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

Part Two: Defending What Is Yours

The second issue is how to keep what you have, including your life. If this all goes south, there will be millions of people who did not prepare. They will be hungry, scared, desperate, and willing to do things they never thought they would do just to survive.

Couple them with people who were bad to start with, the criminal element that is part of any society, and you will have a lot of people trying to take what you have away from you—including your life.

You can never have too much ammo.

The first thing you need to deal with is the mindset. To survive you will probably have to do some terrible things. You will need to get that straight in your head now, because there will be no time to work out the morality of survival when some guy is trying to cut your head off with a machete. You may decide that you can’t deal with it and that’s fine, but you probably will not survive. I understand that death is preferable for some, rather than bending their moral principles.

But if you decide that it is moral to survive, you must have that clear in your mind before trouble finds you.

The next thing is being able to defend what you have. It’s here that education becomes a bit tricky.

Firearms are the only choice, and then only the right firearms. Hollywood may love the crossbow or the sword, but pick those and you will lose every time to a man with a gun.

I have been a professional gun writer for most of my adult life, and I can tell you that currently there is a lot of bad information out there about guns and defense. The Internet has made thousands of morons into instant “experts.” If you trust what some cellar-dwelling, pimple-infested, fat kid in Cheeto-encrusted sweat pants is putting on his blog, it can get you into big trouble.

Find the real experts and listen to them. They are still out there. You will need guns, lots of ammo, and the training to use both. The best training is from a true professional. You can find them at places like Gunsite Academy in Arizona or the Sig Sauer Academy in New Hampshire. Don’t think you can’t learn from them—anybody can. I am as hard-core a gun guy as you will ever meet, with half a century of shooting experience, and I learn something every time I attend one of these classes.

Professional training is always a good option.

While my personal biases will appear in this book and I don’t try to hide them, I am trying to cover each category completely and objectively enough to allow you to make informed decisions. For example, you will easily pick up that I am not a fan of the 9mm (9×19mm Parabellum) handgun cartridge for defense, but you will see that I think every prepper should have at least one 9mm handgun. The reasons for both opinions are contradictory, but sound.

My advice is to read this book cover to cover and use the info to help pick the guns you will need for defending yourself, your family, and your home. Spend some time and get it right. Each person and situation is unique, so find the best firearms for you and yours. Then find some classes that can teach you how to use those firearms for defense.

If you can’t spare the time or the money for professional classes, there are a lot of good books and videos on the market. Most gun ranges have one or two people who are experienced and willing to help. You might also look at taking up competition shooting. The military and a lot of law enforcement personnel use 3-gun shooting as a training platform, because they know it’s the next best thing to actual combat (except perhaps force-on-force training). There are matches springing up all over the country, so you can likely find a few close to where you live. Shoot the match with your defensive guns and think of it as training. You will not win, but compete against yourself with a goal to do better than the last match.

Most clubs welcome new shooters and will be very helpful in getting you through that intimidating first match.

The point is, start now; don’t wait until something happens. A survival situation is not the time to get “on the job” training.

Besides, learning all this stuff is a lot of fun.

The time is now to prepare for what’s coming. I don’t think there is a single aspect of prepping more important than protecting life and property. In good times, some make an argument that property is not worth taking a life. That’s easy to say when you live in a functioning society and have an income; you can replace the property. But in a survival situation, food, medical supplies, and other property are critical to staying alive. That changes the rules.

An AR-15 custom M4-style carbine with a BLACKHAWK! bug-out bag.

What follows is a guidebook to developing a plan and determining the tools needed for survival.