In truth, the Ammo isn’t gone, but it sure is harder to find and it’s a lot more expensive. I regularly see prices that are double what I paid just a few short months ago. For example, back in November, I paid $14 for a 50 round box of .40 S&W and they are now going for $35 dollars. If you are purchasing online, expect a longer wait now because of the huge demand with some places unable to fill orders for almost a month. For some, if you don’t have it already, the ammo is gone.
The cost increase is worse for some rifles because of all the latest political grandstanding. AR’s aren’t impossible to find but if you were looking to add a rifle to your Survival Kit they are going to be more expensive in most cases and the supply is definitely smaller. I was at a gun show last month and I did see a couple of ARs going for over $2500 but I also saw a few that were still around $900. They are out there and you can find them if you are looking but they are harder to find. The same is true for pistols; some vendors wanted $200 more for the same model of handgun. You just have to shop around.
So what can you do if you didn’t already have a safe filled with various rifles and handguns in all your favorite calibers and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition for all that hardware? What if you had only recently been awoken to the concept of liberty and felt the growing urgency to do something quickly? What if the recent flood of traffic by people prepping for the next disaster (perhaps caused by the government) to the Wal-Marts, Cabelas, and Gander Mountains of this world caught you unaware, and now you don’t have the ability to buy anything?
Focus on the positive
Hopefully most of you reading this blog already had some idea of what was ahead and are relatively unaffected by the recent panic buying. You have a firearm or two and have plenty of ammunition should you need it. How much is “plenty” could be up for discussion, but we can leave that for another day. Granted, you can’t justify going to the range as much anymore because you either don’t want to get rid of what you have (smart) or there is no ammo to purchase to practice with, but you have something.
Others out there are still able to purchase a firearm or ammo if you haven’t already. If you were waiting for a time to go out and purchase a handgun this should be your sign and according the FBI, Americans are purchasing a gun every 1.5 seconds.
What if you were a few hundred dollars away from purchasing something to add to your preparations, what now?
Stick to the plan
Everyone should have a plan for how they are going to prepare. At its most basic, this should be a list of things you need to do or have in order to be prepared for whatever situation you face. This could be a list of food and supplies or equipment that you have identified as being critical to your own self-sufficiency in the case of any disaster or emergency situation. It is the only way I was able to prioritize everything I needed to think of in order to be what I consider “prepared”.
I wrote up a list of everything like food, guns, medical supplies, hand tools, backup power etc. and started at the beginning. Before each purchase I would evaluate whether or not what I was buying was the correct purchase at the time based upon everything else I needed, my money supply and the potential risks I saw in the future. Did I need to purchase sleeping bags for my family or the solar charging system? Should I buy another 3 cases of freeze-dried food to augment our food preps or the generator I have been eying? All of the decisions are easier with a list of items. Once acquired, the items on the list were checked off and I moved on to something else.
In this scenario you may need to move on to something else. Maybe you have an AR but wanted another and this is definitely not the time to buy. I could also argue that now is absolutely the time to buy, but I will leave that to another day. What about moving those resources to other things on your list? This way you keep moving toward your goal.
Build up stores
Even though inflation is making the price of everything rise, food hasn’t had as much of a price upswing as ammo. A case of 500 .223 rounds is too expensive maybe, but for the same price you can get a few 6-packs of #10 cans of food that will feed your family. You could also go to Costco or Sams and buy a few 50 lb. bags of rice, some canned vegetables and another bag or two of toilet paper. Use this time to continue to stock up on your food preparations and don’t let the specter of gun confiscation stop you from getting ready.
Take a class
Maybe you have a handgun and have always wanted to take a close quarter combat class. Now could be a good time to do that. What about advanced first-aid or wilderness survival? What about getting that ham radio license you have been putting off? There is probably more that you need to do and I don’t think time is on our side. Use what time and energy you have now learning or preparing more instead of grumbling at the store for raising their prices or your fellow prepper for buying everything already.
Invest in your family
Something that has been on my mind lately is the need to spend more time with my family. For too many reasons, they receive the least of my attention even though they are in the front of my mind. It’s odd how little time I seem to make for them and I don’t want to look back years from now and regret the little moments in life that seem so precious. If you can’t go to the range, spend the day with your kids. You can use your time together to learn a new skill or even go walk in the woods.
Keep your eyes open
Continue to pay attention to what is going on in our world, read history and engage others in discussion about the times we are in. Appreciate the importance of the world you are living in now and your place in this strange play we are all acting out. I believe that we are heading straight for events that in the future will be looked back on as every bit as monumental and life changing as the Revolutionary War, the Great Depression, or WWII. How this will end up I don’t know. Honestly, I would rather just keep working and retire at a nice old age with a little money saved up but I don’t think that Norman-Rockwell’s version of America is going to be possible for a while. Hopefully, I am wrong but in the meantime, I am going to keep preparing so we are ready for what comes our way.