I would like to think my family would be ok. The good thing about northern Canada is that it is not that populated, so the number of people to space is really nice. Hunting is pretty decent, see the pictures of the deer right in my back yard. I have a 40sw target pistol with a reloading press, I have enough stuff to do about 2000+ rounds right now. I also have a compound bow. I know enough of the guys with rifles that I am sure I could barter for one, and I am proficient enough with one that I could hunt less than 200m. I should be set for defending and for hunting. First thing I would do is go raid the local hunting supply store for ammo/arrows. Then go raid the pharmacy for medicine. I am mechanically inclined I do all my own work on my vehicles, I just finished completely renovations on the lower level on our house. My wife is an industrial first aid attendant. We should fair out ok. Also forgot I live right on the ocean, and I fish, so there is always that.
If it happened while we were stuck on this island we would be so fucked that fucked isn't even the right word. When all the stupid assholes in this building finally killed each other, died or jumped off their lanai the cats would eat all the corpses. In Alabama? Eh. There is more space, more places to hide, more rural areas to harvest game. We have property in the country in a tiny, tiny town with a decent amount of land. Not that things like "deeds" have any meaning once it all goes to shit, but it helps when you know and are related to half the town. In truth though, it couldn't last. There is a decent sized town/city to the south of that, and even further south is Mobile. Once the cities started caving in and people start traveling outward for resources we would be pretty boned. I think the safest places and people would be the ones truly in the middle of nowhere, like in the Appalachian mountains and such. People who already know how to live fairly independently and know the area they are in. Are there zombies in this scenario? Because that would totally change everything.
See in my community compound men who can't hunt will be put to death so the others might live. For your insolence we'll rape your dead corpse because of your insolence. Cause hunting ain't queer faggot. So anyone else not want to go the noble route? I feel like being the hilariously evil wild band of post apocalypse outlaws might be fun. First target? Rape and pillage Audrymonroe's New York hipster commune.
First thing I'm doing is going to California and mercifully but brutally bludgeoning all condors to death. Then, I'll butcher the corpses with extreme prejudice to fashion hang gliders for my Cliffjumping Pirates Of Pangapanga. Ugly-ass, garbage-eating vermin behemoth birds. Fuck them. Who told people to care about those hideous beasts in the first place?
Johnny Cash, my personal hero, almost wiped out the California condors when his motor-home had a bad wheel bearing that started a forest fire that destroyed most of their habitat. He was the only person to be successfully sued by the United States Government for starting a forest fire. Read about it here. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...
I work in IT and have led a sedentary life from the word "Go". I don't have any ability to build or repair anything past using duct tape. I've never fired a gun, shot a bow, or killed an animal that didn't have at least 6 legs. First aid ends with a Band-Aid and Neosporin. The only weapon I have (if you can call it that) is a replica of a samurai sword from Kill Bill. The only plan is autoerotic asphyxiation, while on every conceivable drug I can find.
In other words "Useful as bait." Truthfully, if things went to shit while I'm in a big city in the middle of a God forsaken desert, I'm fucked seven ways from Sunday. Put me in the woods and I'm golden, in the desert I'm fodder for the buzzards within 24 hours.
As much as I'd like to hunt my dinner, I'm not sure of the supply level in a post-apocalyptic world. To supplement the loss in protein I'd grow soybean plants and can them. I'd then end up giving crops to the locals in exchange for slave labor as they built me a castle to protect and grow my farming empire. From there I would order all virgins to my chambers for royal insemination, a blessing to receive my superior seed. I'd end skewing the gene pool with an inevitable downfall due to disease and like Rome, a great empire will be lost forever.
Plan A: Die with 99% of the population. Sorry, without the benefits of trade and mass production there just isn't enough food to go around. It wouldn't be very long until people were slaughtering each other. This isn't that bad of an option since I don't think I would enjoy living in a post apocalyptic world. Plan B: I know a few rednecks and it's them I would be meeting up with. They're jack of all trade types with good mechanical aptitude, not mention own a plethora of weapons and tools, and have good horticulture skills. I can fix cars, am proficient with most guns, and can set up a variety of security systems (electronic or otherwise) so I would have something to bring to the table. I know how to weld and hand shape metal, which would come in handy after the stores are raided. The rednecks know how to work wood and hide. I'm a good fisherman and the forest will run out of food long before the ocean. My scholarly friends are great for conversation, but they can go die their own way.
It seems like a lot of outdoorsey type people like to think they could handle and thrive in a The Road type of scenario but I imagine that it wouldn't work out like that. There are somethings that would happen that no one expects that would throw a wrench in all this. Luck would play a huge role. Depending on what that luck involves would determine a lot. I imagine I'd scrap by for a bit then fade and pass. I like life, but I'm optimistic about how I'd do. I'd probably do better than average, then at some point I'd hit a dilemma where I'd chose the wrong option. Kinda like most my life. I always learn things the hard way. And when I say always I mean dam near every time. Two weeks ago I almost dropped a fridge on my head because I'm stupid. I imagine something like that would happen in this scenario, just this time the fridge would land on my head.
True, and a random sink hole could swallow me up tomorrow. Life is all luck. I don't think anyone is seriously saying they would thrive in a survival situation, they're just saying that they stand a chance of continuing to draw breath because they have the skills to survive without outside support. That's not to say that a marauding herd of bears (Assuming that bears will suddenly become herd animals) won't throw a monkey wrench into our plans, but us "Outdoorsy Types" have basic skills that early inhabitants of this planet perfected and they managed to populate the Earth.
Because a lot of the doomsday preppers may not be the most intelligent folk, I'd use my only advantage - not being a moron. I'm hoping that not being a moron is enough, though I'm cautious. I'm thinking trick one of the preppers into coming outside (fried chicken, nascar, ammo exchange, boobs?) and then having them go into a booby trap. Bingo, I've now acquired food, water, and ammo. Then I take that stuff and try to barter for food, water, and sex. Though that probably won't work. I might try to start selling poetry or hugs. But probably handjobs.
So you're going to use fried chicken to lure someone into a trap, steal their food, and then trade that for other food? Dude you already have fried chicken, just stay home.
We're talking about foods that scale here. I'm pretty sure I can use that same piece of friend chicken to trap multiple people. You pragmatic folks go grab the water and ammo, I'm taking all the ready-to-go fried chicken because it's nose hypnotism. I'm pretty sure you could eat the chicken and keep the skin forever, and it would smell like some type of bath-and-body-works-meets-paula-deen magical aroma. Picture you're in the woods, and you've been eating black beans out of a can for a week. Then you smell fried chicken, and next thing you know you're being impaled by a bamboo shoot hidden under some leaves. Details.
Heh. My skills are limited. I'm decently strong for my size, but my cardio is shit. My outdoors skills are nonexistent, though I have an incredibly fast learning curve, so if I managed to hook up with someone who does have survival skills I would be golden. Plan in case the shit absolutely hitting the fan: Make the 2-minute drive to the house of my ex-roommate's parents. Break in (or walk in), go downstairs and grab the semi-auto M16 and ammo. Leave. Call my coworker whose boyfriend has an assortment of firearms and loves hunting. Hope he doesn't shoot me for inevitably looking at her ass. But really, in all honesty, I would probably be very, very sorely fucked.
In other words, your idea is to set up a KFC drive thru in the middle of the woods with punji sticks. Sounds like a solid plan. But what about bears? Have you even thought about that? Bears can and will wreck your shit. Man, the stories I could tell you about rogue bears...
Thread Suggestion Thread Haven't had a rogue bear, but I do kill feral hogs on a fairly regular basis out here. Couple hunts ago, shot the largest boar in the group, and everyone ran off except for one female who decided to stick around. That's when I learned the abject hilarity and deadliness of the butthole shot. Her butt was turned straight to me, and only then did I reason that if I shot her in the asshole, the bullet (FMJ target round, because I'm cheap), might travel up her spine and into her head. Guess what I did? I aimed straight for her asshole, the perfect, spherical target. She was dead before she hit the ground. Only upon cleaning her did I realize I had shattered most of her spine and the bullet was lodged in her skull.
I wonder if then again it would really be all that bad. Maybe half the population wouldn't be wiped out? I thought the scenery at the beginning of Looper painted a pretty good picture of an economic collapse.
There's been a good chunk of government money (mostly local and state, some federal cheddar) spent sending me to classes like "Tactical EMS in Austere Environments," "CTOMS Medic I & II," and other courses where I get to do cool stuff with bandaids and guns. Sadly for them, myself and the rest of the guys I work with have decided on a more selfish course of action in the event of zombies/breakdown in government/alien invasion. Our plan is simple: secure all the stockpiled disaster supplies in the fire/police logistics center then move them to a more defensible location. From there we will form our ragtag Mad-Max-style road gang and live like kings. On a more personal note, I plan on outfitting the front of our war wagon with the skulls of our enemies and weaving in bone fragments to the extra spots on my plate carrier (think Rattleshirt from Game of Thrones with modern body armor). It's not the most original or practical idea, but I feel like the compliance rate for "hand over your food, attractive women, ammo, and booze" will be higher with a scary ensamble. In other news, I should probably not read this forum while I'm drinking.