Hollywood screwed up people’s idea of what SHTF looks like...

[Wanderling]

Just a rant, after listening to yet another former military buddy who is preparing for what he thinks may happen in a SHTF scenario...

It will not look like The Walking Dead. It will not look like Escape from New York, or a dozen other Hollywood idiocies.

It is all around us today, and it was all around us always. The real SHTF is Detroit in 1992, or Sarajevo in 1993, or parts of what used to be the Soviet Union in the 1990s, the areas south - and perhaps even some north - of the Mexican border today, or Iraq, or Syria, etc.

You will not be rummaging through the rubble for months, unable to find basic tools or clean your rifle. The stores will still be open. The police and military will still be there. The police will likely be openly corrupt and in cahoots with criminals, and the military will treat any armed person as a hostile. There will be mass confiscations of weapons and a thriving black market for guns at the same time. The problem with buying ammo won’t be the lack of availability, more likely it will be outright illegal and buying ammo on the black market would be just like buying a large supply of drugs- possible but illegal and dangerous.
Running around with a rifle in the woods would probably be ok as long as you are careful. Running around openly armed in any populated area would be suicidal unless you are well connected or well protected. The debate shouldn’t be AR-15 vs AK-47 and what parts would be more replaceable after the civilization is wiped out, but what’s the best gun that you can defend yourself with and carry without drawing attention.

It’s pointless to prepare for military style urban warfare unless you expect to be with police or become a gang member. There will still be helicopters and armored cars and night vision equipment and armed drones and well organized and well trained teams of professionals - except that more often than not, the people with a badge will be the same or worse than the criminals.

It will be less about warfare and more about survival, evasion, blending in, situational awareness and conflict avoidance.

Study the real situations, not phantasy ones...

OK the rant is over

 

[Browning]

Might want to change the title to something that doesn't have SHTF in it if you expect it to survive.

 

[kheeka]

I couldnt disagree more, it will be more like the Bosnian civil war. Neighbor vs neighbor, stores open?... exactly who is going to go to work when the shooting starts, minimum wage retail clerks? ... yeah right. Cops will be the first to stay home, they will be big targets and will want to protect their families.

"It will be less about warfare and more about survival, evasion, blending in, situational awareness and conflict avoidance." I think that this part you wrote is correct.

We kind of had a preview, the LA riots, cops wouldnt enter the area, store's shut down, streets were full of violent gangs. Imagine an entire city or the country that way not just a part of LA.

 

[George P]

Ferguson, Baltimore, and on and on.....

 

[Wanderling]

I couldnt disagree more, it will be more like the Bosnian civil war.

The Bosnian civil war had very different underlying reasons. It was an ethnic and religious conflict in a country full of mutually hostile ethnic and religious groups that in the prior decades was only held together by force. Then that force was removed...

Neighbor vs neighbor, stores open?... exactly who is going to go to work when the shooting starts, minimum wage retail clerks? ... yeah right.

Who do you think is going to work in Suidad Juarez, Mexico every day ? Who do you think went to work in Russia or some other former Soviet republic every day as the crime went sky high in the 90s? People still need jobs, they still need to make a living.

Cops will be the first to stay home, they will be big targets and will want to protect their families.

You see, you are looking at it as an individual event like an urban riot, or Catrina. This is not what we are talking about here. A societal breakdown with a huge spike in crime and corruption as, say, the result of an economic collapse, does not happen overnight, it’s a process. It takes years. People adapt. In a situation like that, the cops are in a lot of danger but they are also in a great position to make money, the good cops are quickly replaced by the bad cops willing to use their unique positions to their advantage. This very scenario ,again, has been happening in Mexico, this has happened in the former USSR, and here in the US the most corrupt police departments are typically in the worst crime infected, drug filled areas... why do you think it is ? Simple... power = money, and when the society falls apart, the lawful oversight of police is gone, too.

"It will be less about warfare and more about survival, evasion, blending in, situational awareness and conflict avoidance." I think that this part you wrote is correct.

We kind of had a preview, the LA riots, cops wouldnt enter the area, store's shut down, streets were full of violent gangs. Imagine an entire city or the country that way not just a part of LA.

See above, these were all unique, sudden, temporary, non-standard situations. When that becomes the way of life, people adapt. I bet you that during the infamous Detroit riot in the 60s the stores closed all over the city. And yet I also bet you that they were opened through 70s and 80s and the early 90s even thought the crime situation was getting progressively worse, and many inner city streets were probably safer during the riot than twenty years later. Just as the stores are opened right now, at that very moment, in Mexico or Somalia.

E.g. In a SHTF situation that I hear and read people talking about, and just had an argument with my buddy this morning, one of the very common themes is “well I bought a rifle XX because when things fall apart I may be spending time running around in the mud or dust and not having the time or supplies to clean it so I want the most rugged one I can get”.. no, bud, in reality you are living in a suburb, and you won’t make it far with that thing displayed in the open, if the cops don’t shoot you for carrying it illegally, the criminals would because it is a desirable object. You however can clean it all you want, just may have to pay triple for lube.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

The Bosnian civil war had very different underlying reasons. It was an ethnic and religious conflict in a country full of mutually hostile ethnic and religious groups that in the prior decades was only held together by force. Then that force was removed...



Who do you think is going to work in Suidad Juarez, Mexico every day ? Who do you think went to work in Russia or some other former Soviet republic every day as the crime went sky high in the 90s? People still need jobs, they still need to make a living.



You see, you are looking at it as an individual event like an urban riot, or Catrina. This is not what we are talking about here. A societal breakdown with a huge spike in crime and corruption as, say, the result of an economic collapse, does not happen overnight, it’s a process. It takes years. People adapt. In a situation like that, the cops are in a lot of danger but they are also in a great position to make money, the good cops are quickly replaced by the bad cops willing to use their unique positions to their advantage. This very scenario ,again, has been happening in Mexico, this has happened in the former USSR, and here in the US the most corrupt police departments are typically in the worst crime infected, drug filled areas... why do you think it is ? Simple... power = money, and when the society falls apart, the lawful oversight of police is gone, too.



See above, these were all unique, sudden, temporary, non-standard situations. When that becomes the way of life, people adapt. I bet you that during the infamous Detroit riot in the 60s the stores closed all over the city. And yet I also bet you that they were opened through 70s and 80s and the early 90s even thought the crime situation was getting progressively worse, and many inner city streets were probably safer during the riot than twenty years later. Just as the stores are opened right now, at that very moment, in Mexico or Somalia.

.......but not so much in Syria or Venezuela.

Make no mistake, there are ethnic, racial, religious, cultural, and class divisions right here in the USA which could very quickly erupt into bloodshed if the feds and cops took a year off....

 

[Zerodefect]

Agree'd, that it'll be like Bosnia.

And I'd assume the cops and feds would be targets as well. Vehicles, food, weapons, gas, even some first aid. Sitting ducks in uniforms.

 

[cheygriz]

And IMHO, the whole scenario is a pipe dream. It simply isn't going to happen.

Our society is too sophisticated, and far too heavily armed. Our soldiers are honourable men who take their job seriously. Damn seriously.

We are far more likely to slowly and peacefully degenerate into an open neo-Marxist cesspool like the European Union.

No shooting, no fighting,no pushback just day by day people giving up and bitterly accepting whatever socialist krap is shoved down their throat.

 

[Jeff White]

And we don’t do SHTF threads here.