What You Need To Know To Protect Your Home From Looters

When you emerged from your emergency storm shelter, you immediately noticed the eerie quiet of a total area power outage, reminding you of a cemetery.

A lone dog barking in the distance snapped you out of the shock of all the destruction you were staring at. It looked like all your neighbors had evacuated at the last minute, so all you needed was tumbleweeds and you’d have a ‘ghost town’.

You walked out into the street around the strewn wreckage, and noticed movement about a block down and saw three muscular young men with tattoos and large backpacks suspiciously looking into somebody’s damaged home. One of them was carrying a crowbar.

They spotted you and watched you move around the damaged area of your home. You got behind a corner of your house and checked your G 20-C loaded with heavy duty Buffalo 180 grain Jacketed hollow points for one in the chamber, palm slapped the bottom of the mag, re-holstered, peeked around the corner of the house and this time the menacing trio were walking slowly down the street. Coming straight toward you. And now one of them was carrying a gun…

That’s a scenario that can happen. What do you do next? Do you have the guts to make the right move to survive?

“The Hurricane was merciless and It swore on the Bible that it would destroy your home, kill your family, and send an evil scourge of demon scavengers to loot and pillage what was left of your now accursed, and worthless life. If you were lucky they would kill you quickly, instead of leaving you broken, to lay in your own filth, weak and pitiful before God, while you died slowly in agony, torment, and eternal remorse… because you never were prepared.”

Unknown sailor

Extreme Catastrophes Require Extreme Actions

SHTF experiences vary in ways that require dedicated preparation modifications and specific tactical protocols. In scenarios where emergency resources of police and first responders are rapidly deployed, population remains under control even if the problem is in progress (a concentrated forest fire, or protest anarchy), and police usually remain on the scene for the duration.

But in the aftermath of a major widespread (hurricane, tsunami, super ice storm blizzard, volcanic eruption, major earthquakes), the police will not always be there to try to keep everybody safe due to the sheer enormity of area. And courts have ruled that they are not liable if they can’t guarantee your personal safety, even if you pay them with your tax dollars.

This means the police and even first responders will likely not even be available for emergency calls in your area for long periods of time in the aftermath of an extreme event. Cell towers will also be damaged and your phones often won’t even connect. The notion of police security no longer exists.

This is why if it gets really bad with no end in sight, the National Guard will be deployed to try to restore order and facilitate aid.

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Certain predators know this only too well. The specific category for the criminal activities in such a scenario is called looting. As seen in news clips, It is often a fiendish out of control riot-like action that begins to resemble one of those Zombie movies. But there’s a new and more insidious type of criminal looting trend happening recently which is reminiscent of the likes of ancient hordes of plundering vandals and vikings.

Police investigations have found that in recent looting crimes the perpetrators now have the iniquitous audacity to organize ahead of time for a potential ‘Loot-Fest’ by recruiting partners-in-crime on Facebook or Twitter and other social media to hook up for planned looting before an imminent storm!

While the rest of us are desperately trying to get ready to survive a really bad weather event, the almost unfathomable reality is that loot gangs are, instead, actually prepping for the LOOTING. They are assessing in advance the ripe targets they know will be absent, and then hitting their marks immediately after it.

Often the leaders of the looters directs which stores or business to hit and they usually have weapons to intimidate the owners to leave, or to breach the entrance and stand intimidation guard while their cohorts haul out the loot. But these prime looting locations clean

out fast, and sometimes the feeding frenzy often winds up with fires and vandalism and deadly violence after the initial sacking is over due to the pumped up mob mentality.

What to Expect in the Aftermath

The main difference between looters and other criminals is twofold.

First, they are more vile and psychotic than an average thief. They are more despicable than other predators because they focus on taking advantage of unfortunate people when they are helpless and in trouble. They are like overgrown sewer rats sneaking around where they don’t belong and cannibalizing anything they can devour in a violent feeding frenzy without concern for people’s feelings for heirlooms, irreplaceable lifetime treasures, and even their lives.

Secondly looters are predictable. You absolutely know they’ll be there after a disaster. They’ll ooze out of the cracks like filthy cockroaches, knowing that they don’t have to fear official ‘exterminators’ for now, and then they crawl around people’s property randomly in the aftermath, not to help people, but to loot and pillage, and even worse.

There’s never been a major disaster without them. They are a certain threat that will put you in imminent danger if you are a target of their interest.

As soon as the police announced that they, too, would be evacuating with the citizens in areas of Florida’s hurricanes last month and police protection and 911 would be temporarily suspended, scores of looters started slithering into the area even as water began to rise and the last leaving cops were busting them as fast as they could.

Video first seen on Fox News.

Looters take advantage of property destruction, chaos, and lack of patrolling police to advance their evil deeds. They know they don’t have to waste too much time casing the area or breaking in or even worrying about the owners being home or alarms bringing cops because invariably all power will be out to a badly hit area.

How Bad the Looting Get?

The looters’ modus operandi is to move fast, pick mostly on businesses, but then there’s the ‘pro looters’. The ones you rarely here about. They’re not interested in pairs of Michael Jordan gym shoes or cigarettes or computers from Walmart. These are the ones that like to hit quickly evacuated homes for left behind expensive personal items like jewelry, cash, guns, coins, etc.

But the bad angle to this is they are potentially violent home invaders as well who actually prefer their target house occupied with live victims who chose to ride out the storm so they could torture them into telling where their personal valuables were making their looting easier! After all, why not?

They know there’s no police available and most of the neighbors evacuated. Whose going to stop them? They’ve been known to stab and cut children and threaten to kill them if the family didn’t open the safe or give up where they hide their valuables.

In the island chains where last month’s hurricane damage was so bad that people were walking around in a shocked daze, desperately scavenging for drinking water and food, looters were attacking and robbing these poor survivors of whatever they managed to find and were carrying! Guns are mostly prohibited in these places, so the loathsome looters knew there wouldn’t be much, if any, resistance. Because they, of course, they had weapons.

In Puerto Rico’s recent apocalyptic event, early humanitarian aid and Red Cross type supply trucks were overwhelmed by violent gangs of looters who threatened the unarmed aid workers and stole everything for themselves! Some of the first government calls for assistance on the island (which was totally without power) was for more security personnel to be included along with water and food to break up the onslaught of roving gangs.

All the horror stories aren’t in yet because of the media and island access restrictions and censorship, but there’s sure to be some ugly ones we’ll eventually be hearing about. Even those who are sworn to help and protect are often worse than the criminals. And local corrupt police have been known to become just as bad, or worse, than the criminals they should be stopping!

Protecting Your Castle

It’s bad enough if you are worried about anarchy and predators in some other type of social breakdown while you’re safe and secure in your well stocked and fortified bug out location (BOL) compound.

What happens when a whole wall in your home is gone and every window and door blown out and is literally wide ‘open for business’? BAD business! So that’s the first problem you’ll face.

There’s absolutely no protection and nothing to even slow down, let alone prevent, somebody from walking right into your house unannounced and ravaging what they want, then dancing down the street to assault more victims?

Nothing, that is, but you.

Prepare Your Gun

So the first thing you do when coming out of your mole hole or back from the BOL to assess the storm damage to your house and try to salvage what’s left, is to make damn sure you’re well armed and carrying while you’re doing that. If normal police service is not happening, you have every 2^nd Amendment right to protect yourself.

Hide Your Energy Sources

The second thing is to make sure your survival essentials like food and water are intact and your back up lighting supplies are okay. Virtually all these types of super storms immediately kill the area power. And there’s no telling anymore how long the power will be out.

The quick fix for most people is a small gas generator. These are okay temporarily but you have to stock up on many many gallons of gas to last days and days. A far better alternative would be a back up battery bank with/solar/small windmill charging set up that runs silent, and self sustains much longer. A running gas generator might also attract unwanted company.

Establish Your Perimeter Security

Thirdly, treat you exposed house like a remote military basecamp. Establish your perimeter security —that you should have prepared in advance for- by setting up your outside perimeter trip wire anti-intrusion alert devices and blocking open access to your house with entry obstructions.

Even downed tree branches or other materials can inhibit an intruder’s entry long enough for you to be ready for action.

Find a Safe Spot

Next you should find a last ditch defense spot in your house away from the openings that might let intruders flank you from behind.

It should allow you to move around and scan through window or door openings to see around outside of your house but be back inside enough without anybody outside easily seeing you so you can then quickly fall back to and cover any main openings the looters may attempt to use if something bad is coming.

Build Barriers

Use furniture or other objects and materials to provide barrier cover and stealth. This is where you would sleep at night also so you cannot be easily rushed and physically grabbed before you can get off some firepower.

If you were really prepared you could set up very bright flood lights on a switch to literally blind anybody as soon as they got close both at night and during the day. Have very high lumen tactical lights on your firearms at least.

And lastly, if you do live in a high risk area like parts of Florida and the East/West Coast, and California, everybody knows that the climate is getting worse due to so called climate change but more likely due to out of control geoengineering crimes, get together with any of your neighbors who might want to talk about setting up a mutually shared aftermath plan if they also decide to try to ‘ride out’ or get stuck by a surprise event.

Ya Loot, We Shoot!

In the 1992, LA riots authorities supposedly didn’t prosecute property owners standing their ground when looters turned violent and deadly and major orders were often given out in such extraordinary situations that police and guard will shoot to kill all looters.

In the infamous ’68 Chicago race riots, entire neighborhoods were looting stores, private residences and themselves. Mayor Daily made the public announcement that he ordered police to ‘shoot to kill’ all looters on sight. Most of the looters weren’t even armed.

But that didn’t seem to bother them. They must have figured there’s not enough cops to cover everything. They forgot that the cops made up for that with a lot of extra ammo and a little heavier firepower than their service pistols. This became very ugly.

But the orders were legal in a state of emergency martial law. Looters were, and still are, considered to be very bad hombres by the State. So what does that mean for you?

Check your local laws. The bottom line will be that police and National Guard enforcement of order is very different from you guarding your home. You still can’t shoot anybody just for stealing stuff from abandoned unsecure homes down the block. And how would you know for the most part that they aren’t just regular neighbor folks from around the corner ‘scavenging’ for food or water because they are completely destroyed, in desperate need, and no help is coming soon?

That being said, I’m sure that some states have laws that you can shoot at people stealing your physical property even though your life wasn’t in immediate danger.

I personally wouldn’t do that. Maybe I’d warn them with some airburst fireworks ‘from heaven’ just over their heads and ask them where they wanted their remains sent if they didn’t immediately leave. Most first type sneak looters will depart forthwith. If they tried to attack you that’s a different story.

But the important idea is to find out if you live in a Castle Doctrine law state where you can legally sit there on your property with a locked and loaded high capacity weapon and defend against those attempting to breach your property with deadly force if necessary.

I think Florida is pretty okay with this, but as the storm tracks Northward up the coast, and the spread of totalitarian local laws continue, I just don’t know anymore…

The general rule is that if you are on your property and allowed to stand your ground (as opposed to being forced to first try to flee by law), you are allowed to resist an intruder looting your home with deadly force only if you are also in fear for your life or great bodily harm from the looter.

And I certainly would be seriously concerned about being killed by one of these psychos if they had the balls to keep coming toward me after I warned them to get off my property and they had weapons!

This article has been written by Mahatma Muhjesbude for Survivopedia.