^^^^That’s about as bad as it's going to get and enough reserves to weather a storm either natural or financial is just plain sensible.
The type of breakdown the prepers envision just isn't going to happen it doesn’t even get close to their vision of WOROL in war ravaged 3rd world countries.
Yes empires collapse but it happens over tens or hundreds of years.
How is rule of law going to break down?
You’d have to start with a citizens revolt.
Governments response, martial law, send in the home guard, military what ever.
In the unlikely event the citizens uprising doesn’t get crushed, then do they become the rulers and make the law …. I think not.
Government breakdown would result in a military takeover.
I don’t care how many AR’s AK’s or even machine guns they have or how many thousand round they have.
Control is taken by the group with the most power, and unless you’ve got 100’s of Black Hawks , 1000’s of Tanks and perhaps a NUKE or 2 it isn’t going to be you.
The prepers do give us a laugh though, I’ll bet 90% are city dwellers who wouldn’t last more than 3 days n the bush.
In the long run skills are more important than resources.
To paraphrase a well known expression, Give a man a rabbit you feed him once, teach him to hunt and you feed him forever.
There's always room for at least one more gun in my safe.
There's always room for one more safe in my house.