Preppers in the paper

We do live in extreme times and it seems to be getting worse. Today I received an email contained a link to a Fort Worth (Texas) newspaper, they wrote an article about modern day survivalists, it included a blurb about Bruce Hopkins, the owner of https://www.internet-grocer.net/. Of course the article contained more, and I am conflicted about its contents. https://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1299768.html

On one hand I find the article eye opening, it’s interesting that the “main stream media” is running a story on prepping and preppers, it’s not a negative story, nothing mentioned about tin foil hats (unless you count the comments, but that is another story), no mention of gun toting conspiracy nuts, it’s all quite serious. I hope that people who aren’t normally exposed to this sort of story will open their eyes, and if even one person gets something good out of this, ie begins to prep by putting up some food, water, fuel and such, then this story is successful.

Now why should that make me feel conflicted? Honestly that part is the good part, what makes me feel weird about the whole thing is the fact that the preppers named in the story, well, they are NAMED, first and last names, including their occupations and the city where they live. I’m sure that makes the story much more believable, these are real people, living in real neighborhoods, living real lives, these aren’t the “typical” gun toting nut jobs living in a stick shack in the middle of nowhere, oh wait, that’s us and I’m not talking about us… :)

The problem with NAMING these people is it tells everyone where to go in case TSHTF, everyone who takes the Fort Worth Star Telegram, knows where a stock of food and water (and weapons) are located. Don’t think for a minute that there will not be people showing up on their doorstep if they or their families are going hungry. It makes me think about that Twilight Zone episode about the family who had a bomb shelter built into their basement, they made the mistake of letting their neighbor’s know about it, when the big one was coming, the family took shelter only to find their neighbors beating down their bomb shelter door trying to get in. The problem was the family in the bomb shelter only had enough supplies and air for themselves, they could not let in all the other people without endangering themselves. Since their neighbors had not prepared, they were willing to allow everyone to die, including those inside the shelter in an attempt to gain entry. If I recall correctly, the neighbors managed to damage the shelter door trying to get inside. People will do desperate things in desperate times.

The other thing I worry about is the government taking inventory of those who are prepping. I have read that in the USA it is actually illegal to have more than an X number of days supply of food, these are old anti-hoarding laws, these may have been revamped or may be revamped to reflect modern day circumstances. I have read that the government can come in and confiscate food stores to redistribute in times of emergencies (executive orders). Does worrying about this or believing this make me a conspiracy nut?

Perhaps, does it make it any less true? No.