Your advice to someone new to prepping

[David]

Okay, as we've been discussing in the virus thread, this whole 'plandemic' and 'peaceful' protesting has given a tremendous insight into the items that people will panic buy first. With this in mind;

• Basic hygiene products: We all saw TP flying off the shelves. Exactly why TP was suddenly looked upon as a TEOTWAWKI product is a bit of a mystery. I mean yeah, TP is an important convenience but there was never a proclaimed shortage. It just became a panic buy and that's an important lesson to be learned. At any time, in a crisis, a specific few items may be seen as crucial. In this case it was TP, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes. Next time it could be fuel (keep your car full and make a half tank the new empty). It could be canned food. You see how quickly the food buckets sold out. So the best advise is to stock up on these items when things are normal. Do you have enough TP to last the month (or two or three?). Have a couple of extra tubes of tooth paste? That way you're not the one getting into a fist fight over the last box of Ho-Ho's or Ding Dongs

.

• Firearms: This year has seen month after month of record firearm sales including many first-time gun owners. Most of the senior folks on the board are well trained with firearms and can dispense solid, practical advise on the topic. Pick their brains. Don't get caught up in all the gee-whiz aftermarket crap that is offered. You don't need different triggers, spring kits, connectors, flames or racing stripes on your pistol or revolver. You need ammo, training classes and practice. The reason so many people started buying guns and ammo is that they started to realize that they are their own first and best line of defense against violence.

• Medical: Do you have some medical supplies? Not just the boo-boo bandaids and a bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide. Do you have some items on hand to get you through an event? Do you know how to use those items? If not, well now you have an area to concentrate on. There are a plethora of free training classes like CPR and Stop-The-Bleed. Look in the First Aid section for all sort of links and ideas.

So three areas to consider.

[Bob]

I was just gonna say - you have a small window right now to get your "basic" preps ready if you are new...before it gets wacky again.

I'm stocking on things I didn't think I would. Then again....food and water and firearms are not issues or priorities for me at this point. So I can buy a ridiculous amount of TP.

Hygiene is a an often un-addressed topic. I need some of that blue stuff for chemical toilets...

[Bob]

Tracking update: Food buckets arrive tomorrow! see food sub-forum....


An easy two+ week extension and way more tasty than rice & beans!!!

[David]

I would offer that the events of the last year in regards to the alleged pandemic, politics, social unrest and both natural and man-made disasters to be a major wake up call for folks.

[Bob]

The Pandemic was "alleged" Dave? I HIGHLY disagree with that
- That said, it was grotesquely mishandled in every possible way, for all sorts of reasons...definitely response was simultaneously completely wrongly focussed and overblown, which is hard to do! But never let a crisis go to waste.

That said - Pandemic is, in my opinion, one of the more "realistic" EOTWAKI sort of events to be ready for. Happens often enough is is often unbeatable/stoppable, amazing medical science aside. It is not something you can just "leave" from. There is no bug out from a bug! And I maintain the very same lesson from working in Public Health:

If you DON'T want it - DON'T go out! It really is that simple. The question is how long can you do that? Almost anything COULD be beat if you could hunker down (and I don't mean "Walmart" and "Home Depot" are "essential"). Every Infectious Disease doctor in the world will tell you you either need to let it run it's course or stay out of its way - meaning stay in. Of course, Covid shows what happens when you do neither.

But it was definitely a lesson in your government can't handle things without infighting, and there are things that your government can't handle regardless. It is a virus and it doesn't care how you feel or what your ideology is.

The degree to which people are still listening to liars and fools though, makes me believe that this too will pass without improving peoples preparedness and resolve.

[Bob]

All great points


Basic hygiene products: This stuff is all long shelf life/easy to stock

Guns: Sticking with my tried and true one 12g and one handgun of choice with a box of ammo will get you through most anything. I think that held true for everyone during this (not including us folks). No one anywhere needed 500 rounds of 7.62 to survive 2020. Still - you found out how much on your own you can be.

Medical: No one saw the hospital shutdowns coming (or at least the fear of going to hospital/doctors. I upped my game here significantly during this time.

[David]

Medical: No one saw the hospital shutdowns coming (or at least the fear of going to hospital/doctors. I upped my game here significantly during this time.

What hospital shut downs? Only on the MSM and that was exposed as fake footage.

The Pandemic was "alleged" Dave?

The MSM screaming it was a pandemic doesn’t make it true. The gov saying it’s a pandemic is simply optics to show how draconian the left Governors really are. It’s not a pandemic when the survival rate is 99.9+%.

[Bob]

Hospitals stopped a lot of services....noted that they didn't close. My bad. Point is early on...before you knew it wasn't deadly, you had to consider going/not going. And a lot of things you could have gone for, were not worth it...assuming you were ready to handle your own stuff.

And the definition of Pandemic is as it always was. It was a Pandemic, I said the seriousness was in question. That said, early on it was problematic for the over 65 yr old crowd, and a lot of others until they figured out intebators killed people...But we didn't really know it was not a really bad bug.

[David]

Hospitals stopped a lot of services....noted that they didn't close. My bad.

They did? What services did they stop? Was this when multiple hospital nurses took TikTok of themselves dancing through empty corridors and waiting rooms? Seems that if they were truly 'stretched to the point of breaking' with overcrowded hospitals that resembled 'war zones' they wouldn't have time to by taking videos of themselves dancing to Christmas music.

And it would seem that the MSM would show the actual videos of 'war zone' hospitals instead of showing fake footage and getting repeatedly caught.

[Bob]

Dave - my lady works for Baycare. Hospitals stopped doing all sorts of things. I can tell you from personal experience, things that get done at hospitals got CANCELLED.

No one is arguing that there were certainly media portrayed ridiculousness. But it isn't all the other way as you like to portray it either. There absolutely were ER's that were full up, over busy, and busy with people sporting a disease about you knew nothing about,. Especially very early on.

Yes yes - I know, we are all wrong but you. Everything that happens in the entire world is the media, ANTIFA, the Democrats and the new world order. The sky isn't even blue.

You are right. I IMAGNED procedures getting cancelled. My girlfriend is plant whose entire mission is to make up things for me to tell you as a means of dis-information. I'll stop posting this stuff. I'm clearly a victim of the Democratic plot.