when does a preper become a raider

[Skean Dhude]

That is why weapons and defence are included in our plans.

Good people as well as bad people will get desperate. We will do what we can but if people want more and try and take it we need to be prepared to do what is necessary to stop it.

[kapncobs]

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, prepping only goes so far. Supplies dwindle, things decay - it's just entropy. Part of our immediate plan in a SHTF situation is to go to a chicken farm not far from me and arrange some sort of "protection for food" deal. This would be mutually beneficial to everyone involved.

Am I willing to take that farm by force if my party is suffering and they won't agree to a deal? Yes.

Hopefully it'd never come to that, but surviving is priority #1.

[Reality Jones]

This is what I was saying on my other post about joining a crowd.
Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain view of everyone else.

I think if I'm honest then I would have to admit that I would become a raider if I had no other choice.
My survival will always over ride anyone elses, that's just human nature. I have no children to worry about so I can afford to be a bit selfish when it comes to the issue of self preservation.

[grumpy old man]

when you do have children you views change on most things. self persevation becomes more important because if you die who's going to keep you kids safe. mike down the road?
only you and the other parent will.
the thing about running with the crowd is when the foods been eat and the weakest has lost their stuff and dead.
who does the crowd turn on? at some point they will look at you.
you have to stay with your own kind of people, i would fight to the last man while i had help because when i am the last man it's harder.
in the riots that just happened how many people used aggresstion and force to protect their stuff?
just leave it to plod or some one else and that was just kids.
when it's the last bit of food it will be harder and when the foods gone how many people will turn to canabilism.
the stakes get higher if your the raider you have to go in hard and hevay and leave no one standing alive. if your the preper you have to repell all attacks and leave no raider standing.
remember it would not just be your food they take but hurt your family, wife and kids. there would be no law just are own.

[Reality Jones]

I am in no doubt that if I had kids my view point on the whole prepper thing would be a lot different.
I think that when the crowd runs low on food and supplies it will move on to other areas of the city I currently live in, this...I hope, will enable me to drop out of the crowd (maybe I go on a raid and don't come back) without being noticed and return to my prepped and secure home and food stock. now I don't doubt that others will come looking eventualy, but my main reason for joining a local crowd is so that i can guide them away from my stuff by convincing them that I'm in the same boat that they are.

It's not a fool proof plan by any means but it's something I'm willing to consider until the heat dies down and i can bug out to my pre arranged location.

[Skean Dhude]

Kids change everything. I've had some really interesting conversations around them in a survival situation and if you would die for them or let them die.

[grumpy old man]

any good parent would die for their children and would do any thing to keep them alive.
i worry about their happyness if the SHTF meeting people having relationships having a life.

[Skean Dhude]

Grumpy,

What about when they, alone and defenceless, would also die but you could escape to get revenge?

I don't understand the last line?

[Skvez]

Indeed, to die for your child is easy but when you have children dying for one child will probably condem the other(s) to death without you to provide and protect. A decision all parents hope to never have to make.

[JD1]

I think the vast majority of us would have the capability to become raiders. We can have all the preps and stores in the world but they could be lost, destroyed, stolen etc. It doesn't matter what plans you have made or how prepared you are, you could still end up with nothing in certain circumstances

If you can't trade the skills you have in your head for food and shelter, your family or group are starving, and you see an opportunity to take what you need to survive then I imagine a lot of us would take it if the alternative was a slow death of ourselves and loved ones.

We might well be able to justify it to ourselves, ie my children were starving and they had plenty to spare, but in other peoples eye's we would quite rightly just be seen as raiders and/or looters

Fortunately I don't have children so that is one problem I wouldn't have to wrestle with, I do have a wife and other close family though so in the circumstances I mentioned above I could see myself becoming a raider, not through choice but through necessity.

Knowing how I would deal with raiders who were after my property though the chances are that most raiders will eventually come a cropper, but it's a chance a lot of desperate people will take in my opinion.