Probabilities vs Possibilities

[mercop]

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The other night the wife and I stopped by the local bookstore and I figured I would get my blood pressure to spike by looking at all the gun/knife/tactikewl magazines. The above magazine was in the front of the pack.


The best way to cause inaction, no matter what the task, is to overwhelm someone. This is an excellent example of that. This magazine should have been called Remote Possibilities.


Yesterday I visited with a friend who wanted my input on putting together a security program at his church. The church is located in York PA which is not the best area. He told me about a conversation he had with his Pastor about some things he wanted to do in reference to security. He explained to the Pastor that personal protection and preparedness were on his mind no matter where he was or what he was doing, even at church. I am the same way. The two constant themes playing in the background of my mind are my faith and personal protection and preparedness. It is not a hobby. It is not intellectual chin rubbing. It is at the core of how I live my life.


So whether you have the same mindset or are new to the game, here are some thoughts. Identifying and mitigating probabilities have an amazing way at reducing exposures to possibilities.


Washing your hands to prevent you from getting the common cold will reduce the chance of you getting Ebola.


You will use some good fabric bandaids more often than Quick Clot.


Making the habit of wearing gloves is preferred to having to incur hand trauma.


A quality knife designed to excel at cutting things will do an OK job when it comes to cutting people.


Concentrating on probabilities before possibilities will save you time, money, and energy as well as increase your sense of well being and chances of survival.


Let some other guy buy the Tyvek suit and gas mask instead of food and water.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

I never thought about myself as a prepper, but back when my kids were little, we had an ice storm and the power was off for a week. We didn't have "prep stuff", but we did have a bunch of camping stuff, a kerosene heater, and a couple of oil lamps. We dragged out the camp stove and fired up the heater and lit the lamps, and we were glad to have those things.

Maybe I'm wrong, but most of my prep stuff I've accumulated since then is geared more for the thought of being able to live if the grids go down, or if the basic necessities are either not available, or very expensive. If there's a bad Ebola outbreak, or if the machines rise against us, as least we can hole up and try to ride it out.

 

[CountryBoy19]

IMHO there are 2 distinct groups of preppers... those that prep realistically and those that prep unrealistically... Yes, I realize it's a lot more gray than that, but to make this simple I put it into black & white.

Those that prep realistically prep for the small, likely incidents first. Often times preps for those small, likely events will also "help cover you" in those remote, almost implausible scenarios.

Unrealistic preppers skip right over the simple, likely stuff and go right to the EOTWAWKI type stuff like mass NBC attack, earth-ending asteroid strike etc.

For many people that fall into the first group they may not even consider themselves a "prepper" or associate with them, but they are one. There are many things you can be prepared for. The first and fore-most of most likely is financial troubles, whether it's job-loss, large unexpected expenses etc. What good is 20,000 rounds of ammo and 20 AR15's going to do for you when you can't pay your mortgage because you broke your leg and can't work and your wife lost her job last month? Medical bills piling up, no income, no cash on hand. The money put towards those guns & ammo for the zombie-apocalypse would have been much better spent on some form of short-term disability insurance and an adequate emergency fund...

 

[Zoub]

When we would drive across places like Death Valley in summer, we always had plenty of extra water. When we drove across places like the Dakotas in winter we always had plenty of extra tools and clothing.

When we moved to Indiana 5 months prior to the great blizzard of 78, that was one giant vacation! Snow day? WTH is a Snow day? People miss school due to winter weather? I love this place! Until then the only reason I ever missed a day of school was due to smog alerts while living in LA. In Nebraska or North Dakota I never heard the words snow day.

Oh, and we moved into our newly built all electric home just days before the storm. Turns out the house had enough juice to run half a mobile home so........zap no juice. Non-issue, we were ready, just how we lived. My only regret was the snowmobile was still 5 miles up river at the farm. As it turns out, that snowmobile would become a pain in my back side, but we were always ready for an interruption in services. Be it on a long drive in hostile conditions with no gas stations or help, or the grocery stores and pharmacies being closed. More weapons these days, yes, but that is due to less death penalties being handed out and prisons becoming short term stay resorts for career criminals to heal up, train up and organize.

 

[bwframe]

Rifle classes are kewl, but the handgun is always with you. Better learn every nuance of it's operation and carry first.

 

[ar15_dude]

What good is 20,000 rounds of ammo and 20 AR15's going to do for you when you can't pay your mortgage because you broke your leg and can't work and your wife lost her job last month?...

plenty good...sell some and pay your mortgage. Had you saved that money in the bank for years, collected 1/4% interest but lost 5% per year due to inflation, you would actually have LESS money to cover the mortgage in time of need. What s the M855 ammo I paid 30 cents for worth now? Plus owning the rifles would have been an insurance policy against worst case scenario that the money would not have been.

Moderation in all things, and diversity of investments is the best plan.

 

[CountryBoy19]

plenty good...sell some and pay your mortgage. Had you saved that money in the bank for years, collected 1/4% interest but lost 5% per year due to inflation, you would actually have LESS money to cover the mortgage in time of need.

There is not a single answer for everything but consider for a moment that you're most likely to lose your job and/or experience financial hardship when the economy has a down-turn. What happens when there is a down-turn? Lots of people are experiencing financial hardships; they aren't in a position to buy your 20k rounds of ammo and 20 AR15's at full market price. You can wallow around in dreams of selling them for a profit but it's HIGHLY unlikely.

Whats the M855 ammo I paid 30 cents for worth now?

Using a panic situation as evidence to support your claims is irrelevant in this case because it VERY unlikely your financial hardship will coincide with a panic that drives prices of the commodity you've stored through the roof.

Plus owning the rifles would have been an insurance policy against worst case scenario that the money would not have been.

At what cost? There is a cost in owning those rifles/ammo.


As you said, diversification is key, and unfortunately too many people miss that. My point was, don't dump everything you've got into guns and ammo, and EOTWAWKI preps when you couldn't even feed your family a few months past a job-loss.