Urban Survival Preparation – Convincing Someone to Prepare

This post is actually a response from a reader comment on trying to get his wife on board with Urban Survival preparation.

This reader is in a mid-sized city close to the Atlantic coast. He said he lived in a townhouse about 8 miles from center mass of the city, whose population was between 100,000 to 500,000.

He says he doesn’t have a whole lot of room to stock Survival Gear, Equipment or Material and his wife would not support a lot of his time or money spent in Urban Survival preparation.

My response to him is: I don’t have too much advice for you other than to work on your wife understanding the need. If you can get her attention for 20-30 minutes, take her to the Economic Collapse videos and have her watch them.

Let her read my comments on how the political and economic environment are stacked against us having a normal life into the mid-term or even near future.

Tell her that Nazi Germany built and ran concentration-torture-murder camps very close to German cities without the main stream German civilian population realizing what was going on. Some of that was, for sure, people’s general disinclination not to believe things they don’t want to believe,…things too horrible to imagine…like an ostrich with it’s head in the sand.

Glenn Beck on his television program the other was talking about a probable collapse, as he believes this country has very little opportunity to avert an enormous chaotic collapse. He, like me, still hopes for the best but prepares for the worst.....like you should.

Take your wife to this site: http://thesurvivalmom.com so she can get another perspective on being prepared. Lots of females postingh survival and preparedness info on this site.

The great first danger is not to prepare. The second big danger is not to be ready to execute contingencies like when to vacate your Urban home and move to a safe location. Oh,..you don’t have safe location? Better find one and figure out how you are going to get there.

Get ready, get more ready and stay on the edge.

Responding to Reader Comment - Firearms

Thanks to the Anonymous Reader, a former PSYOPS soldier, who sent a comment regarding his recommendation of the Mini-14 as a good Urban Survival - self defense weapon. You had to have served at Fort Bragg. I know Fort Bragg well and thank you for your service to the Army Special Operations Community.

I concur that the Ruger Mini-14 is an excellent firearms. Very reliable. I have always thought of it as like a reduced scale M-14 or M1A1. The sights are kind of rudementary, but there are after market iron sights and scopes that can reduce this shortcoming. Plus, the magazines are not nearly as readily available as the AR-15 series. However, if all I had was an Mini-14, I would not feel under armed. It's the man using it and you make sense when you mention you do not plan to get involved in any protracted firefights, only to use the weapon to get you out of trouble and break contact.

I wish I still had the three Mini-14's that I have owned over my life, but I have since settled on the AR-15 design in an M-4 platform for my main carry Urban Survival weapon. Using and teaching this weapon for 30+ years makes me familiar with it. Plus there are lots of accessories, some necessary - some not, on the market.

The baseline model of Mini-14 is still around $500 to $600, whereas a baseline model AR-15/M-4 runs about $900.

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com believes that in any successful Urban Survival plan, the key is going to be your survival group. You simply cannot survival well, without at least a small team of like minded, skilled survival oriented individuals. Commonality among weapons is a good idea if it can be achieved.

Good luck to you and thanks for your comment. Urban Man.

Survival Chronicles of Jim – Chapter 14

It's been almost three weeks since I last gave Urban Man an update on my Urban Survival preparations to post to this site.

Since I finished watching the After Armageddon video series I have spent much more time thinking about my survival preparations. The 3 months or so it took the character in After Armageddon to finally pack up and leave the city was giving me a false sense of time. Then I watched the two part Economic Collapse series and it kinda put time in perspective - a collapse can hit any day!

I ordered another six cans of Mountain House meals from EarthWaveLiving, two each Peas, Granola with Blueberries and Milk, and, Eggs with Ham. That gives me about what I figure is approximately 70 days of two servings per two people (my son and me) not counting Neomi, if she ends up co-locating with us either in the City or to our safe location.

I also have about an easy ten days of food in the house not counting if I rationed it. Urban Man told me I need about a minimum of six months food per person to get through non-growing seasons then I can hunt, fish and grow crops for food...never hunted, fished quite a bit so that would be a challenge for sure.

I also bought six 5 gallon water containers so I can rapidly fillup water, along with all my other containers, when I get even a jingle of something bad coming.

I bought four more packs of rechargeable AA batteries for my flashlights and lanterns. One of the things on my short list to buy right before a collapse hits, if I get the warning or even a tingle, is another car battery so I can use it with my DC/AC converter.

My biggest purchase in the last three weeks has been a Mosin-Nagant rifle I bought at a local discount sporting goods store for $169. Urban Man looked it over and said it was in good shape and even gave me 60 rounds of 7.62x54mm ammunition for it to go with the 40 cartridges I bought from the store. So now I have amy .22 pistol, a 12 gauge shotgun and this Mosin-Nagant rifle.

Urban Man told me the history on Mosin-Nagants with the Soviet Army and told me it was roughly the equivilent of Neomi's .30-06 rifle, and would serve well for hunting and can be used in a defense purposes. Urban Man has advised me on buying an M-4 carbine, but I just ain't there yet. I just not a gun guy.

I have also started growing some squash and cucumbers in my back yard and hope to have some vegetables in the summer as well as gain some valuable experience in growing things.

Well thats my report for now. To many I am way behind, but I suspect to most Americans I would seem a kook for even doing what little I have done. Stay safe - be prepared.

Financial Reading - Reader Recommendation: Ludwig Von Mises Institute

We received a reader e-mail recommending the Ludwig Von Mises Institute, which advertises:

The Ludwig von Mises Institute was founded in 1982 as the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics. It serves as the world's leading provider of educational materials, conferences, media, and literature in support of the tradition of thought represented by Ludwig von Mises and the school of thought he enlivened and carried forward during the 20th century, which has now blossomed into a massive international movement of students, professors, professionals, and people in all walks of life. It seeks a radical shift in the intellectual climate as the foundation for a renewal of the free and prosperous commonwealth

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com see's the advantage in keeping track of all trends: geo-politcal, economic and social-demographics in order to refine and modify one's Survival Preparations. We particulary like the following quote from the Mises Web Site: "A man who is forced to provide of his own account for his old age must save a part of his income or take out an insurance policy... Such a man is more likely to get an idea of the economic problems of his country than a man whom a pension scheme seemingly relieves of all worries."

Ludwig von Mises Institute - Homepage: http://mises.org/