when does a preper become a raider

[sc1]

Yeah, I concede that I may have been a bit quick to send this guy to his maker.

[grumpy old man]

sorry but if i was looking for stuff that i needed then first the yard would be reconed to see what i was going in to and i would be covered from a concelled position and with someone next to me we would be armed.
if on my recce i saw some one i would try and make contact and test the ground to see if we could trade we should try and avoid trouble as best we can.
if talks failed then i would leave returning a week or two later and would have to take all or nothing.
it's not that i'am a nasty person but you can't hit or robb someone then think we are all going to be friends afterwards so there is no point leaving loose ends to trip you up afterwards.

but if i was the owner then i would just kill you from a concelled spot and be ready for war if you would not ask first how could i ever trust you to trade with when you frist try to steal from me.

but i am a nice person really.:-)

[Skvez]

You can recon the property but if the other person is operating sensible OPSEC it's still quite possible you may think the property is abandoned when in fact it's not. It would be very easy to have a concealed observation post in a scrap yard. Unless you have 24-hour surveillance from a number of different points that lasted many days you could easily miss the 'guard' coming and going to their concealed hidey-hole, and who has the time for that sort of surveillance.

[Reality Jones]

(13 October 2011, 00:03)grumpy old man Wrote: if i was the owner then i would just kill you from a concelled spot and be ready for war if you would not ask first how could i ever trust you to trade with when you frist try to steal from me.

but i am a nice person really.:-)

But if you had conceled yr self so well that the scrap yard appeared abandoned, how can you expect people to ask you first?

If I owned the yard I'd call to you from a concealed location and say that there were several guns pointed at you, then I'd give you the chance to explain yr self.

As for being the guy who was scavenging the oil in the first place, you may have a friend or relative hidden in the bushes who sees the yard owner with a shot gun pointed at you and then kills him first, but how does your friend/relative know there aren't ten people living in the yard who then shoot the scavenger (you) and hunt downthe yard owners assasin, eventualy finding him and killing his entire family?

[grumpy old man]

skvez
when the stakes are high you do you job to the letter
a recce takes a while to do right you need the right intel before you go in and would be done in shifts if you know what you are doing the person under the eye won't know the are being watched theirs things to look out for that the untrained person would over look. i guess if you looked at electric board you would see things i would miss.

reality jones
i would expect some one to shout and make them self seen first
i would put up signs if i wanted to make contact telling people of the danger ENTER AT RISK OF DEATH! and if that did not stop them so be it.
again it's how you go into do a job a would have someone armed standing next to me watching and if that ended the wrong way for us the man in the bushes would make sure nobody came out of the scrap yard
before entering things would be in place before hand under the cover of darkness
i never said i couldn't raid but just it would not sit well with my inner self
some people have to deal with (unreasonable people) all the time in and out side of the law and so they train for that until you cope with the job without the emotion of the situ getting in the way

[Skvez]

Why do you assume the scrap-yard owner wants to make contact? They may be defending their properly from thieves rather than setting up a shop.

Them posting a sign "enter at disk of death" is the equivalent of posting a sign "someone is surviving here, come kill me and take my stuff", it's exactly the opposite of OPSEC and being the grey man.

[Skean Dhude]

That is why we should be making friends with these people now. Then when we turn up they will know us.

[grumpy old man]

skvez
if i saw signals the yard was lived in then i would have to force contact to find out how the land lies, if i could not get a response then i would return and (raid the place) i know it sounds bad but if i need it and could not deal for it then so be it.
after an event it is not wise to be the gray man to much. if you have geared up defence and have a place that will be targeted unlike a normal house, you should give an option to talk first, when you resort to aggresstion you might have just lost.
there is a difference from operational secuirty and being the gray man.
the gray man is only a small tool in the box in an after event thing keeping a low profile is not as important as aggressive defence which is you last line of safty.

[NorthernRaider]

I think most survivalist / preppers would rarely become forcemen survivalists, raiders or brigands because of two factors.

One, most of them stockpile or cache enough food and supplies to live through short term and mid term crisise, also many of them are becoming ardent growers of their own food.
Two, Again most preppers have gone through the Mapping process and made sunstantial lists of where usuable goods and materials can be found, on top of the modest supplies of logistics most of us keep anyway.

I tend to think we are more likely to become scavengers and salvagers that raiders or forcemen survivalists, but hopefully by that time we will be bartering, trading and rebuilding instead of predating on other survivors.

At the end of the day though its going to be the toughest and best prepared who will survive.

[bigpaul]

i will be a scavenger, in actual fact i am already, its part of my way of life, if i see something discarded and i can make use of it i pick it up and take it away. i dont intend to steal or take it away from someone else, but if its been thrown away then i make use of it. skip diving for us is a way of life!