Why Your Cul-de-Sac May Need Two Snipers

Erich S., a survivalist pen-pal who has retreated to a commune in an isolated wooded area of Pennsylvania, tells me that my suburban cul-de-sac will be a sitting duck for marauders and bandits if and when the U.S. economy collapses. I had suggested to him earlier that he read my friend Sean Brodrick’s book, The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide — a kinder-and-gentler approach to survivalism that assumes most of us will not flee for the hills with guns, ammo and food rations when the time comes. Sean thinks we’ll all simply hunker down, working with neighbors to scrape by after the banks have shut down, food and fuel supply chains have withered, digital communication and the power supply have grown balky and unreliable, and half of the U.S. population is out of work.

This scenario is too rosy, according to Erich. For starters, cul-de-sacs are inherently difficult to defend, requiring at least two well-positioned snipers to guard against marauders round-the-clock. That, at least, is the assessment of his security expert, a former Army Ranger sniper who is responsible for protecting the commune from human predators. And here I’d thought my small-bore Ruger would be defense enough for the household.

The Least of Our Worries

Erich is an optimist compared to a Vancouver friend who has made a lifelong study of the prophecies of Nostradamus. Forget about the problem of defending one’s cul-de-sac, he says, because marauders will be the least of our worries. There are two World Wars coming in the next 20 years, he says, and anyone who survives them will have to run a gauntlet of disease and famine that will wipe most of the world’s population. There will also be natural disasters to contend with, including an earthquake that will make Arizona and Utah coastal states.

If none of this has come to pass come next December, we should be most grateful to find that the stock market has continued to rise, even if for the wrong reasons; that we are still governed by a savagely incompetent, leftist president and a corrupt, bumbling Congress ; and that the banksters’ plot to steal our assets and enslave us in debt is still only a work in progress.