The Errors of Bp. Sanborn

(Completed)

You know, just in case you had a dark view of the future or anything. But fear not, I am here to help you navigate this stuff as best as anyone can. This may be a multi-part post or multiple update post anyway, as time permits. The general view taken is for those who are not millionaires, not particularly wealthy and don’t necessarily have all or even any of the resources that would make things ideal. You will need to adapt the suggestion, information and ideas presented here to your own specific conditions, and as always, I am just a guy on the internet, all responsibility for anything you do or not do rests with you.

Generalities

All else being equal, in order to get the best out of the possible negative things coming our way the order of practicalities is as follows: Lines in BOLD have been covered, the ones still in normal black will be addressed in updates as time permits.

• Mindset
• Geography/Physical Location
• Community/Social Situation
• Ability to be self-sufficient in:
  • Water supply (Clean and uncontaminated/off-grid)
  • Power (Electricity)
  • Fuel (For Vehicles)
  • Heating (For the dwelling and generally for water/hygiene)
  • Fuel (For the heating requirements above)
  • Medical Procedures up to minor surgery/dental work
• Ability to defend/Protect your family, neighbours and property
• Ability to be self-sufficient in food production

In order then, let’s look at each of these and take note how every one of them can and does impact the other things on the list.

Mindset

If you don’t have this, you could literally have everything else and you’ll still end up losing it all because (for example) of several or all of the below:

• You’ll trust demonic liars and take a zombie creating experimental medical genetic modification serum.
• You’ll feel hopeless and suicidal at the first hardships, or the 100th for that matter and may end up actually ending your own life, either intentionally or through apathy which leads to errors, mistakes and accidents.
• You’ll be so anxious and stressed you will ruin yourself, your family and your relationships or be unable to create new, or good ones.
• Above all, in short, whatever the situation, you’ll give up before you’re actually dead, and THAT will defeat you faster and more thoroughly than getting shot by would-be raiders.
• Mindset is EVERYTHING. It’s first, and last and the middle too, so get it right.

So how do you get the right mindset?

Sure, it helps if you have been a special ops trained soldier, a high level martial artist, if you have pushed yourself physically and mentally beyond what you thought was possible (usually this requires someone else doing the pushing for you). But just because you have been an inner city cop, or a soldier, or a martial artist does not automatically mean you will have the right mindset for the long run.

In the long run, the strongest, most reliable, flexible, adaptable, mindset has been the one of committed believing Catholics (Sedevacantists or Sedeprivationist) the Novus Orco Churchians simply do NOT have a real, foundation in actual Catholicism, and they are essentially Protestant in their Churchianity. While there are always exceptions and there undoubtedly are strong minded Protestants, Ignorant would-be “Catholics” that follow Bergoglio (I seriously doubt it though), Pagans, Buddhists, Shintoists or whatever, the point is that those are EXCEPTIONS. They are not a generic solid rule you can apply to a varied group of people who only have their stated religion in common.

So. If you have not done so yet, and are totally new to the idea, or even hate it with a passion, may I suggest you click on the link in the upper left and buy the very short book BELIEVE! It’s something like $10 and has resulted in dozens of people converting from lifelong atheism, agnosticism, Protestantism, or other religion to Sedevacantist. And when they then met up with other Sedes they have been stunned at the level of community spirit present. As have I.

I have led men into some pretty hairy situations, I always had a very strong mind long before I even thought remotely about Christianity or religion in general, and I have had extremely loyal friends throughout my life, but NOTHING prepared me for the level of long term, constant, reliable commitment other Sedes have to creating a functioning community of people. I would have not believed it if you had told me before I experienced it myself.

So that would be my magic, secret bullet. Read BELIEVE! and if you are inclined to learn a LOT more Read also Reclaiming the Catholic Church (both available by clicking the books I wrote link above). If you are already a Sede then good on you, you can now focus on the other traditional, “Never Give Up” Type mindsets. The Systema book I wrote can also be very helpful in this regard, as can the series on Sedeprivationism and Systema you can find at the Digital Kurganate here.

But, despite what you might think, this is not a giant advert for my stuff. It’s simply that I have had this mindset and developed it further since becoming Catholic, so if you want to quickly get up to speed, the stuff I wrote will help you avoid years of trial and error and point out the pitfalls of many wrong turns I took before getting the right one.

Training at whatever skills you need or want to develop is also extremely important. you can’t be confident in something you are incapable at. So become competent in your chosen skill set.

If you are a secular/agnostic/atheist/Churchian type you have a distinct disadvantage because at a purely practical level your level of stress will be higher as your primary focus will tend to be rooted a lot more in the material world, no matter how “spiritual” you fancy yourself to be. That in turn will also close your mind to other possibilities and opportunities in the PHYSICAL world, that only become apparent if you have an intrinsically SPIRITUAL worldview.

Ultimately it will also make you shy away from situations that would normally be thought of as unsurvivable or too dangerous or too difficult and so on. Meaning you are less likely to ever operate at full potential, which generally is a good thing… except… when you really need to!

Ultimately the correct mindset is simply a willingness to go on. To find a way. To overcome. To survive. To adapt. To win. To outdo the enemies. To get up and find a way no matter the odds.

Geography/Physical Location

If you have mindset squared away, the next most important thing of where to make your stand is the physical location. there are multiple potential issues this affects, so from the biggest to the smallest (in size, not necessarily in importance), these are:

• Tectonic Plates – Worst case scenario, the pole shift will happen in your life-time and be a sudden one. These have, as far as I can tell, happened many times before and invariably have some instantaneously catastrophic consequences for vast areas of the planet. Personally, I hope this doesn’t happen for a long time, however, my prediction of the accelerating of the drift of magnetic North from the physical North Pole accelerating in the last 20 years or so has played out for the last 26 years and since the progression is not linear but exponential, there is, in my educated opinion, a good chance this will happen in the next 50 years or so. But it may happen tomorrow. There are a number of indications this will be the case:
  • The increasing drift of magnetic North from physical North over the last 50-100 years
  • The recent increase in volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis around the planet in recent years
  • Most significant of all the fact that as of 2021 all 4 magnetic phases of the Sun are going out of synch and this will affect the weather on Earth in a spectacular fashion. The only model of global weather patterns and “climate change” that has been something like 97-98% accurate for the last 30 years is a Russian model that is based on the Sun’s activity. For context, the last ice-age only 2 of the Sun’s magnetic fields had gone out of phase. This time it’s all 4. You keep believing in global warming if you want, you special child in a yellow bus, you, but I strongly suggest you buy an extra jumper this Christmas. While the magnetic fields of the Sun affect our weather, it makes sense they would also affect the Earth’s own magnetic field, and in fact, the Sun may very well be precisely what makes the Poles flip. And it may do so very rapidly. The 4 out-of-phase fields have started to go out of whack this year. 2021 may yet have a nasty surprise in store for you. or maybe 2022, but no one really knows.

Given all of the above, the LAST place you want to be is near fault lines, the meeting of various tectonic plates and so on. I said how before moving to Northern Italy I was looking at a small island in Panama. However Panama is situated on one of the smallest tectonic plates on the planet and at place where various plates meet. Also, being only a few metres above sea level means a giant wave would wipe you out.

The ideal place would be one relatively in the center of a stable and large tectonic plate, in a location that is fertile, physically defensible and has a good supply of natural water.

• Defence Considerations – It’s all well and good if you are in the middle of a giant tectonic plate of a large country with fertile land, not close to sea level. Excellent. But if you happen to be next to a military base, well… It won’t make much difference when/if the military decide it makes a nice pit stop or refuelling area, etc. The Ideal place is a small town or village with only a few hundred people, relatively far from large cities and inhabited town, in a fertile area that may also have some geographical vantage points (high ground, protected from the weather or floods, mudslides, rockfalls, flash-floods, etc.). The biggest threat is other people, but of course, things like seasonal fires, floods, heavy snowfalls and so on, also need to be considered.

• Water and Food Considerations – You need to be able to raise livestock and plant crops, is the area suitable for that (most places are to some degree or other). Do you have access to clean, unpolluted water (mountain river stream, bore-hole or well, or rain catchment, lake with water purification possibilities or if need be even desalination possibilities). You do NOT need a HUGE area to grow enough food to keep your family fed, but obviously, if the main dwelling is good, possibly other minor dwellings on the property are either available or possible, and other costs/considerations have been taken care of, then the more land you can own the better, as a general rule of thumb. However be aware that without modern machinery (and the fuel to run it) farming large tracks of land by hand is almost impossible for the average lazy, fat, out of shape, ignorant Westerner. That’s you and me in case you were wondering. Even if like me, you are not lazy, fat or particularly out of shape, the sheer lack of knowledge of how to even begin to plow a field using an ox (and where to get an ox, how to keep him fed properly and cared for etc etc etc) is almost completely guaranteed to become a comedy of errors that can turn you into a cripple or dead. I have worked as a professional armed personal protection operative in South Africa and done martial arts from the age of 4. I have hunted in Africa from a very young age, including large game of all kinds in places where there was no medics at all, and survived some rather scary/stupid.accidental stuff. The phrase “health and safety” when I began working in Europe was essentially equivalent to “Gay clown world for gay clowns”. Despite all of that, I would put being a farmer as more dangerous than ANY of those professions and things I did. Farmwork is deadly stuff and if you half-ass things, sooner or later you WILL injure or kill yourself. This is not an if. It’s a when. So realise that before going in. No matter how many fat bastards on Youtube play-act at being “Homesteaders” don’t buy into the lies. Go see a working farm and go help a farmer for free for a week. Tell him you just want to learn a bit by following I’m around and doing work in exchange for a learning experience. If you can convince a farmer to take you on on that basis, a week will give you an idea, a month would be better, but only long enough to realise you can get hurt. A few months will begin to teach you to plan things properly. All this “health and safety” talk in THIS section is geared to make you understand that the more land you have the more work you need to do and the more fieldwork you do, the higher the changes you will screw-up somewhere along the line and get hurt. Don’t tell me you didn’t get warned here when it happens.

• Weather Considerations – while you are not going to be able to predict exactly where or how a sudden Pole Shift might affect the place you are in or choose, since a Pole Shift may not happen at all in your lifetime, it may be best to choose something relatively warm, or at least temperate. If there is another ice-age coming (and this prediction is a LOT more likely and scientifically backed up than when a Pole Shift may happen) then you want to avoid places that are already freezing cold as it is. This pretty much excludes places like Canada, Iceland (exception slightly made for the volcanic heat, but then….do you WANT to live near a volcano?), Siberia, large parts of Kazakhstan and Russia in General, Alaska and so on.

Community/Social Situation

In a way, this too, falls under the Geography. That is, the physical location you choose (or are limited to) also defines the community in which you will live. Until the world carries on limping along on a semblance of normality, even the twisted, wreck, half-zombified current state (Nov 2021) this point need not be critical unless you are already in shithole territory, BUT, please believe me when I say that YOU HAVE NO IDEA how fast, normal human beings become vicious, murdering rapist cannibals when there are no more rules. I have had a very interesting life in many countries including some 25 years in various parts of Africa, and do NOT fool yourself into thinking that the most vicious of things that goes on in a supposedly primitive African setting in extreme situations could never happen in Europe or North America or some other “first world” country. It can and does and possibly is even worse. Talk to someone who has survived the Yugoslavian wars of Serbia, Croatia, etc. It gets brutal VERY quickly and pretty much anyone you are not directly related to, as well as some you ARE, will as soon kill you for your coat or shoes than say good morning.

In this respect, regardless of what you personally believe, I have not come across a group of people that is more likely to continue behaving in a civil manner even when the situation is truly life-threatening than PROPER Catholics. That is Sedes. You can be upset about it, you can object, you can shout to the sky, but it is simply a fact that in all my travels, leading and being part of teams that operates in areas of life where getting shot or stabbed was a very real daily possibility, no group has EVER even come remotely close. I have not seen the level of commitment and loyalty from even devout Muslims or hard-core martial artists that trained together for year, childhood friends, or anything else. In fact, the behaviour OFTEN surpasses that you’d expect from your own blood relatives.

That said, Sede communities are few and far between, so my suggestion is:

Firstly: Begin one.

And secondly, Try to find a rural area with a SMALL population, the smaller the better and the more rural the better.

The Ideal location, all other things being equal is a rural setting that geographically ticks as many of the boxes as possible and where you at the very least blend in with the local community. The more similar you are, the better. In this regard, a Southern America black man, who understands the locals, has a culturally aware grasp of them and is willing and able to fulfil his expected role in it, would fare better than a lily-white yankee that behaves like your average New Yorker. So, try to pick your place primarily on Geography and Community. It is hard to say which of these is more important.

You MAY be able to lone-wolf-it for a while, but ultimately, any community that will survive long terms has to be composed of several individuals. And on a long enough time line, you want your children to be able to grow up and have partners to marry and have children themselves with, so ultimately, isolation with a view to a continuing future line of descendants, means that a community existence has to be one of the main points of where you pick to live.

If you have children, or plan to have them (and the answer to both is YES) try to pick a place that also has children and/or the people have skills in home births and so on. Rural doctors are sometimes a godsend and even a good vet is better than nothing and can save your child and wife if he has some basic equipment and the situation is not drastic in the extreme.

If you’re a single guy in your 20s, try to pick a community where you can make yourself useful and treat honestly and hard-working with everyone and try to pick a place that is not filled with only octogenarians, but has some women of suitable age for you to eventually marry and build a family with. This goes doubly so if you are not local, speak a different language and so on. The more different from the locals you are the harder you have to work, the more friendly, open and honest and so on to make up for the negative “he’s just a damned stranger” points you have from the start.

Self Sufficiency

I am putting this above the Ability to Protect yourself and your property and family only for the reason that generally, you need to have something worth stealing or murdering you for before you become a target, although, in extremis, your very existence or your wife’s pretty face could be enough reason for someone to want to murder you, so depending on your specific situation the next heading in red may be further up the list.

• Water – Clean water, and NOT from a piped “official” source is one of the main points you ideally want to have. Many people, maybe even most, will unfortunately not have this, but consider that water is second only to air for survival. And if you are healthily paranoid like I am, you also realise that it’s the easiest vector for nefarious creatures to attack you from. If you rely on tap water, all that an evil would be mass-murdering psychopath that thinks he has the right to create zombies for his own purposes needs to do is pollute your supply and you’re done. Admittedly, for most people this level of paranoia seems slightly absurd, but… most people are complete idiots. You already have fluoride in it, and if the graphene/5g/microwave control vectors have ANY truth to them (they do, it’s technology that was created in the mid 90’s or at least that was publicly discussed as having already been achieved in the mid 90s by doctors that were concerned at its potential uses) what would prevent the same satanic elite from putting whatever “additives” in the water supply? Bottled water MIGHT be a temporary suitable alternative but you can’t know that either. The best solution is to have your own supply, wether from a well or borehole, clean stream or lake, or rain catchment. Even then, you want to have a good filter mechanism and possibly there are good enough ones that would function to keep even the “additives” out, but no one knows for sure. Rain catchment with filtration would probably be the safest unless you have a decent supply of naturally protected subterranean water (always difficult to be sure of).
• Power – Electricity is extremely important, but once again, if you are healthily paranoid like me, you want to have your own, off-grid supply. This could be solar panels, or turbine powered if you have a water stream or wind that can generate enough to at least run some essentials. Aside from getting the initial off-grid supply (which again, as long as the world works to a degree you can rely on only as emergency power) it is important that you understand how to maintain and repair this off-grid supply, because remember that in the zombie apocalypse, your local solar panel expert has probably been eaten alive already. Hand-crank devices to charge things like phones (not really something you want to have in a really advanced zombie apocalypse scenario. You don’t want to be trackable then) and more importantly torches, lanterns and so one, radios, walk takes and so on are the way to go too. Paraffin lanterns work well and I lived for a year or two on a farm with no electricity or potable water. I don’t recall it being a hardship either and mobile phones did not exist back then, nor did we have a landline. And life was free and happy. A lot of modern equipment runs on electricity but most of human history it did not exist. Don’t forget that and prepare yourself with alternatives that do not require it.
• Fuel (for vehicles) – A little bit like electricity above, it is extremely advantageous to have vehicles, especially for farming the land, transporting materials or food or other things and getting you from A to B quickly, so, while not necessarily an absolute must, it is is always good to have some relevant vehicles. And be able to keep them running well into the apocalypse. This generally means fuel. You can stock up a certain amount to be sure, also for powered tools like rototillers, chainsaws, weed-whackers, portable generators or whatever, but unless you’re into being able to create your own mini fuel depot (which would become a MAJOR target in bad times) this would be limited to an emergency stash that would run things for a few days at most. If you have an electric vehicle it may be that there is a way to make the solar panel or turbine electric power described above be enough to charge it, but I doubt it and in any case, I doubt that there are tractors or other farm machinery that is electric. The main aim here is to try and keep a stash, be aware of impending shortages, keep your vehicles topped up at all times and realise your maximum time/distance/fuel requirements in a situation where you can’t get any fuel suddenly.
• Heating (For the dwelling and generally for water/hygiene) – Heating is obviously most important in climates that are cold or can be cold part of the year, or will become cold (due to the coming ice-age) or that might suddenly (if you survive it) become cold due to a sudden pole-shift. Once again, if your heating relies on electricity, you’re going to suffer badly once the zombies, evil elite, asteroid hit, or whatever takes out the main grid. And if you rely on solar panels in a country like for example the United Kingdom, whose people only have a passing acquaintance with the concept of sunlight as it is, it may not be enough to run your kettle, never mind heating your home. The solution here, especially if you’re in rural areas, is wood stoves. HOWEVER, did you notice the sudden rush from the elites and governments around the world to try and literally ban the use of wood stoves and the burning of wood? All supposedly to help fight global warming, which of course, is not an issue at all given we have just literally entered the biggest ice-age in recorded human history. The effects of this new ice age may take a while to be felt, but I think within a year or two will already be very noticeable and possibly as early as this winter. Depending on your country, location etc it may already be “illegal” to own or use a wood stove. So you’ll have to choose how to navigate that issue based on your local circumstances, but if you are in a region that at all allows it yet, GET A WOOD STOVE. I do not know of a better option, assuming you have plenty of wood. Again, if you happen to have a very unique position with access to some kind of water or air powered turbine that generates enough electricity to heat your dwelling, then great, but there is a reason that all old homes where winter existed had chimneys. As an added bonus Italy makes some of the most efficient and best wood stoves anywhere in the world. They literally are global leaders in it and no one even comes close, so if you live in Italy, this is a bonus. Italy has various manufacturers of what they also call TERMOCUCINE, these are wood burning stoves that provide heat to the radiators of the house. The Termocucina has the pipes running in it that heat up all the water in the radiators, which flow through the radiator water circuit. They all have a separate circuit to heat sanitary (potable) water, so you can heat your home, and take warm showers and have hot water out of your taps. But that’s not all, the top surface of the Termocucina becomes a giant hot plate that you can cook on and food cooked on these wood burning stoves invariably tastes better. I do not know the reason, but it does. And on the side of the wood burning chamber is an oven, so you have a fully functioning kitchen that you can cook on top of, cook in the oven, heats all your water for daily use and heats the radiators of the house too in winter. There is a minimal requirement of electricity for the pump that ensures the water doesn’t overpressure (you also have safety valves anyway) and that pumps it around the two circuits, but on some models this uses little more power than a 60 watt lightbulb, so if you do have solar panels for it, miserly as they might be, they should be able to run it. And if you have a decent battery connected to it, perhaps even a hand cranked power unit might be enough. It’s pretty impressive to be able to heat your whole home and cook all in one unit, so if you can get one of these do so. And if you need to get separate units for each function because you can’t source one that does it all, I would still advise to go for it. Conversely, if you live in a hot climate, I truly believe air-conditioning is a total waste of money, power and resources. And I should know, I lived in hot countries where even the locals didn’t go out at lunch time, but I did. Of course, if you’re grossly overweight and out of shape… but then, if you are, you’re probably zombie food anyway.
• Fuel (For the heating requirements above) – This has essentially already been covered above, but the principle here is that fuel for heating is more important generally speaking in the long run than fuel for vehicles, so the advise here is once again to ensure your geography permits you to have enough fuel to last you years and is either essentially unlimited or renewable. So, wooded areas for wood, an area with access to a river if you plan to install a water turbine, windy valley for a windmill turbine, and so on.
• Medical Procedures up to minor surgery/dental work – This generally requires a doctor. HOWEVER, purchasing HARDCOPIES of relevant manuals and as much medical equipment as makes sense for your specific circumstances, if simply common sense. Besides buying these books, READING THEM BEFOREHAND is imperative. Trying to figure out how to do an emergency tracheotomy with blood spurting out of a cut vein and all over the pages of the book you are trying to read which has font far too small in the fading light is no way to learn about home-surgery. Dentistry is a killer and knowing the basics should be an absolute must for everyone. There is also the added bonus that if YOU happen to be a surgeon or a dentist, you could reasonably equip your home with a theatre for emergencies or even routine visits and this in and of itself would become a prized service in the zombie apocalypse. Furthermore it is one that would generally tend to motivate your neighbours to help protect you and your family/assets because you would be a very needed part of the community of would-be survivors. I would save a dentist above a doctor and a doctor above a mechanic. And so would most people who have a functioning brain left. So if you have skills in this area, keep developing them if you can and equip yourself so as to be able to continue providing this service even in a zombie apocalypse scenario.

Ability to defend/Protect your family, neighbours and property

As mentioned in passing above, I only placed this below the previous section because it becomes more important once you have all of the above things already. If you are a homeless, dirty bum, you’re probably safe from most human predators except the truly twisted and perverse. But if you life in a golden castle with all the amenities and glass walls, well… you’re a magnet for bandits and everyone else.

Once again, the primary protective item is not, perhaps surprisingly, guns, but Geography and Community. Anyone in a large city is generally and generic zombie-food. But if you are in a rural tiny community where you have integrated yourself quite well, while not “safe” in and of itself you are already a whole lot “safer” than most people on the planet.

The physical geography of the location and of the specific dwelling you are in is also important. Rural homes in the US for example, are generally the equivalent of tool sheds when compared to Rural homes in Italy. The average Italian rural home, especially if older, has walls that can be about a half-meter thick, tiny barred windows and heavy wooden doors. You could hold off a small army from inside one, because short of explosives, most firearm round will simply not go through the walls at all.

By contrast, the average American rural home, built of wood, would quickly turn into cheap Swiss cheese after any protracted gun battle. Once again, if you can choose or can afford to build, build accordingly.

Safe rooms, hidden bunkers and so on, are also all possibilities depending on location, budget, etc. etc. Nevertheless, if you are determined enough you can usually almost always build some kind of emergency bunker. If you go to these lengths, it would make sense to keep it hidden and with an escape hatch somewhere.

Having covered these issues, let’s get down to the fun part: Guns, guns, more guns and weapons in general.

In a rural setting it is assumed you will in any case have a lot of axes, machetes, sickles, pitchforks, knives of all kinds and so on. These are working tools for the most part, but a sledgehammer or axe to the head will kill you as much as anything else, so that’s always a consideration, I will therefore not go into details regarding melee weapons.

For ranged weapons, you may very well be limited by the laws in your country and so on.

As most readers are Americans, let’s first “Blue Sky” the ideal set of weapons, with no limits, later you will need to adapt for various locations.

A note on Hunting Weapons: These are a separate subset and are discussed in the next main heading. Here we will only discuss personal protection, home and community defence.

Long Arms – Shotguns – You should ideally have at least one each. Shotguns are unbeatable for home defence, especially if short (be careful, in most countries including the USA there are restrictions on barrel lengths and so on and it is NOT legal to have sawn off shotguns and so on). Commercially available home defence shotguns generally have 18″ barrels. Given its primary aim is to protect you from intruders, you want something that is mechanically reliable. A pump action shotgun therefore is what I would suggest. There are, if you live in the USA some shotguns that can hold 25 standard shells and up to 41 of the small ones (The Key-Tec KSG 25). Some of these are a bit different (bullpup design, ejector spits the shells onto your wrist, etc) but even a standard, relatively cheap Mossberg 590 can hold between 6+1 and 8+1 shells depending on magazine extension. Again, there may be limits on the number of shells you can legally have in your shotgun, but most places will generally allow at least 5+1 or 4+1 and unless you are literally being swarmed by zombies, that should be about 3-4 more shells than you need to ensure anyone that entered your home with murderous intent is either turned into a pink cloud or runs away as fast as his legs can carry him. You can pick up a cheap pump action shotgun for about $200, so there is no excuse not to buy one.

Long Arms – Rifles – Once again, we are not discussing hunting rifles, only rifles for the protection of your family, home or community. Here, there are so many factors it is nearly impossible to make a generic suggestion applicable to most people. Nevertheless, a rifle is the longest range weapon available to civilians and as such, applies to distances beyond effective shotgun or realistic pistol ranges (about 30 metres). The main compromises here are between speed and distance. The faster you want to be able to put a round in a target, the shorter the distance you will be able to do so consistently as a general rule. Conversely, if you can take your time to aim, you can hit targets at very long distances. Almost all rifle rounds will at the very least incapacitate a target, but heavier rounds obviously cause more damage. My advice here is very simple and consists of two parts:

• Decide what your maximum effective range for engaging potential zombies is. Find the rifles and calibers that can consistently hit a target at that range.
• Find out what is the largest and flattest firing caliber that you can COMFORTABLY and RELIABLY put hits on target downrange with.

When you have done that, get that rifle (and scope if required)

Short Arms – Handguns – Once again, personal preferences and so on play a big part here along with availability, legal limitations and so on. That all said, always assuming the Blue Sky principle, I would suggest multiple handguns. IN a long term Zombie scenario, I would personally opt for at least a 6″ barrel revolver in the largest caliber you can shoot comfortably and reliably with. Why a revolver? Less moving parts. Easier to maintain, and despite what a lot of morons who think they know better than me will say, a revolver, all other things being equal is INHERENTLY more accurate than a semi-automatic pistol that does not have a fixed barrel. The Desert Eagle in .50 and the Beretta Target Pistol model 69 in .22 are the only semi-auto pistols that I found as accurate as my .357 magnum Ruger revolver.

Also, a handgun doubles as a home defence weapon. It is a short distance weapon. While it’s true that catching a.357 magnum bullet to the face at 50 metres will spoil your whole day anyway, the number of people that can even hit a human sized target at 50 metres are a handful, if that, in your entire community. For a home defence weapon you want absolute reliability. And no matter, once again, the number of people telling you that they can swear on a stack of bibles that a high-capacity semi-auto is the way to go, the reality is that with a semi-auto, misfires and jams in a home invasion scenarios can mean life and death. With a revolver, you just pull the trigger again in case of a misfire. And misfires happen. You could have the perfect semi-auto, but you only need that 1 in a million dud round in the chamber and now you need to cycle it out. So if you are limited I would get a revolver if that is the only gun you will take. Secondly, a high-capacity semi-auto in a common calibre would again not go amiss. And possibly a third one in a small caliber for the wife, to teach the kids how to shoot, or to keep noise to a minimum should that be a consideration (keep in mind that silencers are utterly illegal in most of Europe).

One consideration that many people don’t even think about is a black powder firearm. In a REALLY long game, eventually unless you are reloading the ammunition, or even if you are, you may find it difficult to come by the ammunition. Or the smokeless powder. Or the primers.

To be fair, the primer issue applies to black powder handguns as well, but the ammunition problem is far easier to deal with as long as you have some lead you can melt into balls and you are familiar with how to make black powder. As I said, this is an extreme situation in the really quite distant future, but if we really do get hit by an asteroid and you’re one of the last survivors, knowing HOW to make black powder from scratch is going to be a useful skill to have. And it will let you have a firearm when most other people will have run out of ammo. If you want to go really primitive, you can get one of those guns that does not use a primer but instead uses a flint to light the powder directly. Of course these are less reliable, prone to getting wet and so on, but… you know the saying, better have one and not need it than need it and not have one.

Alternatives – In countries like the UK where most guns are banned anyway, or difficult to get, you can still have some legal options with things like bows, crossbows and airsoft weapons. Yes, airsoft weapons are not lethal, but given that you can buy the airsoft balls separately and they can be filled with paint, or indeed other substances, it may still be better than nothing.

Ability to be self-sufficient in food production

This boils down ultimately, long term, to farming. And farming is hard, hard work. Farming without modern equipment is even harder and extremely labour intensive. And even if you work really hard, chances are you are unlikely to be able to produce enough food to feed your family. Mostly because bugs, weather, ignorance, lack of skills that have been lost will ALL conspire against you. Modern machinery allows you to do a lot more a lot faster and recover from mistakes quicker but of course, it is dependent on fuel. So there is that issue.

Supplementing your food supply with hunting is of course a given, and in this regard, an air rifle is hard to beat for getting birds and other small animals. Similarly, a small rifle, say a .22 long rifle, would be a very effective weapon for the hunting of smaller game, mostly because you can store a LOT of .22 ammunition in a relatively small space. Of course shotguns and larger calibers for larger animals are also assumed to be something you would have if the conditions of your geographical area allow for it. The overall point however is that food production is difficult and you need to study HOW to go about it more than probably all the other items on this list.