Define SHTF

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We have all seen the threads “ what rifle, pistol, how much ammoâ€. How do you prepare for something with out knowing what you are preparing for? If you get your car jacked then it would be safe to say that the fan has been soiled. At least to the person getting his car jacked. What this person needs is far different then what a person needs for Chinese paratroopers dropping in their backyard.

May be it would be helpful to type classify the deferent types of SHTF. You know SHTF type #1 would be were the car jacking would fit in. The Chinese invasion would fit into a type #10 and all others would fall in between.
 
I always understood it to mean the general and widespread breakdown of social order. For example, looting, rioting, occupation by martians or whomever. That kind of thing.

It all basically means that you'll pretty much be your own law for the time being.
 
It's sort of a loose, catchall term, really.

You gotta figure your own scenario. Some of it's a function of where you live. City vs. suburbs vs. rural...

The range of possibilities could be something like the Rodney King riots, or a more widespread version thereof. Or, a national-level whoopilah...

There's no "one size fits all", although certain needs would be common to all insofar as food and water and personal security. This latter varies with the length of time of the troubles...

Art
 
I've been led to believe it is any situation that takes you out of the normal, cushy existance that is life, and inserts you into a life and death struggle.
SHTF is way too loosely used, and broadly defined, calling on all those important mall ninja tactics we've learned.
:neener:
 
Hmm... I think of a complete SHTF scenario as being something along the lines of a foreign invasion, maybe some major terrorist attack, or an uprising against the government/civil war.
 
Hmm... I think of a complete SHTF scenario as being something along the lines of a foreign invasion, maybe some major terrorist attack, or an uprising against the government/civil war.
 
SHTF could also mean massive government oppression, or outside invasion.
 
Most of the SHTF definitions I see here feel more TEOTWAWKI, but I think we need a third setting.

The SHTF when malignant forces move act you without regard for your life, liberty or property.

When the social order breaks down on a limited (in terms of either time or space) basis, the S also HTF.

It's TEOTWAWKI when malignant forces act against us all on a widespread, unlimited basis without regard for our life, liberty, or property.


So, do we use SHTF for the eruption of both personal/family and regional conflicts?
 
I think the originator MUST define the scenario adequately. With the proper parameters and limitations, you can call it whatever you want.

I think there are two broad personal scenarios: at home and travel.

And several broad macro scenarios:'

Large scale riots (likely)
Civil war (remote)
Small scale invasion (that includes Kalifornians :D )
Oppression by Govt. (likely)
 
I define it as any situation where my life or the life of another nearby is threatened, but I might also use it to describe a less lethal situation like an all-day traffic jam like the one that hit Boston last winter. It took me two and a half hours to get from Beacon Street on the common to South Station. The S definitely HTF that day 'cause it hit everyone.
 
And when does SHTF become TEOTWAWKI?
Click to expand...
When the Wife Unit comes home and discovers you've been using the dishwasher to clean the frames of your polymer pistols?

In my simplified world, a SHTF scenario would result in massive upheavals that would fundamentally alter the social order (e.g., riots, revolutions and/or civil wars that would lead to a new system of government), whereas a TEOTWAWKI event would probably lead to the extinction of mankind (e.g., an asteroid hitting the earth and wiping out all life except for cockroaches and lawyers).

DL
 
This is an easy one. TEOTWAWKI involves plague zombies, spikey-haired mutants, and harpoon-launching dune buggies. TSHTF does not.

Is there anything else I can reassure you about?
 
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President Hillary Rodham Clinton appoints Attorney General Janet Reno, and the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg declares the Constitution unconstitutional.
 
Devonai's best, IMNSHO.

"I define it as any situation where my life or the life of another nearby is threatened, but I might also use it to describe a less lethal situation like an all-day traffic jam like the one that hit Boston last winter. It took me two and a half hours to get from Beacon Street on the common to South Station. The S definitely HTF that day 'cause it hit everyone."

Agreed, with exceptions.

Many aspects re SHTF; from personal, regional, national, to world-wide - you get to pick.

Personal could entail any degree of relatively immediate threat to loss of rights, property, life, or even "propriety." Being accosted by "bad guys" fits.

I was accosted by "our finest" at the point of a gun & was my closest to SHTF in many a year - still working that, & was the furthest from my mind as a SHTF scenario. Nonetheless, it was - immediate threat of death by gunshot - totally out of my realm of thinking. Makes me reconsider many a thing.

Regional could be a bit more drastic where a flood, forest fire, etc. could impose a general sense of "unwellness." Even though we on The Newz aren't experiencing it, you may.

National may expose one from anything akin to relocations due to ecconomic trends to overall firearms confiscations. You get to choose. You should be prepared.

World-wide would suck worse.

SHTF is when you are in immediate danger of loss of life, liberty - or ... but that's the real wonder, no?

You get to choose when the SHTF.
 
"I've been led to believe it is any situation that takes you out of the normal, cushy existance that is life, and inserts you into a life and death struggle."
Great definition Atc1man, that is how I use the term.
It most often does not involve weapons of any kind. I had a SHTF senario happen to me a couple years ago. I got a new truck and decided to see how it ran off road. I was about 80 or 90 miles from the nearest occupied building when I had a flat tire. The SHTF when I realized that I didn't have a jack in my new truck. This immediately became a possibly life threatening emergency.
It might be being lost, it might be losing your job with no way to put food on the table, it might mean a natural disaster.................................. We used to simply call it a survival situation but that wasn't cute enough so we switched to SHTF.
 
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