Self Defense and social collapse

Knives

I wanted to talk about knives first as they are not only a defense but a necessary tool. I always have a knife on me; I carry the CRKT Zilla tool at all times. Once you carry a knife all the time it becomes almost a part of you that you learn to use in place of a lot of other tools for quick fixes.

When I hike and or camp I carry a minimum of 3 knives and usually an axe to boot. This being said knives also are good defensive weapons for close combat but something I was taught a long time ago is to never use something that can be taken away from you and used against you.

This is one of the major reasons I feel throwing knives as defense is a bad strategy. In the first place you have to be very precise in your distance in order to have it hit point first and second because it can be used against you. Never throw away your knife.

Guns

Again guns are a tool as well as defense in a social collapse situation. They are a tool because they can be used for obtaining food. Everyone should know there value for defense but I wanted to talk a bit about them for defense.

You have to keep in mind that unless you are absolutely going to stay with your home no matter what, there is a high probability that you will have to travel. The majority of people live in cities where at some point during a social collapse they will have to leave in order to survive. This is what you have to keep in mind when buying your stockpile of guns and ammo. How much of this stuff are you going to be able to carry and what’s the most important for your survival.

It is quite possible that you will be on foot so probably your best bet is one semi auto rifle that has enough knock down power to take down at least medium size game and one high powered pistol. Remember you have to carry the ammo too. My own personal choice here is an SKS and a .40 cal. Pistol. I chose the SKS mainly because it and the ammo are very cheap and the .40 cal. because of the stopping power.

Best defense

As they say the best defense is a good offence and that holds true here also. Stealth is your friend in this situation. The less you or your supplies are seen the less confrontation you will likely have. With this in mind I have set up several bug out locations and have laid out the best cover routes to them.

I live in snow country so it is habit to keep my tank full of gas at all times for the weight in the back of my 4 x 4. I always lay out worst case scenarios so base my plans on walking. This way if I do get to drive I can carry more and will generally be better off.Plan on traveling in the dark of knight.

If you are in a city and on foot go plan your routes out now before you need them and check the routes from time to time to make sure nothing has changed. You do not want to find a large obstacle during a bug out. Most cities are built on or near rivers or creeks. These make good concealed paths out of the city but hike it once in a while you do not want surprises.

All this being said I am not a huge fan of collapse scenarios but have been through to many disasters to not be a prepper. It’s not that much of a stretch to go from natural disaster prepping to TEOTWAWKI prepper and with our current economic situation its better to be safe than sorry. If it was 80 years ago I would not worry as much about economic collapse but today people do not know how to live without cell phones much less no food on the table.

Tim is a back country survivalist that has lived through several major disasters. He currently helps Rocky Mountain Survival with testing their gear and sometimes writes for their blog.