Avoid Militant Prepper Stereotypes
Kevin Felts 03.16.17
If preppers are to be taken seriously, they must avoid the militant stereotype. We need to stop talking about guns and start talking about real world prepping like what our grandparents and great grandparents used to do.
Every year, my grandmother planted a garden, and every year she would can jars of peas, beans, and potatoes. She had a large fig tree, pear trees, chickens, guineas, and turkeys. That is the kind of prepping we need to talk about.
Too many preppers focus on stockpiling guns and ammunition. That is the kind of prepping we should keep to ourselves.
Shift in Prepping Theory
The 1980s and 1990s were a turning point in prepping.
In the 1980s we saw the collapse of the Soviet Union. With the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union gone, survivalist had no clear enemy. We had nobody to point at and say, “They are the ones we need to fear.”
In the 1990s we had:
- Ruby Ridge – 1992
- North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – 1993
- Waco siege – 1993
- Federal Assault Weapons Ban – 1994
- GATT and the World Trade Organization – 1995
- United Nations Small Arms Trade Treaty
- Oklahoma City bombing – 1995
Militant conspiracy theorist played NAFTA and GATT as a way to destabilize the middle class by moving factories overseas. Then we had Ruby Ridge and Waco, both of which were played by the survivalist community as a trial run to see how the public would react.
Events like Ruby Ridge, Waco, and the theory that Timothy McVeigh was a pawn of the CIA fueled speculation that the Federal Government was turning against its own citizens to promote a globalist agenda.
The small arms trade treaty proposed by the United Nations in the 1990s fueled speculation that the United Nations would be used to disarm the United States.
None of the conspiracy theories came true, except for the middle class being devastated by free trade. That was very true. What the theories did, however, is turn preppers to the militant side of prepping.
Militant
In the 1990s there was a shift in the prepping community from being self-sufficient, to tacticool and preparing for an armed conflict. Instead of knowing our neighbors and working with them, we arm ourselves and see everyone as the enemy.
This militant mindset has a negative effect on people interested in prepping.
When someone asks about prepping, the first piece of advice should not be, “Buy a stockpile of AR-15s, AK-47s, and a thousand rounds of ammunition for each firearm.”
If survivalist want to be viewed as anything besides militant fruitcakes, they need to stop talking about how many guns they have.
