One of the scenarios we prepare for is the complete absence of any form of government, or at least the local governments we rely on to keep things quasi-normal. When the chaos is too great or the resources are overwhelmed due to illness, panic or scale of the issue, the systems we rely on now for support in bad times can disappear. Hospitals can become overcrowded and stop accepting patients. Police departments can be overwhelmed if crime is reported in too many areas or riots are taking the bulk of their staff. Fire Departments can be rendered obsolete if the water stops flowing or there are simply too many fires to put out.

Without law enforcement as a deterrent to crimes, desperate, opportunistic or even criminally motivated people take to the streets and chaos ensues. When this happens, you have anarchy. It’s just one of the many scenarios us preppers describe as SHTF. In some instances, anarchy like behavior is tolerated as in the 2015 riots in Baltimore where the mayor wanted to give protestors some “space” to destroy.

“IT’S A VERY DELICATE BALANCING ACT BECAUSE WHILE WE TRY TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY WERE PROTECTED FROM THE CARS AND THE OTHER THINGS THAT WERE GOING ON, WE ALSO GAVE THOSE WHO WISHED TO DESTROY SPACE TO DO THAT AS WELL, AND WE WORK VERY HARD TO KEEP THAT BALANCE AND TO PUT OURSELVES IN THE BEST POSITION TO DE-ESCALATE.” – BALTIMORE MAYOR STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE

The Anarchy I am referring to today is not your usual (these days) run of the mill rioting over social injustices – perceived or real, hypocritical outrage from the outcome of a political race or made up issues people want to scream about (hoop earrings, really?). I am specifically talking about situations caused by internal or external triggers that instead of leaving police in a position to allow thugs “space to destroy”, they are incapable of stopping it even if they wanted to. When this happens, things get violent quickly and for the prepper caught in the wrong place, they can turn deadly. Have you considered what you would need to do if you found yourself in that type of situation?

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