There’s a general idea that any major disaster is going to cause a breakdown of society, with the associated breakdown of law and order.
Many preppers seem to think that the police and other public servants will abandon their posts, the moment it seems like the ability to pay them becomes questionable.
While I’m sure there are a few who are like this, I have more faith in our law-enforcement community, most of whom have joined that profession from a real desire to serve their fellow man.
I get it though. If everyone is struggling just to stay alive, is it fair for us to expect LEOs to man their posts, when they need to be able to feed their own families too?
Perhaps that would be a reasonable expectation if there were emergency supplies available to them as long as they were on the job. But as far as I know, no such reserves exist. And besides, if it did, there would be plenty of other people who would loudly declare that it wasn’t fair that the food should be distributed to them.
Related: The Police and Military when SHTF – Friend or Armed Foe?
I also understand why there will be an increase in crime during such a time. Professional criminals don’t know any other way to get what they need.
On top of that, there will be plenty of desperate people out there, who aren’t ready for the crisis and don’t have any source of supply.
At least some of those who live close to the edge of the law anyway will be quick to cross over the line, pushed there by their desperation. Nothing can make a person desperate faster than having hungry children at home.
When To Intervene
As long as the police are doing their jobs, allow them to do it.
Don’t try and take their place unless they ask for help and then if you do help, do it within the confines of what they request.
Having multiple law enforcement groups operating in the community, which aren’t in communication with each other, will just cause confusion and might result in blue on blue fire.
Related: When To Let The Police Intervene And When To Take Justice Into Your Own Hands
I have no idea how many police will stay on their posts, but so what if they do abandon their posts? Even if they all do, will there be enough to counter the rise in crime?
Do we have to allow the criminals to take over? Do we have to just sit back and hope they leave us alone, while being prepared to defend our homes?
The History of Policing in America
Let me throw a little historic perspective in here. The very first police force in the United States was created in 1844 and made official in 1845. That was in New York.
Other major cities, like Boston and Philadelphia followed suit in the decades to follow. But even before that, the people had ways of policing their communities, either through volunteers or in a few cases, professional law enforcement officers who were not police.
The most common form of policing that occurred before the invention of police was the night watch. These were volunteers from the community who would watch over their homes and those of their neighbors, looking for fires, stray livestock and criminals involved in nefarious activity.
Night watchmen would take care of the problem themselves, if they could; and if they couldn’t they would raise an alarm, so that the other men of the community could assist.
A small number of professional law enforcement officers were hired by different communities and called by a variety of different names: constables, sheriffs and marshals.
We’ve all heard of towns in the Old West which hired a town marshal. And we have all seen actor John Wayne play the part of Federal Marshal Reuben “Rooster” Cogburn in the movie True Grit.
The greatest lawmen in the West not only upheld the law, they embodied it.
Besides seeing these lawmen depicted on the silver screen, we’ve also seen their auxiliary troops, the posse. In other words, vigilantes deputized by the local law enforcement officer to help them bring in a wanted criminal.
The people of the community took the law seriously and assisted those hired to keep the law, when needed. That often included acts that go far beyond what has been depicted on the silver screen.
What If There Was No Law Enforcement?
Should our local police departments be lost, it only makes sense that many communities would fall back on the system that worked for so long. We humans like to live in organized communities, which means some sort of government, even if it is a simple one.
Related: The First Counties To Be Relieved By The Government After SHTF
The loss of organized government would either mean the law-abiding citizens of a community rising up and creating their own government or anarchy inviting war lords to take over.
This shows us clearly when the time for vigilantism comes. There’s actually a very narrow window of opportunity between the time that organized government and law enforcement stop and the time that war lords take over.
If we the people don’t rise up and take control of our communities during that short window of opportunity, we’re going to find ourselves looking down the wrong end of the guns belonging to some war lord (read that as “criminal”) taking over our community.
Seattle’s Protest ‘Autonomous Zone’
Just look what happened in Seattle when the “autonomous zone” was created.
The idea was supposed to be to break out from under government authority, especially police authority.
So they kicked out the police and declared some six blocks of downtown Seattle an autonomous zone, no longer part of Seattle, Washington or the United States.
Related: 6 Items To Carry If There Are Protests In Your State
Within days, a well-known rapper in the zone took upon himself the role of their leader, making himself into a warlord. There was video online of him passing out guns to his followers.
Please note that these warlords are already organized and ready to take over, should the opportunity arise.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re planning on taking over or awaiting the opportunity; but rather that they are organized, and because they are organized, they are ready to step into that role.
Most of them are criminal or semi-criminal gangs living amongst us, including gangs that push drugs.
Defending the Community
Going out alone against such groups would be suicidal. You or I might be able to defend our communities against single looters; but we can’t defend them against gangs. For that we need to have others working with us.
So, the big question is, where do we come up with groups of law-abiding citizens to counter that threat as vigilantes?
There are actually several different types of groups in existence, which can be drawn upon to create a vigilante force, such as church men’s groups, the guys who hang out at the shooting range, volunteer fire departments, local survival groups and other adult clubs and organizations.
A quick look around the neighborhood will make any number of such groups immediately obvious. Others, who are not part of any such groups may wish to join, but use these groups to start out with and form the core of the vigilante force.
One of the big advantages of drawing from civic groups to make up a vigilante force, besides availability, is that the members of such groups will already be vetted by their own groups.
Chances are pretty good that anyone in those groups will be law-abiding citizens, rather than a trouble maker that has infiltrated their ranks.
Even so, the vigilantes will need to keep an eye on each other, making sure that those who are supposed to be protecting the community aren’t using their position to raid from the community and terrorize its members.
The tricky part in this is that it will be necessary to move quickly and get some sort of regular patrols in place before any of the gangs can start acting up.
Trying to subdue such action and take the community back from warlords will be much harder than keeping them from taking control in the first place. They may rise up and fight anyway, but they won’t be doing it from a place of being entrenched and in control.
Related: 5 Things You Need to Do When There’ll Be No Rule of Law
Organization is going to be critical to making any such vigilante force function effectively. It doesn’t work for just anyone to go out at just any time, patrolling just any part of the community. A schedule will need to be created and maintained, ensuring that there is adequate protection at all times, especially at night.
Along with that, there will need to be a series of signals that can be used, just as they were in the old days, to call out for general help from the community.
Even those who are not part of the vigilante patrol should be made aware of those signals and asked to respond to them. An overwhelming show of force can be the best protection against criminal activity.
At the same time, keep in mind that the people who you will be recruiting from to form the vigilante force will all be dealing with the same sorts of problems at home that the police will, needing to take care of their families. So it will be difficult for them to become involved in patrolling the community.
You’ll need to be sure to schedule the volunteers in such a way so as to ensure that they can still do the survival tasks that they need to for their own families, especially growing food and harvesting water.
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Well police are corrupt power hungry road pirates shouldn’t be to hard to do their jobs
Raven Pepper
Am sorry that is your experience of law enforcement – hopefully it is not because you have experience in criminal activities!
You seem really dense and didn’t read anything everyone else wrote in support of my statement.
the term law abiding citizen is for fools.
Is there a prize for the least sensible article?
This is the internet, not a discussion around the campfire with trusted friends.
Post as though 3 letter agencies are listening, because they are.
In the past after I left the Army, I worked for animal control, which fell under the counties police dept ( Virginia was confusing in that )
We had a personal incident at home and had to file a police report to track someone down… Sine I was an employee I was in the back with the detective…
He asked for the persons Facebook account to see if he could locate them.
I told him, it doesn’t matter that person only will talk to people she knows….
He said, no, not that, just look….
I give him the account name,
Within a few keystrokes he was in the account.
Apparently Facebook ( this was 2010 time frame ) had, not for sure if they still do, 2 passwords per account. The one you set up, and the one L.E.O. s have.
If you post anything on the internet in any format, including purchases, even using VPN’s, it is not secure, don’t be fooled by “sales pitches” claiming they can provide totally secure access. If it’s connected, it can be hacked, and access to the information has probably already been sold by the service providers to government and marketing agencies.
“Big Brother” is watching, and has been doing it for a long time.
True enough,that 3 letter agencies read every keystroke…
.however, they ALSO listen in on every conversation -even if one is not on the cellphone, or chat line!! Some are also good at reading thoughts & emotions – and remote viewing.
I am not going to stop living my life just because some people profit from conspiring to end it !
We all have limited time on earth, we all are accountable to someone more talented than a.i.: we are accountable for every word said, as well as every thought pondered – and every deed done. Thank goodness!!!
Speech to text
Besides sounding like a b-rate 80s Steven seagal movie vigilante justice is never a good idea
How many people just even in the past 20 years alone where proven innocent that in the past were guilty they were exonerated other crimes how many people lie when filing a police report are saying somebody did something.
It all boils down to the law itself and even when the law itself is in black and white or written in stone people can agree on what it says. Example would be look at my username Exodus 20 Deuteronomy 5 that’s a great copy of the law written in stone by the finger of the crater himself twice and yet Judaism Catholicism and every different variety of Christianity in any other religious organization that reads the same book I do can’t agree on those two simple chapters.
Also take a look at what happened in Atlanta last year or the year before mainstream media puts up cell phone footage of a black man being shot by the police and when he’s parking lot that’s the narrative that was fed to everybody it wasn’t much longer after that that the owner of that particular Wendy’s release security footage that proved that both police officers were not at fault because the drunk man they were there to investigate got into an argument with them took one of the officer’s guns shot at them police return fire so what happened with vigilante justice they burnt down the Wendy’s because the owner released footage that destroyed their narrative
Go back and read the article. Because it obviously didn’t sink in with your first reading.
… it’s called adding a different perspective on things.
Yes I read and understood just well.
Exodus, yes, agreed. niio
Read how they did it in the book “One Second After.”
Ravens comment sounds like someone that has spent some
time in the back seat of a patrol car.
There are people that go to jail for committing crimes and then
there are people that talk themselves into jail.Raven fits into both categories.
Sometimes it’s a long ride to the pokey.Right Raven?
do you really think the LEO’s are on your side of right and wrong lol….
do you support no knock raids
and do you think they back your 2A beliefs
… Have you even heard of Civil Asset Forfeiture and how its being abused ALL over the U.S. of A by local L.E.O’s
If not take a few minutes to do a little research on it
no kidding they can just take your money….. and you dont even to do a crime. yet they can take your money and tie you up in federal court…. Good luck ever getting it back too.
That and they can take your property, land and equipment in a crime as well. its just straight up theft and pathetic how the blue line dudes kiss ass for it.
The U.S. vs one 1947 Cadillac was one of the worst decisions the Federal Supremes ever put to pen. I have waited in vain for years for them to revisit that obvious Fifth Amendment rape but they are bent like everyone else in goobermint on ever enlarging goobermint’s intrusion into our private lives
While I think the use of perception altering substances borders on insanity, I don’t think it should be the target of criminal prosecution. I also don’t think it should be the excuse for crime committed under the influence of such substances nor should the use be the grounds for public assistance.
As my grandmother used to say, “You made your bed, now lay in it.”
The cure for “homelessness” in the majority of cases would be to cut off their free phones and “SSI disability payments. Also cutting off worker’s compensation for casual labor would go a long way toward low skill unemployment.
Civil Asset Forfeiture is bad enough, check out the Supremes on Eminent Domain, Kelo v. City of New London. If a Government Entity wants your property you can’t say no. Years ago when Rick (with a P) Perry was Governor of Texas he contracted with a Spanish owned Corporation to build a 16 lane highway and railway from the Mexican Border to Red River. They were going to use eminent domain to take millions of acres of land from families that had owned it for generations. Texans rebelled, we signed petitions, picketed the idiots in Austin, organized online and off and generally raised enough stink to get the Governor to cancel one of the greatest thefts in Texas history. But I guess we didn’t protest so much when Jerry Jones shoveled out a bunch of poor people with E.D. to build his palace…
Judge
Ive seen a case of e.d. in Virginia where land owners lost their property, paid pennies on the dollar for it, the proposed govt project didn’t happen for what ever reason ( kick backs I presume) , then property was sold at more than top dollar to private developers.
I am generally pro-LE, however an acquaintance had this happen to her. She had just.sold two trained purebred German shepherd dogs to Law Enforcement in another county. She cashed the check at the bank and then got stopped for speeding. They took her cash. $10,000 total. $5000 per dog. She never got it back. She was told that there was “no way” she could have sold two.dogs for that.much money, that it had to be “drug.money”. It was BS and she never.recovered her funds. Ironically, this happened in the.county where she lives. I would’ve gone to the media but she was scared they would retaliate and hurt her dogs. That was her livelihood and she had about 15 purebred GS dogs on her property.
He said the police are road pirates. He’s 100% correct. Would you really deny that?
Dale….
“police are road pirates. 100% correct”. ?
Please…Take a deep breath.
Be something more than bitter: be serious.
rm p,
I can post stories all day long of the police taking money and property from private citizens who were never charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime – usually while standing on the side of the road with a gun in their hand. If that’s not a road pirate, what is?
Don’t be naive. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be ignorant. Don’t be a liar. I don’t know which of these apply to you but one or more most certainly does.
Its funny Dale how the “our side ” They tend to think of law and order and assume all Cop/Military are Patriots who wake up with the idea of doing Patriotic things like keeping law and order and everyone safe. They don’t understand that a man wrote a book that explained how the avg citizen commits 4 felony’s a day and has no idea they did it. The reason for the book was to show that the amount of stupid laws are on the books and on top that with a surveillance state we live in. They can just go back to a x point and nail you with everything you did.
Our side thinks Cops are just like Andy Griffin the sweet honest one bullet types. Not the ones planting evidence in your car and arresting you for drugs. Not shooting you for having a firearm on you. No kicking your door and flash banging your family and murdering your kids and wife. Because opps we got the wrong address and now you shot back at us and they will burn you alive .
the system is shot to hell and entirely corrupt we need to start over from the ground up. No matter who you in office … It won’t make a difference.
You’re absolutely right, Raven. There are a lot of people who are blindly pro-cop (I’m pro-cop but with eyes open to reality). They think they’re conservatives, pro-liberty, pro-second-amendment, etc. In reality, they are authoritarians, willing to surrender your liberty and mine in their desire to get those who they think are the bad guys. Authoritarians ignore that when a constitutional government operates outside of its constitution then everyone, including those authoritarians, will become targets of unbounded government tyranny.
As a constitutional republic, our Constitution limits government and guarantees our liberty and civil and human rights. Conservatives and constitutionalists accept that there are risks in liberty. We know that our system will inherently have more crime and more risks than an authoritarian dictatorship – though the latter is still never free of crime, even violent crime – and we accept those risks.
Many of the authoritarians online think they’re different from the left and Biden, thinking themselves to be conservatives, but they have far more in common with Biden and the authoritarian left than they have with those who founded our republic and created our Constitution..
No knock raids are insanely the dumbest thing they could be promoting. Its always fun when they get the wrong house and kill a family that defends itself.
Strange how the LEO’s are enforcing the gun laws….so they don’t support the 2A. On top of the fact they view it…. as them vs you..
I agree. LEO’s will do as they’re told. If that means using red flag laws or no knock raids and pursuing god-fearing, country-loving patriots, then they will do that no problem. The military is no different. These people are trained to do as they’re told or they know they’ll just get fired.
There might be a very small handful of cops/military that will buck the system, but they’ll quickly be flushed out and replaced with some anti-gender socialist who won’t care one bit about you or your constitutional rights. In fact, they’ll be eager to make an example of you because you’re white and a christian.
At Least Tony understands the world we live in.
I again must agree with Raven. No knock raids and exigency circumstance entries are two of the corrupting tactics supported by the Federal Supremes that have done more to corrupt our police forces than anything since prohibition. Our politicians had significant evidence of the corrupting effect of prohibition on law enforcement and the over all lowering of the General public’s respect for law and immediately turned around and repeated that same mistake with laws against use of other perception altering substances with the same effects prohibition had.
Well, I could continue this rant for a couple more hours but will stop here.
Taking cash from people on the side of the road, setting up speed traps, extending the city limits of a town of 100 people to extend 10 miles down the highway so they can set speed traps and collect revenue.
I wonder, when they dream of being cops, if young boys dream of saving the innocent and jailing evil people or if they dream of being nothing more than a revenuer and the armed enforcement branch of an out-of-control government.
The History of Policing in America
“The very first police force in the United States was created in 1944 and made official in 1845. That was in New York.” I know the New York is screwed up, but I didn’t know it was that screwed up.
The closest town I live by has 2 cops, the next closest has 5 cops. The entire county sheriff’s dept is 32, and we’re the biggest county in the state.
The cops I’ve talked to around here say they’ll be busy protecting their families “when” it gets that bad, and I don’t blame them!
It’ll go back to the “Strength In Numbers” tactics “when” it does get that bad!
It’s truly sad that the Human Race has allowed itself to devolve & regress so much in the past 50 years, isn’t it? Truly Sad Indeed!
San Bernardino County CA has always billed itself as the largest land mass county in the continental U.S. unless, Tak, you are in Alaska, the county exec of SBR county will arm wrestle your county exec for that title.
LCC, now you sound like that X-spurt reading things into someone else’s post that are not there. He did not say which state he is referring to, he just said he lives in the biggest county in his state – details count.
do: You are absolutely correct and I stand corrected. I missed “my state”. I would like to blame it on the small screen on my iPhone which is the only device that I own that can connect with this site, but that would not be accepting responsibility for sloppy reading.
Although I am running the next to the latest upgrade in programs and my tech assured me that the “improvements” in the latest program upgrade are de minimis, I can access this site on my MacBook only when my iPhone is also accessing the site but for read only. If I am replying such as this text, it is on my iPhone keyboard. It also makes proofreading a tad difficult too.
My rural area has no police or fire, see a county sheriff on the road maybe once a month, sometimes a Game Warden. Almost no crime, maybe a little theft by local Tweakers if you’re close to the highway. Good neighbors, guns, dogs police don’t protect you they just show up next day and take a report.
“…created in 1944 and made official in 1845.” The first police force was created 99 years after it was made official?
You mean 99 years BEFORE it was made official, but I think it was just a typing error.
Never made a typing mistake I suppose. Good for you. Your mother must be proud!
AKA typo, kiddo. Be nice to folks. We’re all fam here. niio
Chuck: From your post I assume that you are in favor of Google and all the other media selling your personal information also overriding your first amendment rights. While I agree that many of R’s posts are irritating in their bombasticy land arrogance, to the best of my recollection, other than using heavy-handed sarcasm, he has not stooped to the offensive vulgarities that some have used in reply to his irritating posts.
I would hate to see this list resort to editing or deleting or any other form on censorship. While I admit that I too frequently respond to some virulent post from R, the best way to take the wind from his sails is to ignore his comments completely. That’s difficult, I realize but leadership requires that we exercise self-control and don’t respond to every minor irritant.
The rule of law! Citizens have an unspoken responsibility to this Nation. The very term “vigilante “ implies lawless intervention in civil affairs. The rule of law dictates our responsibility to defend the constitutional law of this Nation. Citizens are bound by constitutional law. In the advent citizen’s have to rise to the occasion and defend the constitutional rule of law they are governed support for this Nation! There is no place for “vigilantes “, only law abiding citizens in support of the constitutional rule of law!
LOL
The laws are our laws to protect and enforce, not the police’s. We hire them to do it for us but that doesn’t mean it is still our right and authority to do it. Order dictates that we let them do it when the can and will but, ultimately, we own it.
As someone who served its been pointless to see the Oath trampled. we accomplished nothing in iraq and afganistan and honestly made it worse.
i have nothing to offer this nation in defense but i do have the ablity to defend my neighbors
Typing 1944 instead of 1844. oops. It was a typo people, get over it. Weather the comments are in jest, or sarcastic, or just people jumping all over something, just to be part of the group. Everybody seems like they are So outraged that the chicken coup is painted the WRONG color. That they REFUSE to notice that the door is open and all the chickens are gone. They just want to hang the painter.
It is sad, that as a society, we have fallen that far from reality. People are too busy bitching at or about each other, that can’t see what is about to happen. To them, to me, to you, TO EVERYBODY.
Really folks……..The LAWYERS are the problem! —–and the DIM-O-CRATS in D.C.
Only until you need a lawyer to help you fend off the overbearing goobermint that feels as if all of them are not bound by the rules that have been set up to limit what they are permitted to do. The instant you are confronted by a goobermental toady, you will want and will need a lawyer and will be pleased to have that shield between you and the kind of goobermint our founding fathers fought against
I see a lot of opposing comments on these articles but I appreciate every bit of information that I can get. I guess I’m not nearly as “prepper ready” as those who object but I’ve learned even from the respectful comments. If I’m the only one that gets blessed by this free wisdom… then keep up the good work! For my sake.
So if we the people start policing this country in a way that’s constitutional, we’ll just end up like every other Leo in the country, whether they intended it to happen or not. We gotta think outside the box, can’t make changes by doing/thinking the same way. I’ll support anyone here that stops criticizing and takes the lead on getting us out of our mess.
Created in 1948 but I’m still not official. Don’t think I am.
It’s pretty simple, Folks. A good article that says, basically, organize those good people around you to activate watch-dog type patrols and responders. Remember the “Neighborhood Watch” program? It still exists and is an excellent example of exactly what the article refers to.
I organized a Neighborhood Watch group in my community within the greater, larger city area decades ago. It worked very well and we were able to prevent several break-ins and burglaries.
We do what we NEED to do to stay alive and protect our families and friends.
Central Coaster, I get the idea of organizing your neighbors for Neighborhood Watch as one thing but as a vigilante group, not so much. My neighbors won’t know I own guns unless they approach my home in an aggressive manner with their own guns drawn or they break into my home wile I’m home – in either case, they learn first that I own bullets and then assume that I must have guns.
I know this will get a lot of dislikes and disagreement but I’m not creating or joining a group that may be the very ones I need to defend against. I live in the country (though I have a city apartment as well) and my drive is 150 feet long. I’ll do my best to defend myself and understand the risks.
I agree. As I have said many times. If you come to my door as a friend, I will treat you as such. On the other side of the coin. If you come to my door as an enemy. Let’s just say, “you won’t make that far”.
I will not start this war. But I damn sure, WILL NOT run from it. We are all capable of great good. We are just as capable of great evil. It is just a matter of balance and control. The scales can tip either way, by way of choice, or by way of circumstances.
Dale, Wendell,
Good comments. Thanks for chiming in. I think we are basically thinking alike……
“From my cold dead hands!”
Created in 1948 but I’m still not official. Don’t think I am.