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How To Protect Your Family When The Bad Guys Come Down Your Street
I have been thinking about security a lot lately. I am not sure why, but this is the latest thing that has been an ever present thought as I go through my daily activities. I suppose it is a logical extension of prepping after food and water sources are shored up that your mind would turn to security. I started to analyze our defensive options at our home since we have chosen to shelter in place should any type of disaster scenario happen. This carried me down several paths that I hope to discuss with you and they all focus around steps you can take to keep your family safe, or provide some additional protection in your home if things get really bad. This is the first post in a series about what problems you may be faced with in a WROL (Without Rule of Law) society. This is a worst case scenario but I believe that exercising your mind by thinking about issues like this could prepare you better for less catastrophic emergencies. Honestly, I hope to never be in a situation that requires these plans and methods, but I think it is valid to discuss them in terms of preparing your family.
Bugging In is not a perfect solution either
To Bug in and hunker down or to Bug Out and take your chances on the road. This is one of the major questions at least logistically for preppers and you will have people on both sides of this issue. Bugging out brings with it an entirely different set of circumstances and must be planned for in different ways. Hunkering down can eliminate one set of problems, but presents a whole new set of challenges. Further complicating the issue is that life gets a vote. Just because you make a decision now whenever everything is pretty much normal doesn’t necessarily mean that circumstances won’t change and cause your plans to need adjusting. In some cases your carefully laid plans may need to be thrown out altogether.
A lot of careful consideration usually goes into the decision to either hunker down or to bug out. I think that in no small part it comes down to your resources and your common sense when you are asking yourself these questions. First off the obvious question, do you have a place to go to? If so, bugging out becomes much more realistic. Then questions like how will you get there, what to take and who else will be going with you start to get answered. The pieces begin to fall into place and you can make a plan for dealing with the contingencies as you think of them. For a long trip, you can plan how to load the vehicles, where to refuel, storing caches of supplies along the route, alternate routes, etc.
If you have no place to go and there is not an immediate, life-threatening situation that is making you leave your home; if you have supplies such as food and water then why leave? For a lot of people, absent some impending natural disaster, disease, nuclear accident or chemical spill, staying where they are living currently is going to be the best option. You may have a support structure at your current location or family that prevents you from leaving. Even in war torn cities people stay behind and this isn’t without precedent historically. Bugging in would seem to me to be a logical choice in a lot of situations unless you have a fully stocked survival retreat within a few hours away or have friends and family to turn to within a relatively short distance. It may be the only choice you have if life steps in again and prevents you from implementing your Bug Out plan above.
Regardless of whether you chose to Bug In as part of your plan to be fully prepared, or are forced to stay where you are, you may have to deal with the unpleasant reality that usually rears its ugly head anytime there is turmoil or disasters. Humans can on one hand be incredibly loving and also incredibly evil and after a disaster there are usually stories of both. In this article I plan to talk about some steps you can take to protect your family from the later type if you find yourself Bugging In.
Know your enemy
The spectrum of people who could possibly be threats run the gambit from desperate beggar to organized gangs. Burglary and looting are crimes of opportunity. The opportunity for a burglar is usually an unsuspecting homeowner or a house that is easily broken into. Looting uses the opportunity of a situation in which the perceived enforcement of laws by police has dissolved. In time after time we see situations like Hurricane Sandy where people were looting the day after the hurricane. Some of these people were even dressed like power company workers to fool anyone who saw them poking around houses. You can expect that regardless of where you live, if the crisis is bad enough and prolonged enough there will be homes near you, maybe yours that are targets for this segment of society.
I think it is reasonable to assume if we routinely see this type of behavior with what is considered a relatively minor weather event; much worse could be expected as the level and intensity of the emergency increases. Right now even with all of the lights on, food and fuel still being shipped to stores and the welfare and unemployment checks getting delivered; we have women who are gang raped in Chicago, Veterans are beaten to death and there are attacks and murders in every major city it seems weekly. Can you imagine how bad this will get if we are plunged into total chaos? Can you foresee how completely dangerous your neighborhood might get if there is no Rule of Law (WROL)?
Staying in your home and Bugging In may be the only option you have, but depending on how serious the disaster or crisis that we are going through, that home might have to be your castle and fortress. There are some steps we can take to give you an advantage if this is your Alamo and may keep you alive to see another day. Hopefully, we can at a minimum take steps to make your house a less ideal target and keep your family safer.
There is no magic wand
With all that said, I want to be realistic with you. What I am going to suggest is not going to make your house bulletproof. It will not stop a tank or military assault or prevent a fire. It will probably not stop several determined people who have the time to attack unopposed either, but it could give you just enough of an advantage that it could save your life and hopefully make them look for an easier target. What I plan to highlight are several considerations that you can implement that are relatively easily which can make it a little harder for people who want to get in and cause you harm or try and take what you have. This should offer some protection from the casual thief or looter, not necessarily the mutant zombie biker gang.
I think it is also worth saying that if someone is intent on killing you or getting to you or your family you have to consider what you are willing to do to stop them. I do not believe that it is realistic to expect bad people to simply go away because you talk sternly to them or get in touch with the pain they are feeling. If someone has made up their mind to get to you, the very least they will do is take what can either keep your family alive (food, clothing, water, money) or safe (security). If you are incredibly lucky, the only thing they will do is take your supplies. I don’t think that is realistic though and you may be in for a very horrible lesson if things get to this point. The lesson might end up costing you your life.
What a good post. Thanks