Person A
Has not prepared at all. He has not stocked up on food, water, fuel and weapons. Basically all he has is whats in his home, which might last him a week at the most.

Person B
Had prepared really well, and did great for a year. But now his supplies are almost over. He just has enough left for a week.


Whether you are person A or B, you know you got to eat and drink something. So would you resort to using force to get what you want. Would your predicament justify using violence to take what you want for your survival?

Discuss.

Yes....yes i would......next question?

yes you in the front with the mole...

I'd do what I had to do to ensure the survival of my family. If that includes taking your # , let me say sorry in advance. Fortunately I'm pretty set up as far as preps.

looting is one thing but scavenging is quite another.... I wouldn't try to steal another's supplies but I can see scavenging for stuff in abandoned structures...

funny thing is that most people will loot things that they might not be able to use in a SHTF event.

one thing you can count on is that real knowledge will become one of your most valuable assets....

knowing how to make make-shift or redneck-rigging a ram pump for water; building a solar stove or making a generator out of nominal supplies for example

understanding how something works so you can rig something up will be an essential skill if the SHTF

Originally posted by EyesWideShut
I'd do what I had to do to ensure the survival of my family. If that includes taking your # , let me say sorry in advance. Fortunately I'm pretty set up as far as preps.

I am all for preparedness and have a good set of supplies on hand, unfortunately not enough for everybody. For those who might consider taking my supplies I would warn that like others on this thread I have no qualms with cannibalism either, though not likely to go there as long as my regular supplies hold out. Such contributions at that time I would gladly offer to my less fortunate neighbors. No apology necessary. My colonia would be glad to have you for dinner. Jajajaja. Glad you are well-stocked too.

Ultimately we will do whatever necessary to survive. The land yields many resources that we are not accustomed to utilizing. Snails, grub worms, and an assortment of creepy crawlers are tasty and there for the taking, though to many such things may seem a distasteful and very last resort if considered at all. Survival skill and basic bushcraft calls for getting over that. If you were trained in the right units the military may have already introduced you to some of these delectables, otherwise if you have concerns those times are approaching you should start experimenting and conditioning for it soon.

I hope we will all turn to doing these necessary things, foraging and the like, before we turn to raiding another's home, camp, and supplies. If I have one ounce of proper mental rationalization left after normal supplies are exhausted I expect I should and will resign myself to whatever fate I deserve before I consider pillaging another survivor's camp who had the foresight to be better prepared than myself.

I have my own moral code. I'll be putting it in place when the time comes. I think is as equitable as can be, and can be universalized to the lives of others, for the general good.

Looting
I won't be looting. I won't need to. I have organized my supplies and caches such that I will already possess the things that people might want to loot. I consider looting to be when a mob uses its own size and impromptu nature to overwhelm an owner and take things by force. I stand with owners of stuff. Most looters don't even take things of value. When the lights go out and the a/c shuts off, the mobs smashes windows and steals.....televisions.

Scavenging.
Completely ok. Scavenging is taking something that the 'owner' has no more use for, or will be unable to reclaim. For example, if the neighbors flee for california in one of their 3 vehicles, I will siphon the gas out of the other 2. They obviously can't expect to come back and find their vehicles operable in a couple of years. Or for example books on medicine from the county library. If I don't take them with me and give them a loving home, some looters will probably use them for toilet paper, or low-grade pornography. Again, the government will lose them anyway. Look at it this way: today, before TSHTF, if a truck full of frozen pies flips over in the street, there's no way the owners will be able to save those pies....

Punishment for theft or robbery
There is only one punishment. no plea bargaining.

better question


Would you report looting in a SHTF scenario

Paraphrasing the honor code of the service academies;
I will not loot or tolerate those who do.

1 must scavange its understood to survive if thats the case. But steal from anothers supply location no.

looting, no way! but surviving, you bet your sweet patooty. altho you haven't given us any specifics, i would assume that the earth has not been scortched yet, so i would provide for my family the best i could. now say if the earth is barron... none of us will have much of a chance, unless you have a stockpile and sealed off bomb shelter set up for 10 yrs.. i would just hope i was best friends with someone like that.lol

Originally posted by CosmicCitizen
Paraphrasing the honor code of the service academies;
I will not loot or tolerate those who do.

Sure, and some looting is obvious, but at what point does it cease to be looting and begin being foraging?

What if the house or business appears to be abandoned? What if half the population is already dead? What if you see a roving gang take down your neighbors, and then you take down the gang?

More muddy, what if you know of an old codger, living alone, with nothing to offer to society, and a short-time to live anyway, but he is hoarding enough resources to keep your family alive for months? You might all starve before he keels over, and his hoard will be wasted when he inevitably dies as well. Is that looting if you go take some of it, or just survival of the fittest?