Note from Daisy: If you aren’t aware, a short time before the collapse became evident, the Venezuelan government confiscated all the guns from people. This left the population disarmed and vulnerable. In this article, Jose discusses some of the very real dangers of being at a rural homestead and ways to defend yourself if you do not have a gun.
My cousins there in the open country of Venezuela tell me that nights are dark. The government cut the power, and hungry people use this to go to the farms and see what they can steal.
Don’t rely on your elaborate systems too much.
I must tell you that those who rely on power and water off-the-grid, are wrong. Use it while you have it, but plan for when you stop having it. You will not be able to get supplies for your systems.
Oversize your systems; use industrial and heavy duty equipment. If you can afford buying some additional meters of extra pipe and have storage space, do it. It won´t rot and can be very useful. Design with time. Learn to get pleasure from customizing your designs, and discuss it with your family and like-minded friends over a couple of beers. I used to do this with my dad and we both enjoyed it a lot. I miss him.
The quality of the tap water is……similar to what you could get in a third-world nation. Not surprising. Therefore, I would not recommend you tie yourself to replaceable filters. Use the kind of filter that could be cleaned properly with a hard brush if needed. I would invest in UV lamps for the sterilizer and direct the money to a good quality battery pack.
A crossbow is a fine investment
I mention this because, on my wish list back in the homeland, there was a good, simple, and robust crossbow with a sight and a night vision scope. Maybe even three or four would be better, just in case. Use a tall tree for a camouflaged surveillance post, and leave the crossbow there with enough arrows to make a real mess in a roving band.
Don’t get rid of that smartphone just yet, even if you have no service. Just invest in a good waterproof case and an IR heat tracing device that you may fix to it, perhaps a new battery, and you will have a wonderful device for night-watching that should last for a few years if cared for properly.
If you are skilled enough, I would suggest you try to make your own crossbow and arrows. I am not especially gifted for handcrafting, but if I have to repair my crossbow and my life and my beloved ones’ lives depend on that… you get it.
A simple sheet of 3-4mm or thinner steel will give you plenty of tips. You can store them also, and they are cheap, too. Oil them and they won’t rust. So making your own even if you are a couch potato (like me, sometimes, at least LOL) will provide you with an additional edge. No thief that is trespassing on your property at night is aware that an arrow will cross the night silently to get stuck in a tree one or 2 meters away from their chest. It should work as a deterrent, and a very good one. Worst case scenario, this will make them much more aggressive the next time they decide to trespass, and you should be prepared to respond accordingly.
Eventually, people will come for what you have.
This is no joke.
There could be a lot of people, even people you know. They will have watched what you have, or what they think you have, and sure as heck they have had time to plan, and decide. Among them, it is very likely that you could have met them in a nearby town, and even had some light chat. I know that some farms have been attacked after some intel has been collected.
This is not uncommon. It happens in places like Colombia all the time, where rich coffee farmers suffer kidnappings and stuff. It’s only a matter of time until Crime Inc. (Castro’s maybe?) decided to “export” their modus operandi to Venezuela.
Chances are that after the first successful trespassing, next time they decide to get a little more. The only possible defense against this… is numbers and silent, dangerous long distance weapons that don’t use powder and are untraceable.
I have been informed of people in numbers of 12, 15, or even 20 persons storming a place.
The invaders don´t need other weapons for this if their gang is big enough: stones and sticks are enough. Young, hungry, but still strong, they will come at night, take what they can. Oh, and remember, this is the Caribbean tropics, so they have very sharp machetes. And being country laborers and workers, they know how to swing them pretty well. Something to consider.
If you have numbers enough, and a silent alarm system is in place, drills have been done… a small compound can make a mess of a decent amount of night attackers. The most dangerous approach someone can do, is going at someone’s door in the middle of the night. Even in regular times, it is something very stupid to do, because good people don’t come at night.
The real problem comes afterwards.
It’s not like the movies. You repel the attack, the guys run leaving behind trails of blood and stuff. You still have to live THERE. Perhaps with women, elders, children, perhaps someone ill, injured or disabled – and now there are a good number of “neighbors” (the bad kind) all p***ed off and humiliated.
Because that is how the criminal thinks: if someone stops them, they FEEL humiliation. This makes them angry. This makes them even more dangerous. They have plenty of time to plan another attack, though.
What you can do to avoid it, is something that everyone has to resolve on their own. I would leave some stuff in their path, something enough for them to consider a success. Next time, they would find something less…with a note. Perhaps some crossed long bones that mimic human ones or something creative.
Let’s say 20 persons, 5 of them with edged weapons, and your defense line is just 7 persons, including perhaps some teenagers that can’t re-cock the crossbow. Using 3 crossbows for each person, the attack can be avoided. It is going to be a mess, but you will survive to tell the story. If just 3 of the 7 men (or women, or grandpa/grandma) of the defense team can re-cock a couple of crossbows for the younger, it is a very good tactical advantage. Go with a very simple cocking mechanism, and make sure the cords used are abundant, and perhaps even able to be hand made with ancient techniques.
Why do I write about this now?
Because these are the types of things some of my extended family still there are facing. Their protein intake has become much lower because the roving bands are desperately looking for meat and poultry. If things go so bad that one is able to get into the property of someone they know face to face, in the middle of the night, and with a sharpened machete… it should not be so difficult to shoot an arrow, if your kids are in the panic room shaking in fear, don’t you think? Use some light armor, provided some of your members are young, and agile (not like me), and get closer than what you need.
This is why I identified those IR devices as being very useful for this kind of night operation. They could even record some footage if needed for further investigation if some kind of law enforcement team is operating.
I designed all of this after contacting them and asking them how things are around their place: a farmer’s town where everyone used to know each other.
Less than 2000 population. Peaceful and quiet. Until now.
People will do anything to survive.
We have to be ready for that, not just in our equipment selection. In our minds.
A bad choice is something that we will have to face for the rest of our lives. I know.
Thanks for your support fellows, and your encouraging comments.
Be safe, and may the good Lord bless you all.
About Jose
Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has a small 4 members family, plus two cats and a dog. An old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Thanks to your help Jose has gotten his family out of Venezuela. They are currently setting up a new life in another country. paypal.me/JoseM151
Venezuela is really heading towards the precipice, as is South Africa. Previews of what we here in the States are looking at, on a much larger scale! Better get and stay ready! The common denominator in Venezuela and S Africa? Guns, or the lack of them! Take them from everyone that you want to be defenseless, the farmers, the middle class, the rich whites…….stay alert, people, it’s coming here!
It’s unfortunate but I can see this happening here in the States. Give the Democrats enough time in office and we will well down the road to this end.
Que Dios bendiga a tus familiares y compatriotas. This is so sad, my childhood memories of Venezuelan culture were the extreme natural beauties that always won Miss World or Miss Universe, the telenovela stars, the singers sadly not many have come out against the regime. Now my memory is about a mentally ill man eating a dog in the street -due to the food shortage- while motorists stopped their cars to record.
I can’t believe famine will become a reality in an oil rich country. The price chavez made his people pay to welcome ahmadinejad and isis into Latin American soil.
Good luck and hope Colombia can be a place of refuge.
Dear Down,
Gracias amigo, por tus amables palabras, y que vayan nuestras bendiciones hacia ti tambien.
We will take our country back. It make take a while, but the communist world will find out how Freedom Fighters respond once there is no other alternative.
With or without external aid, sooner or later it will have to be done.
A big hug for you.
One thing about bad people. You know they have to DIE. So 50% of the equation is solved for you. You only need to figure out the other 50%.
How they WILL die!
I hope that you can use those whom you kill, for the meat. That’s getting expensive down there. And I’d hate to waste all that delicious long pig because of ethical squeamishness.
Alas that long pig carries so many interesting diseases! You’re better off using the meat as bait or compost, and the bones as warning signs. Or knife handles.
Dear Tatiana,
I would prefer to feed that kind of…”meat” to a catfish pond. And I would feel sorry for them, indeed.
A crossbow is easily rendered ineffective by a piece of 14 gauge steel or a piece of 7/16″ OSB. This is because a good crossbow only generates about 100ftlbs of energy and it quickly loses it moving its 400 grain comparatively large bolt through the air. For reference, a 380ACP is about 200ftlbs. 25ACP is about 100ftlbs. Try it sometime, even at way less than the effective 100′ range of a crossbow they are easily defeated. Even a sufficiently motivated fat old man can cover 100′ in a very short period of time.
So, I wouldn’t worry about having a stash of crossbows and truckloads of bolts.
Most people don’t want to die. So you just have to make the risk vs potential reward look less enticing. You can do this by not being enticing, making it too difficult by say laying traps or making detection/escape less enjoyable, or by a show of force/crazy.
A guy with one crossbow, 50 man traps and snares scattered throughout, and level IIa body armor with a sword is probably sufficient in a world without guns.
I would agree if you’re talking about a hunting crossbow. A home-made crossbow can be made much heavier. My brother and I made a crossbow from a car leaf spring. It was heavy (almost 20 pounds) with a pull weight to match (over 400 pounds). Cocking it took a pulley system, maximum rate of fire 1/minute. At 25 yards, a bolt would go through a target made of 2″x4″ pine wood.
Mr. Martinez and his family should be able to duplicate that device. After all, dead cars are one of the few things Venezuela has in abundance. For defense purposes, the weight isn’t a problem – you’re not going far with them. The main problem is cordage. We used 550 cord for the pulley, and hundreds of yards of dental floss for the string. The medieval answer is to use hair, it works better than heavy rope.
Dear Tweel,
Indeed, at this moment, some acquaintances have asked for my assistance for this. Machining pieces has become much more expensive these days, and there are some pieces that would rise some eyebrows and can’t be sent to someone else.
Yes, the leaf spring crossbow is feasible, and we could provide some useful advice. The guys asking were mechanically savvy (I am not, I am mechanically challenged LOL) and lost contact with them some time ago, so I don’t know if their project resulted.
That was something quite interesting to learn about the cordage. I am pretty sure that there exists some polymeric fiber with the needed properties. They could need some UV coating for protection though…
I will try to do some theoretical research on the issue.
Be safe fellow.
Dear Pinky,
Trying to find 9mm ammo right now there, will led to unspeakable and unpredictable consequences. Trust me. The gun rights were seized by the communist military forces, just in case you did not know that.
How it is supposed that you are going to stockpile ammo for self defense, when the goal of the crooks in power is exactly that you don’t?.
Given the lack of rule of law, I would prefer to use a crossbow-armed response team, that silently would allow to mitigate some threat that does not have a clue about what is happening.
On the other hand, you are right: body armor is a must. It is very likely that someone trespassing is armed.
Check the Daisy’s Twitter log, as there are some interesting videos on what happens whenever an entire town is ruled by narcos: the example of San Juan de las Galdonas, Sucre.
I have been watching Venezuela for about two decades. First because I had a friend from there and then when they started nationalizing their foreign-invested infrastructure (like the power companies, Hugo stole billions from/nearly bankrupted US companies just on Seneca alone) .
I have a lot of projectiles. When I say a lot I mean more than what will fit in a truck. Some of it I have had for decades. I don’t have it all in one place. No way would I ever give it all up. Same for the projectile emitters.
In the US there was a decade long period where you couldn’t get certain things, including high capacity magazines. During the last democrat’s presidency projectiles had peaked at four times the cost prior to him taking office. If you planned accordingly it wasn’t a big deal. Right now you can’t reload for what you can buy new for and that is with casting your own lead.
I have a crossbow or a dozen. I think if it weren’t for a hunting season with them they wouldn’t exist in the USA. If it weren’t for a certain zombie show I don’t think they would be so mainstream. It is true that they are better than nothing but I think I’d rather have a compound bow than a crossbow.
A follow up shot from a compound bow is way less time than a crossbow.
Zip guns:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfu40fM-yhw
Only problem with a zip gun is the lack of ammo, if the government took your guns in a round up you can bet they took the ammo too.
Add some “crow’s feet” spread out in the grass and on the path. This will slow down the group and will help your defense. Trying to pay off the mob will not work because they now know you have the supplies to try and bribe them.
What are “crow’s feet”? Are you meaning the actual feet from dead crows? When I put crow feet in a search, all I get back are pages about killing crow feet grass. Need some help here understanding!!! Can you post a link to what you mean, or to a reference page? Or can you just describe what you mean? Thanks!!! We live out in the boonies on a lot of acreage, so any help with ideas for defense are welcomed! And appreciated!
This link provides a good explanation – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop
Venezuela Pastor pleads for prayer..
https://www.charismamag.com/blogs/fire-in-my-bones/39997-a-venezuelan-pastor-pleads-for-prayer?utm_source=Fire%20in%20my%20Bones&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:752534&utm_campaign=FIMB%20-%202019-01-09%20(2)
I hope that people will be safe. It is really dangerous to take the weapons from people they are now vulnerable. Thank you. for raising awareness.
I have read from a Germanophone on Twitter, that the State Government of Hesse (or Hessia) has legislation outlawing crossbows; I’m not sure if it has been passed or not.
From the comments ,many are missing some of the key points this article makes.
1) “I must tell you that those who rely on power and water off-the-grid, are wrong.”
Those systems will fail and you will not be able to get parts or fix them. So you better have a plan for other alternatives.
2) “Eventually, people will come for what you have.”
Lots of times they will be your Neighbors.
I see to many people thinking they will Bug out to a more remote area or a Homestead and that this will save them. Eventually the looters and rioters will come there also.
People will scout properties by Day and attack at night. So if you look poorly defended during the day, they will see an opportunity.
3) “The real problem comes afterwards.( the Attack)”
“Because that is how the criminal thinks: if someone stops them, they FEEL humiliation. This makes them angry. This makes them even more dangerous. They have plenty of time to plan another attack, though.”
I see a lot of Urban preppers that are in denial or ignorant on this point. Just because you defeated one attack, they will try again, with a better plan, (but it also applies to all preppers).
They are now angry, humiliated and out for revenge. At some point they might decide to burn you out in revenge( if you killed some of them), no longer caring about getting your supplies.
Remember that some of these people will have families, that will want revenge on you for killing their relatives.
They may also be your neighbors, so you may still have to deal with them on a daily basis as you do your daily chores or try to barter items with them.
So the “I’ll just kill them all with my guns,(weapons)”, is not likely to work out so well.
4) : “… a farmer’s town where everyone used to know each other.
Less than 2000 population. Peaceful and quiet. Until now.”
“People will do anything to survive.”
These are two thoughts that should guide your preps. Even small towns will not be exempt, and that people will do anything to survive and provide for their families.
Plan your defenses accordingly.
1) Actually there are many articles on line about how to make a pump to get water out of a well if the power is off. Requires some PVC and one-way water checks.
2) Talk to get to know your neighbors now, make them assets instead of liabilities. In SHTF, help them, and they will help you. Only by forming relationships, community is anyone going to survive.
My one neighbors are elderly and we do our best to watch out and help them even with small chores. They would be consider “soft” targets. I hear gunshots or see a band closing in on their home, I will come to their aid. Now the looters have to worry about an assualt coming from their rear/flank. Then there is the other neighbors who will come to their aid. And then our elderly neighbors son who lives up the road and is a dang good shot. Suddenly the looters have multiple assaults coming from different sides.
A disorganized group of looters will be no match for a organized community that knows the local terrain.
Keeping a LP/OP over key bottle necks will prevent any scouts or looters from coming or will provide for advanced notice for the local militia to set up an ambush.
3) A common misconception is that people will just stop and not continue to pursue those who attacked them. Back in the old days, in the West they had these things called posses. Track the looters down and bring them to justice. We all know those who attacked may return. They will have grudges. Best defense is a good offense.
4) We are well aware of this.