Proactive looting: A SHTF Fantasy 

You mean to tell me I won’t find a suppressor, hand grenade, and morphine in my neighbor’s fridge…

I'm gonna run out of cosmic brownies at some point and be forced to go out. That's just the reality of the situation

The whole “I’ve got a gun I’ll take what I need” is the most cringe thing I’ve heard sadly too often.

If anyone has played Tarkov, they should understand why a SHTF or WROL situation would be terrible. Walking through the streets of an abandoned town, you exit concealment, and someone just lays into you and kills you before you even have a chance to address them. It doesn't strike me as a good time...yes, as a game it's fun, but I would not want Tarkov to be a real life scenario.

You should practice your primary to secondary transitions because of that scene in Black Hawk Down where they're defending Super 6-4

You're telling me I can't bankroll my post-apocalyptic life by running around with a backpack full of bolts and vodka looking for artifacts? Literally 1984.

The abandoned Contact Lense Warehouse will be my first takeover. "Vision King" will be my moniker.

“But brassfacts what if I store up everything only to have my neighbor loot it” And this is the reason why proficiency, preparedness, and community building is so important before shit hits the fan.

The go to phrase is usually "failing to plan is planning to fail" but here I like the extra step of "if your plan is to improvise, you need a better plan"

as a roamer who plays tarkov in real life, most abandoned locations will be completely cleared out of all useful items almost immediately by random people, urbex, campers, hikers, methheads, etc. it is very rare to find a location that is furnished with something useful. in shtf just imagine this process but with even more random people but armed with guns.

the level 1 hideout in tarkov is great. Just a matress and a shit bucket with ambient chemlights all over the place lol

Also people kinda forget that looting is antisocial assholish behavior. Does anyone not remember the BLM riots?

You're telling me i won't be able to raid student dorms for diamonds and money; then extract by giving money to a strange Uber?

Me, placing an acog into my desk along with half a mag: L O O T

What is the survival rate of a serial home invader? And what will it be without rule of law to protect you from the consequences?

saying you're going to go around raiding your neighbors like some kind of pirate is just an admission that you're a bad person who's only kept in check by fear of the consequences, not goodwill.

I find the ammo hoarding for SHTF particularly silly. I find it very unlikely I'd make it through 1k rounds of 5.56 in SHTF. I shoot way more now at the range than I ever would in a disaster. It's not like we'd be shooting for fun during the end times. The reason I hoard ammo is to make it through the next shortage without spending too much money.

The whole “your preps are going to be my preps, thank you!” style comments are from mouth breathers. I wouldn’t worry about them, they are not going to last the first 5 minutes in this activity. They will be the loot drops, not whoever they think they’re going to loot lmao

Yeah, the number of people I've talked to who just say something like "Oh I'm just going to raid and take supplies from other people" is insane. Like Dog, 1 that's evil, 2 you're gonna get shot.

Best thing I ever heard about SHTF situations is: "If you thought of this one grand idea on what you're gonna do, so have a few thousand other people". Thats not a perfect quote, but it's a quote from the late Paul Harrel (Rest in Peace) on his TEOTWAKI video.

Really like your idea of working overtime for the kit now. It really helps put in perspective, "Im not willing to spend my weekend working overtime to buy this, so why would I risk the rest of my life to loot it?"

I love Brass Yaps episodes

I've been proactively looting my neighbor's homes for years at this point...

if your rushing to Walmart when the crap hits the fan you already lost.

If someones plan A in an emergency situation is to steal from their neighbors/community (barring outlier situations like relying on a controlled substance or other medication that you are not able to stockpile) I have to question their moral compass.

Planning to loot is not a plan.

Has anyone else noticed the disturbing lack of Cat Footage at the end of Hop's videos? ...I'm just asking questions.

You aint looting anything, gunfire gonna attract everyone to your position and the loot is gonna be wolf .223 two 2A mags and a Del Ton with an arterial sprayed Amazon-COG 😂. Look at the vids outta baltimore on shorts thats what youll "loot" 😂. Anyone with anything nicer that youd want is gonna be able to kill you just as much as you could them, why risk your life 😂. The name of the game is AVOIDING conflict.

But does Blue Alpha have a +4 Str +4 Stam leather belt belt? Lvl 18?

One thing i appreciate with these videos is that its been helping slowly change the meta that I notice on gun reddit. Dont be a glorified refugee and just chill at home if need be. Anytime we seen people go outside and act vigiliant, very rarely does it turn out well.

This idea of scavenging or looting is so dumb. The only way looting works if a sizeable chunk of the population around you is gone. Even if you assume a full nuclear exchange, 3 billion dead world wide, nuclear winter, starvation etc. If you survived the blast then probably your neighbors did too. Are you really gonna kill the old retired couple across the street over 4 cans of beans? Would you really beat the shit out of them if they tried to stop you from taking their canned food? Like honestly, picture it in your head. Odds are that's not you. Prepare now, so you don't have to be a monster later.

Buccees occupation force checking in.

Everyone's looting walmart, while me and the boys are driving an 18wheeler to the distribution warehouse.

My son collects CAPS

How dare you challenge my booglarp fantasies

Just intern under a homeless person. They show you what’s it’s like to “I’ve off of loot”. I’ve never seen a homeless person gear maxed with dual wielding deagles.

My neighbors are mostly cows, so my situation is more like Minecraft. Big steak drops.

You can have the Walmart. I want the Dollar General...

Ah, I just sat down to poop and this popped up. Life is good.

To quote my dad (2nd Bat Ranger) "Whatever you have when you step off only gets worse. You are almost never gonna find or get better shit than you originally had if you planned correctly. And the best you brought will be much worse than you thought 2 days before." When thing are shit, you don't find diamonds. You pray you find chicken noodle soup and bottled water but come up with 2 year old spam and piss flavored sparkling water.

A, larger than I'd like, portion of the firearm community is nuttier than I'd like lol. I'm not too into the scavenge thing either. Not too likely to have this as a nationwide scenario in the USA within the next decade, and that's taking Russia + China into account lol. The more fights you get into, the more likely you are to LOSE. It's all about probability. Guns are called the "equalizer of men," your opponents only need to get lucky ONCE.

I always starve to death or die from disease/infections in dayz wdym

Hey guys, he said PSA, not Bear Creek so we are good 😂😂.

Only thing I think of when I hear the word 'looting' is either video games or "Looters will be shot". Picking up supplies from dead enemies isn't really a bad thing, but if things get bad enough, or YOUR bad enough to start looting simple civilians and their houses... You're a raider and will be dealt with as a raider. Tens of thousands of people in this country are more prepared than you, trained more than you, have better relations with their communities than you. Pockets of righteous, ordered civilization WILL survive anything you can. And they won't put up with nonsense. So go ahead, think you're going to be billy-badass and take what you want. You'll get your comeuppance. Fighting good people is bad for the soul.

I've seen a concerning number of internet comments to the effect of "If I run out of food, I'll just use my PSA rifle to go get more." I'm convinced that in pretty much every SHTF scenario, the people going around and starting gunfights will be hungry people with junk equipment and supplies. Well prepared people, with good supplies and equipment, won't need to raid their neighbors.

The only parts of my disaster planning that have scavenging/looting attached as SOPs are in the "Zombies" or "post-plague that wiped out 99%+ of the population" sections.

That's yalls plan? Looting guns and Flintstones vitamins? I'm stripping naked and running into the woods like god intended

Adressing the last remenant of the "zombie apocalypse" era of SHTF.

We are out of power for like a week projected in West North Carolina. Glad I prepared before this but even still there's a lot I am lacking

"enough ammo to make a National Guard armory blush"

I'm a former FF/Medic/Rescue Tech and I went down to Louisiana to volunteer to help with Katrina and worked many wildland fires, evacs and SAR call-outs. _Much_ of the popular 2A "prepping" is complete LARP. Doesn't mean it's useless or detrimental in any way, getting out and shooting and using the things you've bought it fun and a good hobby/training but the speed and dynamic nature of disaster preparedness very difficult and usually means all the little "plans" and gadgets people have for such emergencies get lost or forgotten in the panic. Just learning medical skills and how to be calm in stressful situations can go a LONG way for most folks.

In DayZ you start out on the beach with the clothes on your back, maybe a soda and a piece of fruit. You don't start out with a rifle in your hand, a full up plate carrier, and a house full of food. The issue here, is that the people who make survival games their starting frame of reference would see things that way. Once you're established going fishing while one of your buddies is on zombie watch with the MP5SD becomes the order of the day. You don't have to go looting, because things like gardening, ranching, and fishing are better uses of your time.

THANK YOU. So many people say things like this, and aside from being kind of concerning morally, it's just not a sustainable way to survive.

For SHTF, making friends is arguably the most important skill. For fighting an asymmetric war against a superior foe however.... Let's just say my loadout has scavenger perk on.

Tldr; don't be poor

How many points is looting Nikes and Xboxes worth?

I believe the real problem with SHTF, is there’s all kinds of SHTF and most people assumed SHTF is the worst one.

Thanks for the video, Brass. I don't mind long vids at all but the short format is cool too. This topic didn't need 30 minutes anyway. Onto the topic itself-- I never got the looting/scavving thing. Aside from it being the adult manifestations of "quiet kid at school" fantasies, it doesn't make sense strategically. If it's out for the taking, it's either a sucker trap or an indicator that maybe the local area isn't the best neighborhood anymore. Otherwise, you're just a kitted out thief raiding other people's shelters for their supplies, and the real locals will treat you accordingly sooner or later. It takes all the problems of living life as a thief, and adds shelter and food supply instability to the mix. Not a good combo. Your point about the community language surrounding the topic has merit too. Maybe it's just me and the people I've talked to, but I've seen the language used to frame the realities of slumming it in a conflict zone, and what that means for trade acquisition. It's less "keep what you kill" and more a reminder that ammo and parts commonality can be a factor in higher-level disruptions. Don't get me wrong, it's still a silly fantasy, and dudes still speak euphemistically of harming their fellow man. But I almost always saw talk of commonality approached from a "food for ammo" scenario. You see this discussed in precious metals collector circles, too.

You should try project zomboid, its less about the shooting and more about logistics in my opinion Its highly fun

Shtf is exactly like tarkov, I'll walk out of my home and instantly get head/eyes'd

The only "lessons" anyone should take from tarkov is that wandering around looking for stand-up fights with a similar equipped opponent is going to leave you with arterial bleeds and shattered limbs you have no way of treating, and at any moment a toothless degenerate with a clapped-out break-action shotgun could flip your off switch.

If you have good gear to protect yourself you're a loot drop. *literally anytime I discuss gear or prepping on my channel.*

You being in Utah I got to imagine you’ve read part of some of the black autumn series? First book I think is a pretty realistic take on how events play out IF you have a gross stockpile of goods. Would highly recommend, the author keeps it fairly grounded in reality

If Brass Facts was 4-D chessing this....he WOULD tell us it is not his plan to loot. HE IS TRYONG TO KEEP THE USED BCGS TO HIMSELF!

The fact of the matter is, by the time it's TIME to loot, most lawful people will have already lapsed on their timeframe to even be able to loot. Whether that be because of factors such as- the scrubs already got to it before you expended your stores or whether that be because it's quite likely stores of critical items such as food, water, and medicine, will have been exhausted legally by the time we all put our assless chaps on and Mad Max at each other. Really. It takes moving mountains to get us all in a state of open armed conflict in a first world nation on the scale where breaking into critical infrastructure like hospitals in order to loot insulin is even slightly morally tenable. Love that you covered this and I've been considering posting similar thoughts myself. I just don't give enough of a shit to take the time to articulate these things to people. So I'm glad you do.

“You loot, we shoot” is common enough after disasters that anyone thinking it’s viable is someone to be heavily avoided. The only scenario I could see where “looting” would take place is in a Red Dawn type scenario. Where civilians are way behind friendly lines and cut off from normal logistics or being supplied via airdrops.

Also, I don't need to find intel on the enemy's location, the PD is well-lit and has proper signage.

Part of the problem is too many people apply “military” thinking to how civilians should respond to unrest. A lot of this comes from lack of experience and training IMO.

You guys need some side armor on those PCs, at least soft IIIA

I’m over 40, got decent gear & supplies, so I guess I’m the loot drop. FAWK THAT, upstarts better find an easier target.

Been saying this for years. 90% of the prepper and gun community get way off in the fantasy weeds when it comes to emergency events.

I'm a dayz pro so I'm ready for shtf

Dumb as it sounds I never really thought of the point you made about most gear being trash. You’re not going to be running into Tier 1 and 2 teams and snagging HK 416s and M110A1s or other top tier gear. I think as long as you run a common enough caliber you should be fine (5.56, 7.62 both the common kinds, as well as 9, 40, 45, and 10) just don’t buy a PSA tier rifle

Amazon prime never stopped delivering during Covid and riots

You and your community will be compelled to take or at the least hold ground. The biggest fallacy is thinking that shtf will yield solo duos, small packs of "operators preppers" roaming the land. I propose that it will effectively look like tribal warfare with defacto bands of local governments arising.

My take on it: if you haven't prepared even the slightest amount of supplies for your existence (I mean like 2 weeks is just minimum of minimums), then you're either ignorant, REALLY broke or stupid. Also what you may not know, after some parts of southwestern Poland got flooded into oblivion couple of weeks ago (so basically our "Katrina") state services VERY quickly sprung into action and VERY quickly issued night vision and thermals to prevent looters from doing their inherent job, that includes over-the-border Czech looters. Of course, some still succeed, but many more get arrested really quick. Also stealing from others will be remembered in the community and in the best case scenario after everything comes to the normal you'll be ostracized and in the worst case scenario locals will ensure your visit to the pit with lime. PS DayZ in its foundations is the best survival game and one of the most influential games of all time.

If you're not eyeing your local NG armory someone else is

As an ER nurse, the amount of people that would be dead without constant access to quality medical care is humbling and scary. There are a whole lot of people stocked up on thousands of dollars of ammo/guns that won’t last two weeks when the pharmacy is gone.

It’s so tempting to imagine cooler scenarios for shtf than look at past, similar events. Bartering will come sooner and last way longer than looting/scavenging. It’s lame, but that’s ok. Can anyone find an instance where scavenging and looting have just been considered “ok” and not still criminal?

6-12m of supplies is honestly a staggering amount. I have 2 weeks worth and that feels about right. Though, in a worst of worst cases scenario, I don't have any dilusions that I have a good chance of survival. I mean, I need my meds to function and I can't see without corrective lenses. It will only be a matter of time before I begin to fall apart. So, maybe it is a bit irrelevant. But I think preparing for a 2 week interruption is adequate for most scenarios. After that, you are preparing for edge cases of edge cases and I don't think that is worth it for most people.

I like the video. I like the style of video as well. I also like the hypothetical Fantasy situation discussion.

From the military side of things, we were actively discouraged from doing anything more proactive than checking for signs of life. Now granted, we were an artillery unit and none of the bodies we made were on our side of the horizon, but because of the places we tended to end up, they had to at least go through the motions of teaching us infantry stuff. There were a number of different reasons laid out over the years, but the most prevalent was, dead bodies are a special sort of danger all on their own, especially after they've had time to ripen. With the US Army logistics system at our back, the risks associated with disease, traps, and so on outweighed any potential benefits. I'm sure that equation balances differently if you've been living in a trench for months on end and a few loaded magazines or bandages could really make the difference. That's especially true if there's some commonality in weapons and ammo on the other side. No matter how you balance it, though, that danger is still there, and it really needs to be considered before rifling through someone's gear looking for useful stuff. If it's wet and it's sticky and it's not yours, don't touch it without gloves. If you don't have gloves and you can't wash your hands, anything with blood or other, less identifiable fluids should probably be considered a biohazard and avoided. Running out of ammo is bad, but shitting yourself to death or picking up a staph infection isn't any better.

While militaries do loot their logistics are not based on using the enemy’s ammo. Standardize your equipment and have a surplus of it spread around every area they could have a conflict in. That is what militaries do.

Too Into Tarkov Syndrome (TITS) affects 1 in every 6 gun owners with computers......

People are also worried about stuff like ammo, which is important, but not nearly as important as having water. The amount of people that are going to be unalived because they tried stealing someones water is going to be horribly high.

Looting period is a very stupid idea. People set items just to catch looters you pick up a bottle of vodka.. From a table in an abandoned looking structure .. and get Lead poisoning .. Limit looting to gathering stuff up off the battlefield afterwards from people who no longer Can use the supplies

Contact BLM and antifa for looting training

Yeah, looks easy on Tarkov. The average person will "loot" 3 houses and be exhausted from lack of any meaningful exercise.

I wonder what lessons learned will come from the people in Asheville... I managed to get out while there on a road trip, and it has given me a few ideas on how to navigate that... But damn what a shitshow.

the thing is though, sometimes even your plans or preparation can be disrupted. example, you have spare parts and ammo and mags and food and water... and your house burns down. you grab your Bug out bag, A rifle, and a chest rig... then those scenarios of " i want a rifle that can run any ammo or has good parts compatibility does have some merit

Damn, you missed the opportunity to call it a "SHTFantasy".

Me sitting here with well over 1000 rounds, tons of gauze, TQs, mags, plate carrier, multiple weapons, all in the same room.... realizing I better get REALLY good at stopping people from getting in here if s ever htf 😂

Dirty civ had a good point on the looting stuff. You could not prep and then risk everything for food and water, or you could just prep and not have to during the most dangerous curve of an event or crisis.

I have a C7 upper retro AR with wood furniture and I’m about to buy a .45-70 BFR, I think I’ll be just fine…

3:36 *Sweaty-Back-Facts*

You will always have that one person in the comments shooting their mouth off about "loot drops" and how if they need a rifle, equipment, ammo or food they'll "scavenge" it off someone else's body.

SHTF is more like NeoScavenger aka the homeless simulator 💀

the people with that mindset are the literal reason for guns are part of preparedness. you are not the lone wanderer, you are the raider. and after youve run out of your second neighbors ravioli aswell, cause youve never bothered invest some time in to learning how to plan supplies, someone will realize you are a threat to all the people who either did their preps or decided to be a useful part of a community and then the most skilled out of those that see you for what you are, will decide to take care of the thread you pose. Have your shit together, so that you dont have to rely on luck and so you dont make your self the issue of people more dangerous than you.

Can anyone tell me without using Google to look it up how long the first civil war was? 7 years......7..... fucking years. Ain't no way I've got room for 7 years worth of food. Luckily my boss is a farmer that raises beef cattle so I can exchange some work for food. If you build community that gives you options other than looting.... save that for your last resort cause it very well could be.

I'm just here to see Nova at the end!