If you’ve been a reader of mine for a while you’re probably familiar with the fact that I don’t recommend people prepare with the TEOTWAWKI events in mind. Instead, I believe the best option it a general approach to preparedness, taking into consideration the events that are most likely to happen in your area.
However, with the exception of weather events, we should not rule out scenarios taking place in our area, simply because of where we live. For example, one would think that if Mexican drug cartel violence was to take place in America, it would happen in a border town. However, this happened in St. Paul Minnesota; from the StarTribune.com
“Three enforcers hired by Mexico’s biggest drug cartel flew from Los Angeles to Minnesota last month, kidnapped two local teenagers, and then tortured them for hours at a house in St. Paul in an effort to recover stolen drugs, according to court documents reviewed by the Star Tribune.”
Acting under orders from the Sinaloa cartel, the three kidnappers were trying to determine who had stolen 30 pounds of methamphetamine and $200,000 from a stash house on Palace Avenue in St. Paul. Before the episode was over, they had issued death threats against the Minnesota pair and their families, demanding that they find the missing drugs or come up with $300,000 to compensate the cartel.”
I’m not sure if I would call this complacency, willful ignorance or just someone having a blind spot. The type of scenarios I am thinking about are mostly security related in nature. I think this happens the most often to people who live in a rural, suburban or urban environment, thinking the problems of the other environments aren’t a concern for them.
The couple who homesteads on their acreage might be under the assumption that in “SHTF” they won’t have to worry about people coming in from the suburbs or the nearest large urban area. If we see an EMP event and it disables vehicular travel, you could be partially right. It would be hard to cover long distances on foot, but not impossible. If we see any other type of event, I actually think you might be more prone to see crime brought in from other population centers.
I was told by my cities police captain that 90% of our crime is drug related and comes from Minneapolis, which is a thirty or so minute drive and is the nearest large population center. Addicts come into town, burglarize homes and cars and sell/trade what they get for drugs in other cities. I also remember reading about the economic collapse in Argentina; that there were very rural homesteads that were specifically targeted because they were so remote and because there was food there. The point? Crime migrates!
I believe there is a chance we could see one of the large scale events like an EMP or a pandemic, but I don’t think it is as likely as an economic shift causing unemployment to go up to 15% or higher and aid programs to be scaled back.
People using welfare, unemployment, food stamps and other aid programs live in rural, suburban and urban locations. But if these programs are cut back and families have to get by on 20% less, for a certain segment of that population, crime is a viable option to make ends meet.
Since the population is higher in urban environments, logic dictates that there are going to be more people in a high population center affected vying for the limited resources in that area. Whether those resources are jobs, other private aid programs such as food shelves, or people to prey upon. Spreading out to other locals is a very distinct possibility.
What Can We Do?
Um, the number one thing we can do is not steal 30lbs of drugs from a Mexican drug cartel! Duh!
If you live in a suburban or rural area, don’t think that you don’t have to worry about crime from higher population areas in your backyard. If you live in an urban area, you probably don’t have to worry about the smell or peace and quiet from a rural area invading you (LOL). But the poor decisions of your neighbors could import crime from another urban area.
When it comes to security related topics of any kind, if we believe certain types of events are no risk to us, at best we become complacent and worst we put ourselves in danger. I think a good goal for our security in any situation is to not live in fear, but to be aware that there are real dangers. We are not immune because of our size, gender, what we carry for self-defense or where we live.
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