Our government declaring martial law is one of the scarier scenarios that we might be faced with.
There’s no saying just how thoroughly our civil rights might be violated during such a time, as the declaration of martial law carries with it the unwritten right for the government to do pretty much anything it wants.
It’s the ultimate totalitarian government situation. Some people complain about the violations of our rights that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic; that would be nothing in comparison to the atrocities that could happen during a time of martial law.
Actually, what martial law is supposed to be and what it often is are two entirely separate things. According to the legal definition, martial law is the military supplanting the duly elected government, for a short time, when the government is unable to fulfill its obligations to the citizens.
This has been very rare in US history. On the other hand, the government using troops, usually National Guard troops, to control the population and uphold the law is much more common, even though it is still somewhat rare. If martial law is declared, this is what we are more likely to see, even though it doesn’t fit the actual definition of martial law.
With that in mind, we need to prepare ourselves for that eventuality.
After the abuses of power that were perpetuated during the pandemic, I have a sneaking suspicion that there are those in Washington who are hungry to use… or should I say misuse… their power to control our lives again.
They will grasp any excuse that chance offers them or that they can create, in order to take that power and we will have no other option than to put up with it.
For many of us, our first reaction might very well be to ignore martial law and go on with our lives as normal. The problem with that, is that doing so just might put us in jail.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to have to go to jail for my actions, I want to make sure it’s for more than just thumbing my nose at some power-hungry politician. Martial law is not the time for taking such a stand.
There are a lot of things we could say that we should do, in preparation for the eventuality of our government declaring martial law; but in reality, they are things that we, as preppers, are already doing.
So, I’m not going to talk about them. We’re dealing with a different question; assuming that martial law is declared, what should we do?
Our Most Important Protection
The real key to surviving through martial law is making ourselves invisible to the authorities.
While there is always a possibility that they will go door-to-door, looking for anyone who might cause trouble; that’s unlikely. If it does happen, it will be after a while, when things settle down.
At first, they’ll be more than busy, just trying to put martial law in place. That includes rounding up those who have a demonstrated criminal history, indicating that they might cause trouble for the authorities. As law abiding citizens, we don’t fall into that category.
Ok, so how do we make ourselves invisible to the authorities? The simple answer is to bug in, staying in our homes. But before we do that, we need to make sure that we’re ready.
That’s the most important thing we have to do, as soon as martial law is declared. Fortunately, it takes some time to put martial law in effect; at least a day or two.
That’s time we can use to do our last-minute preparations. Those preparations are our first priority; the things that we should do as soon as possible after martial law is declared.
What We Should Do
So, just how do we make the most of that time, preparing ourselves to “go underground” per-se, in the little time that we have available to us?
Before we make sure that everyone is inside and lock the doors, we should ensure that we are ready to stay there for a few months, without having to go out in public. That means making sure that we have enough food, water, fuel, and other supplies to keep us going.
In other words, we need to spend that little time we have available, before they really clamp down on civilians being out in public, getting our hands on all the supplies we can, which we might be short of.
Putting that simply, we need to make a supply run to top off our existing stockpiles, focusing on picking up:
- Food, especially fresh food that we might be short of (we should have plenty of non-perishable food in our stockpile)
- Bottled water
- Fuel, especially gasoline
- Firewood
- Plastic bags (useful for a lot of things)
- Batteries
- Disposable items, such as dishes, cups, TP, paper towels
- Personal hygiene supplies, including feminine hygiene supplies
- A radio (for picking up the news)
These are all things that we should already have in our survival stockpile; so, what I’m really saying is to take that little bit of time and use it to top off your survival stockpile.
We don’t know how long martial law will remain in effect, so we need to be ready to stay inside for an extended period of time.
Notice that I didn’t mention anything about guns and ammunition in that list. That was intentional.
The confiscation of firearms is one of the many things that commonly go with martial law.
As part of that, I expect that the ATF will be visiting licensed arms dealers to see who has bought recently. Those would be the first people visited and you don’t want to end up on that list.
Hunkering Down
Once you’ve done your last supply run, which should be no more than 24 hours after first hearing about martial law and hopefully a lot shorter, get everyone into the house and lock the doors.
Gather your family together, give each other a hug, let them know what’s going on and what you expect from them, specifically that everyone is to stay home for however long the emergency lasts.
This may be more challenging than it sounds. Our lives are incredibly complex, involving activities in a variety of places. Staying home means curtailing those activities, with the exception of those which can be done online.
We’ve already experienced this during the COVID-19 pandemic. So, I guess we can call that a dress-rehearsal for martial law.
As we lock ourselves in our homes, the two biggest challenges we’ll have to work through is working remotely and having our children do their schoolwork from home.
How easy those will be to accomplish will depend largely on the type of work we do and whether our employer is prepared for us to work from home.
As for school, anyone can homeschool their children and many people do. There are curriculums available for homeschooling and a host of resources available online.
There are also some excellent websites, which can give you some good advice about how to homeschool and what resources are available. Homeschooling has been around for quite a while and the pandemic gave it quite a boost.
Remember, out of sight, out of mind.
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