people have decided to take responsibility for their own safety and the growth in the concealed carry industry is huge. This book is also full of useful information about guns for protection with or without a major meltdown. It will help you choose which guns, ammo, and accessories might work best for you for concealed carry and for home defense even in “normal” times.

Bottom line, this is a book about guns for the defense and protection of ordinary citizens: now, during, and after a major crisis. It’s a book for those who have chosen to take personal responsibility seriously, a book for those who understand that they, and they alone, are responsible for their own future. It’s an aid in helping to decide how you will prepare for that future.

Although we are exploring some dark topics, it doesn’t need to be boring. I hope that you not only learn, but that you will enjoy reading the book and maybe even get a chuckle out of it now and then. I want this book on your coffee table, or the nightstand beside your bed, or in your bathroom—wherever you do your best reading.

If it’s the bathroom, just remember that it contains very important information that makes each page valuable and stick to using dollar bills for the cleanup work, not this book.

Prepping is being prepared for any scenario and storing enough of everything to see you through.