Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies- Part Two

So, here we continue, Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies – Part Two. The talk as a whole was too long, so we split it into two parts. If you missed it, please check out Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies – Part One. Might be helpful to read part one first.

This is the Table of Contents for Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies-Part Two. The title is at the top in bold black. There is a list of topics on the left and drawn picture to represent the two topics on the right. Picture one has a bobcat coming into a room through a hole in the wall. There are cans tied with string as alarms. There is an alert dog standing between the bobcat and a bag of food. Picture two shows a room scene. There is a large pile of supplies against the inter wall. There are two bears ready to fight in front of the supplies. Outside the open door stands a hyena with a happy a small stack of supplies at his feet. The hyena has a happy look on his face. The background is white with a dusty, turquoise border frame.

This is the section header for Set Up Traps for Warning and Defense. The title is in bold black. There is a drawn picture that shows a bobcat coming into a room through a hole in the wall. There are cans tied with string as alarms. There is an alert dog standing between the bobcat and a bag of food. The background is white with a dusty, turquoise border frame.

Setting up traps to give you advanced warning and to defend your stock is another part of Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies.

5. Set Up Traps for Warning and Defense

Protecting the parameter is vital in an emergency situation. You want to know that there are people coming before anyone can breach your home. The best way to do that is by setting up simple traps that stay armed and ready to send up an alarm or deter a looter.

Remember, dogs are mans best friend. A couple of big dogs can do wonders for your parameter security. But if a looter is determined enough, they may injure of kill your dogs. That is another situation you need to consider before sending your pets out into danger.

We are sure you are aware, there are all kinds of traps, trip wires, flares, and horrible things that can be used for this. Please understand, we are not suggesting that you need pits, dead man falls, or anything like that. There may come a time when you want or need those, but this is not the talk for that.

A simple trap or wire setup will alert you, and possibly scare off a looter without causing physical damage. If the looter is not put off and still comes, then you will need to consider what to do next.

An inexpensive set of trip wires can help protect your place from looters.

If you are a fan of “The Walking Dead” and its spin-offs, you have seen a basic wire setup with old tin cans. This can be very effective if making noise to alert you is your only goal.

A flash-bang, is simple and only requires a few materials. You will need electrical tape, fishing line and firecrackers such as champagne poppers. You can dump the powder out of the firecracker into the igniter and use electrical tape to put it together with the fishing line.

Make sure you leave the length of fishing line to stretch across whatever space you want to cover. Tie each end of the fishing line between two small sticks in the ground and camouflage those stakes. When someone breaches the trip wire, there will be a flash followed by a loud bang, which can scare a would-be looter off and alert you.

A simple trip wire system using a pepper spray can make a good alarm. If the thief trips the wire, they get doused with pepper spray.

One thing to consider when setting up traps and wires, they make noise, which is the point. But in some situations, not making noise may be better. Weight the risks of announcing that you are here and that you have something to defend versus keeping a low profile and letting looters move on to a place that looks more inviting.

Of course, these are meant to be used only in a real emergency or crisis situation and not when life is peaceful and no one is expecting to encounter hostility.

If you are going to set up traps and wires, be prepared for fallout. In calm times, it may be best to keep your traps and wires off and only turn them on when you really need them. Many people will not take kindly to “a nut case with traps all over the place.” There could be some legal issues you should look into before setting your traps and wires.

This is the section header for Protecting Family and Supplies in Case of a Break In. The title is in bold black. There is a drawn picture that shows a room scene. There is a large pile of supplies against the inter wall. There are two bears ready to fight in front of the supplies. Outside the open door stands a hyena with a happy a small stack of supplies at his feet. The hyena has a happy look on his face. The background is white with a dusty, turquoise border frame.

The last part of Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies is knowing what you will do if there is a break in. You will need to do some soul searching as they say and come to terms with what you will be willing to do and just how far you will be willing to go.

This is in no way a call to violence. It is the opposite, we want you to plan ahead and have things set up to repel looters. But in the worse case and a looter does break in and threaten your family, you need to know before hand, what will you do?

6. Protecting Family and Supplies in Case of a Break-In

No matter how well prepared you are to try to thwart looters there will always be that person who will do whatever it takes to get to your supplies. You certainly do not want to put your entire lot of supplies at stake.

a. Fake-Out Stash

So, what you can do is have a fake-out stash. This is a smaller amount of supplies set aside, and act like that is all you have. Most looters opt for the easiest routes. They want to take something and get out. If they feel like they have achieved their goal, they will leave. So you can use this misdirect to protect the rest of your supplies.

b. Let it Go or Fight?

You might be faced with a situation where a thief is not content with a misdirect and does find the rest of your supplies.

At that point, you will have a choice to make. You are either going to have to give up your supplies or you are going to have to fight to protect them. Fighting someone who is determined to take what you have can be dangerous and even deadly.

So you need to know exactly what the worst-case scenario is if you fight. Odds are pretty high that the looter means business if they have already pushed it this far. So they are already willing to battle for what they want.

You have to ask yourself if you have any supplies elsewhere. If you can afford to lose the stash you have there, it might be more beneficial to you to let the looter go with these supplies.

c. If You Stand and Fight?

However, if your situation is dire and there is simply no way you are going to be able to restock what you have, you need to be prepared to fight.

You may have to be willing to risk taking a life. Some people consider this a last resort, a him or me situation. If you have small children depending on the survival stores you have set aside, you may have to be willing to do bodily harm or kill to protect those you love.

d. Train for it Before

In most cases, when a looter breaks in, unless they are armed and willing to shoot anyone who moves, you can fight them off. You will want to train for situations like this, and you will want to make sure that your whole family is prepared as well.

Each of you should know self-defense and how to fight back against an intruder. Every member of your family should have some kind of personal weapon and be effective with it. It does not matter if it is a staff, a knife, a slingshot, or just a Yo-Yo. Know your weapon and your ability with it. You need to be comfortable and proficient with the weapon of your choice.

And yes, for those of you who are laughing, a Yo-Yo was originally a weapon, not a kids’ toy.

You should practice and have dry runs on what each person’s responsibility and reaction should be. It may be best for smaller children to hide in case of turmoil. You would not want them to be used as shields by looters. In the same way, older kids may need to be ready to help adults in a fight. A big dog or two is always a great way to deter a looter.

Make sure you cover when not to react, such as being outnumbered or if the person is holding a family member hostage.

It is better to stop a looter before a break-in by preparing your home and family in advance.

When you are confronted in your own home, you have the advantage. The looter will not know the layout of your home. They will not know where you have weapons stashed, or how many people are in your house able to fight. If you keep dogs, the looter may not know that. You can set things up before an intrusion to give the upper hand, but you must plan and prep for that just like everything else.

This is a section divider for Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies. There is a single, thin, dusty, turquoise line. The background is white with a dusty, turquoise border frame.

This talk may be a bit too action-oriented for some, but pretending bad things do not happen will not help you when bad things actually do happen. If you consider all the possible scenarios, have a plan for each, and practice your plans, you can help secure not only your family’s safety but your supplies as well.

We hope this talk, Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies – Part Two, has given you some good pointers and things to consider.

If you are interested in some of our other talks, please see the ones below.

Bartering and Trading

Knowing How to Protect Your Supplies – Part One

Choosing Fall Spices for Taste and Medical Properties

Build Your Own Home Apothecary

Foraging for Beginners

Thank you for visiting, and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.