Just chiming in on the whole long term reality thing. Unless you live out in the sticks (and no one knows about your stockpile), any major prepping is just hording shit for other people to come take from you. Being prepared for a 1-2 month societal disruption is a good idea. You can ride that sort of period out with some dry goods, water, bullets, and common sense preparations. Anything lasting longer than that (or even a week or two in some areas) and people will get to you and take what you have. A locked vault in your basement (assuming no one plugs the air holes) is so over the top and ridiculous its more economical (and safer) to have a shit shack somewhere in the woods and a bugout bag to get to it.
I mean look at what people did during Catrina in even the burbs around New Orleans. People turn into savages the moment food and water starts being scarce, particularly the kind of people who are too short sighted to have a bug out plan. Plus thanks to the color war being pimped, you can bet the murdering will fall along racial lines and packs of wild wakandans will be at the forefront of the pillaging. That Catrina shit happened in under a week. Imagine a month with no clear end in sight or promise of federal aid.
Having said all that, I do practice what I preach on this front. I have enough dry goods and water to hold out about six weeks, with the idea we cook up the perishables on the grill day one if shit goes bad. I have several firearms and a decent supply of ammo to at least make the rape gangs work for it. Our neighbors and us have a plan in place for covering each other and when its time to bug out. We have bug out bags (loaded cases really) ready to toss in our truck if we have to make a run for it. We live on the outskirts of a Texas city, so plenty of ways out (and a preplanned place to go) if it comes to it. But I also have to be realistic in that we are old fat fucks and not long for this world in societal collapse, so the two bullet plan (one for her one for me) is always on the table if things get that bad. I figure if its not a get out immediately situation, I am probably just going to make an effort for the first pack of savages work for what I have. But make no mistake a pack of feral assholes, especially if they nabbed some guns, is not something you can defend your home from realistically.
The riots have taught us all that we are already on our own and cannot count on proper authorities to defend ourselves. Anyone taking serious steps to be ready for a partial or full collapse of society needs to keep in mind we are already working without a net. So, bare minimum, learn how to hunt and have a bugout bag. And trust no one.
One thing I learned is "home preparedness". Ie, I got caught with my pants down, no generator, no way to repair a roof, not enough extension cords to power shit when I got a shitty little generator, no window A/C unit to cool a room that can run off a small generator, no solar panel to recharge phones, really didn't have a lot of extra food, barely any water/etc store, etc, etc. It took me living through a disaster to realize how poorly I was prepared.
After that, I did all the shit. Got a legitimate 20 kW home generator, got it plumbed into the big gas, wired with a transfer switch, etc (boy they fuck you hard on installation). Company comes out every couple of months to check on it. I ran my house off this generator for three weeks, it's a beast. I now have 2x4s to anchor a tarp, multiple roofing tarps, roofing nails, nails for the 2x4s. I have gallons and gallons of water, and a huge pantry I had built just to store cans and cans of food. I have guns and ammo, but luckily in my neighborhood we are all mostly close so we were all helping each other clean up, etc, and looking after each others properties. And as the saying goes "you loot we shoot." But to be truthful guns were the least important thing during the disaster I went through. But that may be dependent on my neighborhood. I could imagine if I lived elsewhere it would be very, very different. I'm literally on the outskirts of town in an upscale neighborhood. So it's completely different than, like you said, the assholes stuck close to people who are rioting.
One other thing that got weird was gas. I had a gas vehicle at the time, and at one point you had to go pretty far (like 40 miles) to get gas, which is insane. And like gasoline generators have to be filled every 4-8 hours depending, so like everyone was running around with like 8 5-gallon containers of gas, myself included (I had these weird 14 gallon things that are used to fill boats). I got stuck in the next town and I remember panicking that my generator was going to stop and I wouldn't be able to restart it. I'm terrible with gas engines and I feel they're all shit and barely ever run.
One thing that did bother me was when the whole area is without electricity, me having that generator running was a big red flag advertising that it's running, and letting people know I'm home, etc. Just made me feel like a target. And honestly I worry about like if people wanted to, a few of them could come and just pickup my generator and walk off with it, it just sits on a blind side of my house on a concrete pad. No anchors or anything holding it down.
One thing that cracks me up is all the bug out bags people make, where they think they are going to take a $2 fishing lure kit and go live out in the woods and survive. That level of prepping is beyond retarded. Bug out bags can be legit, but until you've gone through some sort of legitimate disaster, I think a lot of it is just fantasy. I used to have one, it was so fucking heavy I could barely walk with it, and I re-evaluated it years later and threw almost all of it away. I remember one episode of "doomsday preppers" some retarded girl who lived in a big city tried walking the 2 miles to her bug out vehicle and could barely make it.
For me, the important things are someway to charge your mobile phone, copies of important documents on a usb drive, have all your credit cards, etc, on hand, a decent vehicle you can pack people and luggage in, a few clean pairs of clothes, extra gas or diesel that you can throw in your vehicle in case you have to go far before you can fill up, and then know all your surrounding areas up to about 3 hours out in all directions so you can have a place to stay, hotels, etc. The last prep is intelligence. Don't wait until the last minute to leave, and be one of those assholes that gets stuck in traffic and it takes them 10 hours to go 120 miles (this happens ALL THE TIME in those situations). If you are faced with a legitimate threat, fucking leave town early.
Other things to keep at home, a gas generator, a small window unit, stuff to repair your roof, extension cords and power blocks out the ass, a dehumidifier, some way to cook, if you have natural gas at your house but not a gas stove, or whatever, find a way to hook up like an outside burner to gas line so you can have infinite ability to cook. A solar panel if needed to charge your phone.
Ok I'm exhausted and drinking. Bye.
