A recent thread pointed to some bizarre notions about punching with fists that was being perpetrated on a 'survivalist' forum. That got my gears grinding.
Survivalists. Great jumping road apples, folks.
If you're stockpiling canned food and water for the zombie apocalypse or for when TSHTF, you should just put a sign around your neck announcing you're a moron.
That is, unless you can also do a few other things that the average survivalist seems willfully ignorant of.
Do you have fire extinguishers around your dwelling? Do you know how to use them? Do you know what kind of extinguisher to use for what kind of fire? Have they been inspected recently, do you know they work?
Do you have a plan to escape your home in the case of fire or natural disaster? Have you practiced it? Do you have a family plan for meeting up outside when evacuating, so no one goes racing back into a burning building to save someone who is standing safely somewhere else and you just didn't know it?
Do you have a stockpile of the medications you need, or prescription eyeglasses you wear?
These people have little surgical kits that they proudly wave about and go on and on about which one is best, but have any of them EVER stitched up a wound?
They've got eleventy-dozen firearms and enough ammunition to start a small war, but they can't read a lensatic compass or plot a route on a topographic map, nor do they even have topographic maps of their own territory.
They stockpile gold and other valuables but don't have a plan to get fuel to keep their generators running or to fuel a vehicle to leave the area after a month or six.
They've got camouflage everything and all their gear is 'tactical', but they don't have a stockpile of socks or underwear, or feminine products, etc. They've got buried caches of weapons and money, but they don't know how to use a pick and a shovel properly.
And yeah, they can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.
Frankly, if TSHTF for real, I'm just going to find a nearby survivalist and take their stuff.
If you want to 'survive', folks, learn to read a map. Learn to tell what kind of clouds make tornadoes and what kinds of floods are likely in your area. Join local groups that *actually* do survivalist-type stuff in your community, like the CAP, Sky Warn, REACT (if they're still around, dunno), and other groups that actually are made up of citizen volunteers who have the training, equipment, and desire to pitch in and help during an emergency. If you want to be a 'survivalist', practice surviving the threats that are MOST LIKELY to occur, like your house catching on fire, not a thermonuclear event.
Silly people. Take off the camo makeup and learn to dig holes, stitch wounds, and put out fires.
