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Introduction, Scale
I think you will agree that you will get the highest returns from your preparation investments when you make those decisions based on the relative likelihood of a range of SHTF scenarios. Unfortunately, the probability of many SHTF situations is very hard to determine, and will end up being a judgment call. However, there is some information out there on the likelihood of certain events that qualify as SHTF. This information allows us to at least calibrate our judgment calls on the likelihood of certain events, enabling us to refine our gut feelings. In doing so, we will look at a wide range of potential events, which would run the gamut of being the victim of a crime to the potential for a worldwide astrophysical cataclysm. The scale of a potential SHTF event obviously has an impact on the probability, and in ways that might not be intuitively obvious, but will at least give us some sort of basis for a planning-level judgment.
Personal SHTF Events
As shown in Table 1, based on crime statistics from calendar 2010, the probability of your being the victim of any crime is about 3.3%, and the probability of becoming a victim of a violent crime is about 0.4%. On average, in the USA, your chances of being murdered is less than 5 thousandths of a percent.
Table 1 – US Crime Rates – 2010 | ||
Per 100,000 | Percent | |
Total Crime | 3,345.5 | 3.3% |
Violent Crime | 403.6 | 0.4% |
Property Crime | 2,941.9 | 2.9% |
Murder | 4.8 | 0.005% |
Rape | 27.5 | 0.03% |
Robbery | 119.1 | 0.1% |
Assault | 252.3 | 0.3% |
Burglary | 699.6 | 0.7% |
Larceny-Theft | 2,003.5 | 2.0% |
Vehicle Theft | 238.8 | 0.2% |
Compare this to other personal SHTF events, shown in Table 2. Note you are a little over four times more likely to become a crime victim than you are to die from any cause in any given year. You are more likely to die of an accident than you are to be raped and/or murdered. If you go to Yellowstone, you are five times more likely to be attacked by a bear than you are to be hit by lightning while you are there.
Table 2 – Estimated Rates of Other Personal SHTF Events | ||
Per 100,000 | Percent | |
US Deaths, all Causes – CDC | 798.7 | 0.8% |
Heart Disease – CDC | 192.9 | 0.2% |
Accidental Death – CDC | 38.2 | 0.04% |
Being in Car Accident | 1,948.1 | 1.9% |
Struck by Lightning | 0.10 | 0.0001% |
Yellowstone Bear Attack | 0.52 | 0.0005% |
Police Misconduct – Total Pop | 2.22 | 0.002% |
Police Misconduct – Adult Pop | 2.92 | 0.003% |
Incidence per 100K LEO | 978 | 0.9% |
Active Shooter | 0.01 | 0% |
Military Action, Iraq KIA | 416.0 | 0.04% |
I took some flak for my last essay in SurvivalBlog for suggesting that Unlawful LEO Activity, or Police Misconduct, was something to actively consider as a threat. First of all, I am biased in favor of law enforcement in nearly all respects – I have nothing to prove to anyone in that regard. That said, the probability of your being involved in an event in which you become an alleged victim of police misconduct is about one-half of the probability of your being murdered, based on statistics compiled by the Cato Institute.
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