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A home is more than just a building or a piece of land. It is a place where memories are made. It is where we feel safe and secure and where we can connect with nature if we are lucky to live in the countryside or even off-grid. For many people, a home is the center of their lives, and therefore, they have a deep emotional attachment to it. Including myself.
It’s almost impossible to avoid developing such a strong connection with the home or the land that feeds us and shelters us and our loved ones.
However, when a home is invaded by violent gangs, the emotional attachment can lead to dangerous consequences. In this article, we will explore the emotional attachment to a home and why it would be dangerous to fight to defend it if invaded by violent gangs.
Why we become emotionally attached to a home
If you are like me, a home is a sacred place where you create memories with your loved ones. It is where little ones have their first steps, where they learn how to ride a bike, and where we raise our children. Therefore, it is not surprising that we develop a deep emotional attachment to our home. It is a place that we associate with happy memories and a sense of belonging to something bigger.
It provides a sense of community.
In addition, a home is a place where we feel safe and secure. We have control over the environment, and we can create a space that reflects our values and beliefs. We can plant a garden, raise animals, and build a home that is tailored to our unique needs. Therefore, a home is not just a physical space but is also a reflection of our identity.
We live there on our terms. It’s our little piece of heaven to be free.
And it is as well the most valuable inheritance we can leave to the generations we leave behind.
The emotional attachment to a home is not just limited to the physical space. It is also tied to the land itself. For many people, the land represents their heritage and cultural identity. It is a place where their ancestors lived, where they grew up, and where they plan to pass it down to their children. Therefore, a home is not just a place to live, but it is also a bridge working as a connection to our past and our future.
The dangers of fighting to defend a home
While the emotional attachment to a home is understandable, it can lead to dangerous consequences if the home is invaded by violent gangs. This is the most plausible scenario, indeed.
In such a situation, our instinct is to defend our home at all costs.
However, this can lead to violence and lots of damage.
I am a firm advocate of the right to self-defense. Anyone trying to commit a felony within the borders of private property must be repelled with brute force. This does not come out of the blue. Sadly, there are enough experiences from people close to me that moved me to express these ideas.
The sadism exhibited by thugs under the influence of some substance while holding a gun in their hands is not something to be taken lightly. Young men have been shot dead in front of their parents just because. Women being gang raped for hours in front of their husbands and children, and some other events that seem to be imported from El Salvador and their infamous “maras.” In the early 2000s crisis in Argentina, some families living in estancias suffered horrendous attacks.
If you read my previous articles, you will see the terrible situations some farmers had to face back in the day. The battle with narcos is a serious one, and we seem to be losing it wherever we look.
Albeit never being a member of the military (something very reasonable in countries like these, after seeing how those institutions evolved), I took my time in life to study some of the more traditional tactics, methods, and strategies of attacks on homes.
Why? Because that sorts of attacks on homes and settlements have been a part of human history since the beginning of times. I won’t go into more detail as it is a hairy topic, so use your favorite search engine and ask it, please. Even in these times where law and order should be the norm, where we can connect to satellites 24/7/365 virtually anywhere, we continue witnessing that sort of crime. Ask those living near the Mexican border, where the gangs need to cross their land to expand their trafficking routes. Or those between the Venezuela/Colombia border. Or the Ecuador/Peru/Chile borders. Those are only a few places I have been to enough time to ask the people living there how things are with the trafficking gangs and the border.
Like everyone else, I do not have a clue if, in our remaining lifetime, a real SHTF event will ever be unchained. Unless the most recent event (2020) was only a drill (and yes, I strongly suspect it was), I would say that the odds will be on a cosmic event (an extended and strong Carrington-like), another bug (but this time the real one) or a conflict with unpredictable consequences.
However, the following replicas in every society of the world will be felt very hard. The disruptions that will be felt even at the institutional levels and the high government will be a reality, and that is what will affect us. Allocation of resources to fight a horde of gangs coming up through the South Wall may not have the same priority for white collars hiding in some well-protected bunkers somewhere in the North, that may be struggling to decide how many troopers send where to calm the riots spontaneously appearing everywhere, and maybe other disasters like train wrecks, or even worse.
If you (and I sincerely hope you´re NOT) are in the path of the narco-routes and have a pacifist point of view in life, well…You may want to reconsider your budget priorities and get a good bunker where you can live underground and undetected. Not everyone is willing to combat such soul-less guys fang to fang and nail to nail.
Know when you can no longer stay.
No matter how carefully secure your home is, there could come a time when you can no longer stay there without risking the lives of every member of your family. And regardless of how attached you are to a place, the people are more important. If you are hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, staying put and fighting it out may not be an option.
If you have a secondary location, then put in a guerrilla garden and have the alternative place(s) stocked up. This is not easy, but e it could work as an insurance or “hedge fund” against the loss of the main home, at least for some time while the team reorganizes the counterattack.
Live to fight another day from a more strategic position.
Does this sound like military action? Absolutely. Because it is. It is a worldwide trend. Just check this link on the topic and this other link. By stocking up some gear and food in a cache, your capacity response will be good. The possibility of a gang receiving “reinforcements” after invading a home or a homestead is almost zero. They are not a military enemy force with experience and theoretical training. They´re criminals, and unless they are extremely well organized, this won´t be a risk. So it will be worth the effort…depending on our degree of emotional attachment, though.
I know this article can be scary and portray a shady future. However, that is far from my intention. On the contrary, by opening our eyes to what happened in other parts of the world, we can be aware of how bad things can go in our surroundings and plan according to this. There is a reason why most organizations have protocols (tested and re-tested) for every possible situation. It’s because they are an insurance policy once the event occurs.
If your bonds with the neighbors are not particularly warm, it is in you to change that. Try a casual approach. Make some tea, fill up a thermos bottle, go up to their front porch, and drop in a light chat something like, “Hey, I noticed some odd-looking guys the other day driving around. Do you know them? We should start thinking about preparing a plan just in case someone trespasses with unknown intentions, and yaddah yaddah…”. You know the drill.
Keep tuned, and stay safe!
What are your thoughts?
Would you stay in your home no matter what, even if to do so was to suicide? Do you have a secondary location to which you could retreat and regroup? Have you considered what would cause you to take your family and flee?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
About Jose
Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has an old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Jose and his younger kid are currently back in Venezuela, after the intention of setting up a new life in another country didn’t go well. The SARSCOV2 re-shaped the labor market and South American economy so he decided to give it a try to homestead in the mountains, and make a living as best as possible. But this time in his own land, and surrounded by family, friends and acquaintances, with all the gear and equipment collected, as the initial plan was.
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