TV: Doomsday Preppers

In a sense, every serious shooter or outdoorsman I've ever known is a "prepper" (trendy modern parlance for what used to be called a "survivalist"). I mean, I've got water filters, backpacks, food, first aid kits, and plenty of ammo, but that's all to facilitate the activities I do in my spare time, not to prep for the end of the world as we know it (though obviously the AR carbine would come in handy...).

Some people go a bit further, and by "a bit further," I mean a whole helluva lot further:


"Doomsday Preppers" is a TV show that looks at various people, mostly families, who are prepping for some apocalypse. The preppers range from the silly to the serious, but they've all devoted fairly significant resources to the whole enterprise; prepping ain't for poor people. You'll see common measures (closets of food and guns), but also some off the wall stuff (a camouflage net to hide a big rig truck, a secret sealed "pod" underneath a garage, a family eating fried insects).

I can't quite tell if the show is mocking the preppers. At worst, they're depicted as kooky outsiders who aren't dangerous, which is better than how survivalism has previously been portrayed. One thing that stuck out: about half of the preppers featured in the show are getting ready for civil unrest after a global economic collapse. Let's hope it isn't an indication of which way the wind is blowing.