Preparing vs. Scavanging vs. Other Things

Decoys, One bird thinks in a group it's safe from me, It's not, It's nothing for me to skip a .22 across the water at a duck, It's been done.

 

call it what you may .... "scavenging" -- "re-suppplying" -- "purposeful looting" -- what ever .... you are just a confrontation away from being a raider and murderer ....

everybody says they'll be only hitting "abandoned" properties .... what exactly do you think people will be doing after a SHTF - holding a big riotous party? ..... they'll be hunkering down and quiet as a church mouse .... you kick in the back door and find a shotgun pointed at you behind bedroom door #2 .... there's other possibilities but it's likely you pull your trigger .... you just crossed over to being a raider & murderer ....

 

Scavengers? That is the PC name for thief that the SOs use to say it like it is but of course in the PC "on camera" reporting.

Thief now thief later, no sugar coating with scavenger. Three months back a number of places lost copper and other permanent installations, when caught the 3 men and one woman were called thieves.
They had been roaming in a known 3 county area stealing what they could rip out of anyplace they went. Sure that 4H arena was not in use at the moment but that didn't seem to matter to the thieves or the base ball field for the school district.

It is ain't yours then don't touch it.


This subject has drifted a bit into the Troll section.

 

I'm reminded of a sign I observed back in the day;
"Dogs and Sailors, keep off the grass"

The signs weren't there to keep you from walking on the grass, they were to remind you it's the things you do (or don't do) when nobody is looking which count the most.

Buy it cheap, stack it deep and you shouldn't need to take what's not yours.

 

I can see that some have never been to a Hurricane Party in Louisiana, Put it on your bucket list.

 

This thread reminds me of my grandpa-- not the one that left the shades open in the other thread. This one was in WWI, on the losing side. Grandpa was in the German Wehrmacht from 1915 on, but his head was too big to fit in a gas mask, so he spent the war in the rear.

When he got home, things were a mess. He had a wife and a kid by 1919, but the money was no good, the country was in ashambles, and folks were starving.

My Dad saw me one time on my way out to a hike and told me that I reminded him of his father.

"That rucksack of yours, " he said. "You are just like Pop. Every day he went out with an empty rucksack, and every night he came home with it full, and for years Mom never said a word. One day he even came home with a live sow pig-- a big one-- tied tie to his back. They all ate. They all made it. No one asked any questions." His Pop was able to save enough to emigrate to the US in 1923. He was a millionaire by the end of the decade doing home construction.

If you're looking for what it is like to be faced with a long term SHTF scenario, you only need to look at this. Today, I'm just guessing that my Grandpa has at least fifty decedents issuing from 3 sons-- two born in the US. You do what it takes to keep it going-- odd jobs, barter, etc when you can find it, and whatever else comes along when you cannot. In this sort of world being a good provider is being a good provider.

 

An abandoned homestead near me was starting to get looted by a scumbag neighbor a couple of years ago. I couldn't get the police interested. I went in and took a trailer and some equipment that I thought I might want and stored it in a safe place on my property. A year later the owner showed up from out of state. I showed him the stockpile. He kept the trailer and sold me the rest. He was grateful for my help. I protected his interest to the extent I could, and was able to acquire some stuff that would have otherwise disappeared. I didn't use any of it, but just let it sit there until the owner returned. In a societal collapse situation, I might have gone ahead and used it.