Our current iteration of SHTF proves that there are always people out there ready to take things of value that do not belong to them.
You needn’t scroll very far on social media these days to see either a smash and grab or a flash mob looting a department store.
Of course, we are expected to believe that crime is not so bad because most of these thieves are never caught and even if they were they would likely not be prosecuted.
Follow that road far enough and you can see how flash mobs could wind up out front of mansions when all the stores are emptied out. You can see how your vehicles and possessions could very quickly become a target.
3 Ds of Defense
We have talked many times about home security. However, many of the same concepts can be applied to securing any area or item that is important to you.
Related: How to Make Your House Invisible After SHTF
To protect your car, you can also apply the 3 D’s concept.
Detect
Even in an SHTF situation you can depend on things like lights and cameras. Solar powered motion detecting floodlights are affordable and effective. They can even be considered a deterrent for thieves who aren’t very bold. Battery powered cameras can be recharged using powerbanks or gas generated energy if you are thrust into an off-grid situation.
Once you notice someone casing your property or even approaching your car, you will realize that it is time to consider deterrents or even actively defend the vehicle.
Deter
There are a number of ways to deter people from targeting your car or even going near it. Not just the use of car alarms but also motion alarms around the area where your car is kept. These can go a long way in deterring thieves.
A deafening alarm will not only alert you to an intruder but others who live around you. Assuming they are allies then you will be able to converge on a threat.
Human traps like tanglefoot and trip wires could also be a great way to deter people from approaching your car. You can learn here how to make off-grid automatic traps against looter and intruders.
You could even consider parking your car behind a locked high fence or even electric fencing.
Defend
If your deterrent methods are still not keeping your vehicle safe, then it becomes time to defend your property. Depending on the nature of the situation this might best be a time to use less than lethal means like pepper balls loaded into a paintball gun. In a world without rule of law you might have to consider lethality as those targeting your car might be carrying guns, too.
Concealment
Probably the best method for protecting your car from becoming a target in SHTF is to make sure that the car is concealed from the public eye. This could be in a closed garage or even parked behind your home and covered up by foliage, or some kind of camouflage.
If your driveway is empty but your car is parked behind your home and covered with something like a large ghillie blanket, then it might even be hard to discern from a drone’s eye view above.
You could even build a false structure to conceal your vehicle. A shed can be repurposed as a garage for a smaller car. A barn can be a place where your car is parked. Learn from this guide how to build an invisible root cellar and bunker in your backyard for cheap.
Even digging a short driveway that leads into the ground and can be covered with a tarp will give you some great concealment. Run some gravel over the dugout path for your car and you will be good to go.
Concealment truly favors the creative.
When “Roads = Death”
There could quickly become a time when driving your vehicle or even walking the roads in your area could become deadly.
Dave Jones the NBC Guy, a lifetime LEO, Army, and Emergency Management professional teaches that in a collapse or wartime situation “Roads = Death”
So, the key to getting the most out of your vehicle before a situation like that occurs is to transform your car into a bugout vehicle so that you can deploy as soon as things get ugly.
If you have a bug out location and vehicle to get there, then you can protect your car from becoming a target by removing it, and your family, from the situation altogether!
Related: 37 Things You Forgot to Add to Your Bug Out Bag
When the roads = death you also must take into consideration what you are using that vehicle for. Now, a pickup could be of great value for hauling things in your community.
However, heading out on a long distance trip will undoubtedly make a target of you and your car. So, consider how and when you plan on using your vehicle in SHTF.
How to Turn your Vehicle into a Bug Out Vehicle
Why wait till doomsday to create a reliable bugout vehicle? Transform your vehicle now so you can escape the chaos of someone targeting your vehicle in SHTF.
A robust bugout vehicle might also be easier to defend and to protect from attackers should they target your means of transportation.
By upgrading things like the locks and windows to make entry much harder, you will both be creating a better bugout vehicle and protecting your car in chaos.
Upgrading your tires and on road tools and safety measures is another great move. You should have kits for jumping the car, changing tires, and even towing, if the vehicle is capable.
Storing secure preps and weapons inside your bug out vehicle is an important step, too. These are not things that will be targeted because only you will know about them. Still, they will give you the ability to defend your vehicle or to get it on the road and get away from those who might target your car in SHTF or your home or your family.
Your car will be targeted in an SHTF situation. That is assuming that it is not targeted before that. Protecting your vehicle is not something to daydream about in this day and age.
Each night across America, brazen criminals test the door handles on cars, they bring saws to cut off expensive catalytic converters, and even steal vehicles outright. Without a doubt we have already reached some low level of SHTF and cars are being targeted.
No better time than the present to put some of these practices in place.
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There are progressive laws and regulations of liberals such as gun free zones, magnets for criminals to do harm or mass shootings.
The liberals who never shot a gun before don’t understand we need extra options to deter the criminals and illegals who don’t abide by the social rules.
We citizens in this nation had a federal 2A mandate of open carry that police abide by citizens can and will, must defend their persons or property. Yes we have a Constitution that emphasize the two important civil rights of the 1st & 2Amendments, many still have no idea what they are. The public schools don’t teach the standard American curriculum we had so many are unaware.
Car alarms are not standard on cars, most now are GPS locators than loud noise sirens. That an a Byrna Launcher, baseball bat and a gun will give a better chance to bag the criminal.
One more thing we need George Soros DA’s and judges who lately give a revolving door to criminals to comment more crimes. To disbar all of them from practicing law for criminals.
Yes we have embolden criminals with the liberal lawyers and judges giving criminals a free ride to do whatever they want. Today we try to protect our property we are the ones going to jail.
We don’t need new useless toothless laws, we just need the laws enforced on the criminals and a one tired justice system. Quit voting in these jerk politicians that are do nothing place holders padding their retirement accounts then doing their jobs.
Added to the 1st and 2nd Amendment comments, we have abortion in these recent times of disrespect of human babies. Than the protecting babies as the laws of animal abuse do in this country.
A long these lines of the Constitution is there is no abortion amendment whatsoever. Abortion is not a female human right, it is a legal sanctioned right by a State’s prerogative not the federal government anymore. It is a license to commit murder on unborn to born after birth to kill a baby. If so I believe in abortion so far as aborting longterm after the birth politicians and criminal illegals and terrorist on the same based State laws for abortion, fair is fair!
Pray to God, ask him to MAGA us, than Bidenomics us, in the decline of America!
Trump was found guilty on made up charges. You/I are in their sights. If you think you’re not than you are badly mistaken. This is where primitive weapons will be useful. Next in the hot seat will be the NRA board. The evangelical preachers. Huckster used boat salesman like Osteen will skate. Read the Declaration of Independence and see how that applies to Trump and by extension … you. Scary? Durn right it is.
The republic ended long ago around 1865 after the supposed civil war that was not a civil war but a war between the northern and southern states & was an act of northern aggression, it was over excessive taxation on the south 40% that could not afford to pay it so they would not survive unless they either had lower taxes or leave the union. States are all incorporated so they are corporations = a legal fiction and governed by contract law etc.
We went from a republic with common law and rights = freedom to a corporation with contract law = privilege.
Look it all up for yourself, it’s all public information.
We have 2 constitutions, the original guaranteeing our rights = freedoms, but after Lincolns civil war we illegally enacted the 2nd. Constitution, the corporate one we are under now even though it is illegal as it was not implemented correctly according to constitutional law.
Including the fact nothing past the first 10 amendments are lawful all the rest including any laws, etc. passed under them are null and void, but we are forced to abide by them anyway…Since when does government abide by any law ? Do you realize it has already been ruled on by the supreme court that no prerequisite can be place on the exercise of any right so laws interfering on any aspect of the 2a from sales to carrying is unlawful, but we are forced to abide by what the government thinks we should abide by….Remember, you can easily look it all up on your own, go to YouTube, bitchute, odysee, Amazon and look up straw man books…I did ask an online lawyer this question but received no answer, the same as i asked a YouTube pro 2a lawyer but no response…Same thing when i asked a question about cv-19 not being documented to exist and facemasks not being approved medical devices but still no reply.
Well this time the communist won by charging Trump with bogus crimes. By a former California judge who works in the corrupt New York court system. That judge is an ultra liberal that behind the scenes that coerced the jury decision.
Don’t have a court case in New York if you are a conservative.
The criminals stealing catalytic converters is very dumb for rare metals. Incidentally all the smog regulations was started in California because certain places of high traffic the land has a bowl effect where the air is not very well ventilated. The air stays stagnant so called smog builds up causing a toxic environment.
The environmentalist complain for new added laws, rules and regulations for unreasonable demands. CA Smog inspection is another government profit motive to add to the politicians tax and spending addiction.
We don’t need catalytic converters that really loose horsepower and the smog equipment added to engines to falsely cut down on smog.
As in the old muscle car era, people would regularly get tuneups to keep the engines purring correctly. Engines would be rebuilt an the engines produced less emissions. At the same time we had jerks that would drive vehicles that had bad piston rings letting the bad blue black unburnt gas into the air. Then getting a tuneup, ring job or rebuild the engine.
In Japan the government rules years ago made car owners replace their old engines with new fresh engine. The Japan parts dealers would sell those used engines in the USA as an option to do then rebuild the existing engine.
Keeping the engine in tip top shape does keep the climate change folks without ammunition to complain about stuff.
But we have been slack for decades since the 1970-1980’s as the environmentalist got involved in the social issues we have today. They started out scarring the public with global cooling, global warming then climate change. In 2012 the climate change people as before said the earth would be flooded by the polar caps melting. Well it came and gone as the previous claims they predicted.
Now China has gotten into the solar panel, EV and wind mill game of false environmental propaganda told to the public today.
Why does this website shutdown on Wednesdays for posting when other sites don’t?
Tried to post on Tuesday the comment was shutdown, what’s up with that?
Depending on where you live will determine how to react and protect
Preventive means can lead to entrapment by the legal system and also get you arrested , not the criminal
Alarms are great , sirens are great , but Dogs that obey commands and kill on command or maime or leave the attacker in a state of disfunction is best .
lights action , camera , pictures can work both ways either to defend or convict or put you the victim in harms way
This is why Loyal Dogs are best
They smell , sense , detect long before you can sense a problem
Animals can sense better than any electronic s out there. but must be trained
my cats sense a intruder or person at the door long before there is a notice .
animal s will only get you in trouble if you dont post , dont warn , and directly cause the animal to go after the ( ass ailent ) and animals dont care about politics , correctness, or law
keep your animal closer and guns close
Early warning is key , most morons , car thieves are stupid and looking for what they can steal or take . NO sense of morality, honor , code , self control
Remember learn the law s of your state or country
I agree, Christopher, castle laws vary greatly around the US, so knowing what you can and cannot do helps you decide your best course of action.
My neighborhood is generally a very safe place. A while back, some teens decided to be stupid and tried stealing my neighbor’s car. She drives a standard, and none of the kids knew how to drive one. She heard the kerfuffle, saw her car missing, and called the cops. The cops found the kids handily, as they had coasted down a hill and we’re getting out of the car. The cop asked my neighbor if she wanted to see the kids he caught fleeing her vehicle. She declined, saying that she might see them in the grocery store at some point and didn’t want to punch them and get in trouble herself.
A rather benign example to be sure, but something as simple as driving a standard transmission car or truck can stymy many who’d want to steal it.
I think the gray man idea goes for vehicles, too. Where I live there are numerous trucks, so if I have a nondescript regular sized truck that can blend in with others, that helps.
If a situation is desperate enough, people’s stupidity can soar to new levels, and that’s not including those who may be addicts, willing to do anything for their next fix.
A few neighbors near me have dogs. Some bark at anything that moves, others bark only when there’s something noteworthy occurring. Those dogs and my cats who have strong stranger danger are good sentries.
Absolutely. Nondescript is key. Trucks that stand out for any reason just aren’t gray enough IMHO. Nice/fancy accessories, flashy, chrome, new, etcetera. An older F150 that looks like someone wouldn’t want to steal it, perfect.
There have been several cases here in Texas where a citizen has shot and killed a thief trying to steal their neighbor’s car, or break into their neighbor’s house. They have been declared legal killings under Texas castle doctrine. It’s great to know shoot to kill is available in time of need.
Back in the day they shot horse thieves, today it is car thieves that need to be shot on site in the act of the crime, dead or alive still go to jail or the morgue.
The seniors who don’t press charges are smart because in George Soros DA’s that let criminals out on no bail can hurt those elder people again, a shame.
We need more pol;ice doing their jobs and beat the crap out of those criminals and post those young under 18 yrs old criminals photos in public than blurring their faces. They are common criminals and the parents must pay for their kids too, we will see a turn around in crime.
If anyone remembers Lone Wolf McQuaid? He had a beat up Ram Charger, hemi with a blower. The ultimate grey man vehicle lol!!
Someone I know (he is a mechanic) has a fully stocked ready to go bug out vehicle hidden in plain sight at his house. He is always fixing up and selling older vehicles, and he has some “parts” vehicles in his yard.
One vehicle in the parts vehicle line is sitting up on cinder blocks, covered in dust, with the hood open, and the distributor & plug wires missing. The wheels & tires, distributor, and plug wires are in the vehicle next to it. He tells me that he, his wife, and their 2 oldest children can have it ready to roll in less that 15 minutes, including washing the windows.