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Short answer: if organized political violence reaches your area, the civilian priorities are to avoid confrontation, get reliable information, keep the household together, and leave early when a safe route and destination exist. If moving would take you through active danger, shelter, reduce your visibility, control fire risks, and wait for a safer window or specific instructions.
Reality check: nobody can reliably predict a second American civil war, and ordinary political conflict is not the same as war. Preparing for the consequences of severe civil unrest or armed conflict is still reasonable. The same plan helps with riots, terrorism, prolonged curfews, infrastructure attacks, and local evacuation.
Do not prepare to win a street fight
This is a civilian survival problem, not a combat fantasy. The best confrontation is the one you never enter. Do not travel toward crowds, checkpoints, fires, or gunfire to watch, record, defend property, or prove a political point. Avoid displaying slogans, uniforms, weapons, or online posts that could cause strangers to assign you to a side.
Self-defense and weapons laws vary widely and change during emergency orders. Equipment cannot make crossfire safe, and openly carrying a weapon can cause armed people to misidentify you. This guide focuses on avoidance, shelter, evacuation, communication, and continuity.
Choose your action triggers now
Write specific thresholds for staying, leaving, and reassessing. Examples include:
- repeated violence moving closer to home, school, or work;
- a credible evacuation notice or closure of a route you depend on;
- loss of water, heat, medication, or medical care beyond your household buffer;
- fire, structural damage, or armed activity that makes the building unsafe;
- an available destination and route that are safer than remaining;
- a household member whose health makes delay unusually risky.
Triggers should be observable conditions, not social-media mood. Revisit them as the situation changes. Our broader civilian war-preparedness plan covers nuclear, chemical, warning, and household-supply decisions in more detail.
Build a reliable information picture
In civil conflict, true reports, propaganda, scams, old footage, and sincere mistakes arrive together. For any claim that would make you move, expose yourself, or spend scarce resources, ask:
- Where and when did this happen?
- Is the original source identifiable?
- Is there independent confirmation from a source with direct access?
- Could the image or warning be old, edited, or from another place?
- What is the cost of acting now versus waiting for one more confirmation?
Use several channels: local alerts, broadcast radio, trusted local contacts, and more than one news source. Save screenshots or notes of critical instructions because posts can disappear. Do not spread alarming information you have not verified.
Compare battery and hand-crank emergency radios on Amazon. In the United States, NOAA capability is useful for hazards, but local emergency information may also arrive through AM/FM radio and wireless alerts.
Keep the household connected
Choose an out-of-area contact because local networks may be overloaded while a distant route still works. Give every person a paper card with names, numbers, two meeting places, allergies, and essential medical details. Choose one meeting place near home and another outside the affected neighborhood.
Text before calling; keep messages short and include time, location, condition, and next plan. Agree that separated family members who are safely sheltered will not cross danger merely to reunite immediately. If someone goes missing during armed conflict or displacement, the ICRC and its Red Cross/Red Crescent Family Links Network may be able to help restore contact.
Use the layered methods in our emergency communications guide, but remember that radio is not private. Avoid transmitting sensitive locations, routes, medical details, or supply inventories in the clear.
Leave early or shelter deliberately
Leaving is most attractive before routes become congested, fuel becomes scarce, and violence spreads. It is only an improvement if you have a safer destination and can reach it without crossing the danger. The U.S. State Department’s crisis guidance for citizens abroad makes a durable point: commercial travel while it operates is usually preferable to depending on a later organized evacuation.
If travel is unsafe, sheltering can be the better choice. Stay away from windows and exterior walls when there is nearby gunfire or explosions. Choose a room with more substantial barriers and more than one way out if possible. Keep shoes, flashlight, first aid, phone, fire extinguisher, and exit bag within reach. Do not block exits while trying to barricade a room.
Smoke and fire may become the immediate hazard even when violence caused the incident. Maintain working smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms, know two exits, and never run a grill, generator, or camp stove inside. Leave a burning or structurally failing building if a safe path exists.
Pack for displacement, not wilderness adventure
A useful exit bag supports an ordinary civilian moving to a hotel, relative’s home, shelter, or transport hub. Pack:
- identification and copies of insurance, prescription, custody, vehicle, and relevant property records;
- medication, glasses, hearing-aid supplies, mobility aids, and a concise medical summary;
- phone, charging cables, wall and vehicle adapters, and a power bank;
- water, compact food, hygiene items, weather protection, and a change of clothes;
- cash in modest denominations plus more than one payment method;
- paper maps, contact cards, keys, and confirmed destination details;
- child comfort items, pet records and carriers, and accessibility supplies.
Compare document organizers and protective pouches on Amazon. Treat fireproof and waterproof as limited ratings or marketing claims, not guarantees. Keep an encrypted off-site copy of essential records.
A get-home bag serves a different purpose: helping you cover the trip from work or school before you can access the main departure set.
Cover a week without normal services
Civil conflict can close stores and interrupt payment, fuel, water, waste collection, and medicine even where no fighting occurs. Keep at least a week of household basics when space and finances allow. Store what you use and rotate it. Avoid last-minute hoarding, which is expensive and makes shortages worse.
Prioritize safe water, routine food, medication, lighting, sanitation, charging, seasonal temperature control, and fire safety. Use our water guide, food planning hub, and survival-kit framework rather than buying a mystery kit and assuming the problem is solved.
The first 72 hours after a disaster are the most critical for survival. Enter your email below to get a checklist of essential items you need in your 72 hour emergency get home bag…
Handle encounters without escalating them
If you unexpectedly encounter armed people or a security control, prioritize calm, visible hands, slow movements, and clear communication. Do not argue, make sudden reaches, display a weapon, or attempt to force a passage. Laws and the identity of armed groups vary, so no generic script guarantees safety.
Do not photograph armed actors at close range or secretly gather tactical information. If official instructions appear inconsistent, comply where safely and lawfully possible, then verify through another channel once away from immediate danger. If you face detention, abuse, or a legal emergency, seek qualified local and consular help when available.
Protect privacy without disappearing
Reduce unnecessary location sharing and remove public posts that reveal an empty home, supply cache, route, or children’s location. Use strong device passcodes, software updates, and multifactor authentication. Assume a seized or unlocked phone may expose messages and contacts.
At the same time, make sure one trusted person outside the area knows your intended route and destination. Privacy is not the same as isolation. A simple departure message should include who is together, when you left, the planned destination, and when you will check in again.
Use community, not paranoia
Reliable neighbors can share warnings, check on vulnerable residents, extinguish small fires, and avoid duplicated purchases. Decide before a crisis who needs mobility help, who has first-aid training, and how your building will communicate during a power failure.
Do not turn rumor into accusations or treat unfamiliar people as enemy scouts. Conflict makes false identification particularly dangerous. Share verifiable facts, keep boundaries around scarce or medical supplies, and use established aid channels where they function.
A 30-minute household exercise
- Pick a realistic local disruption: violence closes the usual route and cellular calls fail.
- Give everyone five minutes to find the paper plan and contact card.
- Select whether to shelter or leave using the written triggers.
- If leaving, choose a destination and two routes using an offline map.
- Pack medication, documents, chargers, water, and dependent-care items.
- Send the out-of-area contact a concise status update.
- List every missing item and ambiguous decision, then fix the plan.
The point is not to predict which faction would do what. It is to make your household less dependent on perfect information, working infrastructure, and last-minute judgment.
Sources
- U.S. Department of State: Crisis response and evacuations
- International Committee of the Red Cross: Reconnecting families
- Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency: If you need to evacuate
- Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency: Basics of home preparedness
Substantively rewritten and reviewed September 12, 2026. This is general civilian preparedness information, not legal, security, or medical advice for a specific conflict.
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The first 72 hours after a disaster are the most critical for survival. Enter your email below to get a checklist of essential items you need in your 72 hour emergency get home bag…
Thanks, Tom , while Im a liberal and not a god fearing person , I thank you for your work on the possibilities
of what lay’s in front of us as a nation. I have found your piece interesting and possible!
Im not sure what I will do to prepare for any disruption but I feel in my gut that there is no way out !!
Please continue to share your insight with us !
Thank You !!!!
Dick R.
I think there are ways out. Every side needs to respect the process more, and media pundits on any side need to stop casually talking about ‘civil war’ in metaphorical or other terms.
Fast forward 1 year from when you wrote that and the left is burning down it’s own cities because, apparently the politicians it keeps electing keep using their police to kill black people. Try respecting that. Let me know how that goes.
Wars are always underway before the first shots are fired. We are already at war in this nation and battle lines have been drawn. History will confirm this after the dust has settled upon a new landscape. Just as America had to build up a military for years before D Day, we’re building up our efforts now. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
You are correct I am well prepared I am a good shot and have a good stash but if war does brake out than we will be using guerrilla warfare tactics ware I come from.
This train of thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I grew up in California and NO we are not over-run by illegal immigrants. Undocumented immigrants work their butts off from sunrise to sunset with little pay and sometimes no benefits at all. The notion that large cities are Liberal simply because they rely on subsidies or handouts is also a lie. Americans living in large cities understand that a rich diverse population makes us stronger, more educated and more tolerant. Keep in mind that under full Democrat control, California’s economy has grown from the 8th largest to the 5th largest economy in the world. California’s economy is stronger than that of the country of France or England. California is also the state the contributes the most amount of NET federal tax dollars of any other state. It takes the poorest 25 states (all red states with the exception of New Mexico) to contribute what California alone contributes. The reality is that California is subsidizing other states via Federal contracts and grants. Do we really think that Idaho or southern states have the economic muscle to fund our trillion dollar military complex? C’on guys. If Conservatives manage to destroy California, America will implode but not because Liberal policies didn’t work, but because Conservatives fulfilled their self-fulling prophecy of the American collapse.
These are all valid points. I myself didn’t write this article, and there are multiple here at SoS with various political/religious beliefs. I don’t consider myself a Democrat or a Republican, but there are definitely things that California does very well that many other, much more conservative states don’t do well.
I could not have said it better myself. My sense is that this article is not as factual as it may seem. The description of the East Coast, for example, is pure bullshit. As a retired librarian, I laughed out loud at the social engineering comment. I would also like to add that there is no evidence that Jihadists are pouring over the border from Mexico. There is plenty of evidence of issues, unrest, and happenings that indicate the possibility of another civil war. I’d have fewer criticisms if you hadn’t gone after inflammatory low-hanging fruit.
Jayzee you are delusional. The fact is leftist policies enacted by leftists are destroying California, not the conservatives you so ignorantly proclaim. Illegal immigration, tent cities of thousands of homeless all over, used drug needles and human excrement all over the streets, gang graffiti, parts of L.A. and San Francisco look like a third world country, massive debt, and thousands of Californians are fleeing your mismanaged state. You can lie to yourself and others and try to paint a rosy picture about whats happening in Californistan but the rest of the nation knows the truth.
Sarge do you live in California? If not, you should listen to the people who live there, and consider their perspective. This is the way to stop a way.
I’ve lived in California my whole life and I’m 32. Grew up in socal then recently moved away from that shit hole up to Northern ca 3 hours passed sac. I’ve never been political but from what I’ve seen, liberal politicians and laws have completely fucked California for years to come. I work in mortgage and know there is a mass exodus of the middle class underway leaving California indroves for surrounding states . Then, the dumb asses that leave ca due to the shit liberal politicians they elected and terrible leftist socialist laws they vote in, move to another state and vote for the same stuff that ruined the sate theyre running from. Shits unreal. And for you to say California is doing great you are either fucking blind, ignorant, or lying to yourself. Ca is in the worst shape I’ve seen in my 32 years here. Pretending everything is fine and lying on prepper forums won’t make everything dissappear you cuck
Illegal immigrants simply take resources from citizens. Whether it be water, timber for houses, sewer services or vote share since everyone of them that comes in and gives birth to another US citizen anchor baby dilutes the vote of the citizens already here. They have wrecked their own countries to the point they are no longer willing to live in them and now, with your enabling and excuses, they are wrecking this one.
You’re running the Colorado dry and STILL insist on letting in more illegals to use, on average, another 30,000 gallons of water each per year.
You have some of the worst wealth inequality in the entire country so only the top of the income earners are benefiting from that economy you are so proud of.
Your state is bordering on being a police state. You have to practically beg your officials for the basic right to be armed for your own protection. Your businesses have been forced closed by your dictator of a governor over a glorified cold virus that based on anti body testing kills only 1 in 1000 that it infects.
You have to shut your power off just to avoid starting fires. I don’t know how to tell you but in the rest of the country we actually have power grids that function without setting everything on fire in the first place.
Your cities are burning and being looted because, if we are to believe the leftist narrative of unjustified police killings, the Democrat officials you elect keep using their police to kill black people and your governments cannot insure law and order in the ensuing fallout. I guess they are too busy targeting the citizenry over malum prohibitum violations that hurt nobody. .
Finally, I hate to break this to you, but if any group of people more than about a dozen strong seriously wanted to destroy CA, they would easily. They would simply wait till a good dry fire season with high winds and start driving around chucking simple home made incendiaries out the window and burn the damn thing down, literally. It would take any serious terrorist or insurgent group literally about 20 seconds to conclude this was the way to go since it really doesn’t get much more obvious.
As one of the writers on this site, you can probably guess that I am very far from a ‘leftist’. However your level of hysteria and susceptibility to false information marks you as just as gullible as ‘the other side’.
“Do we really think that Idaho or southern states have the economic muscle to fund our trillion dollar military complex?”
Uh I hate to break this hard cold piece of reality to you but nobody is funding it or much of anything else. Your first clue on this would be the 27 trillion national debt. It’s all a ponzi scheme and it’s all going to collapse. The way to make it collapse even faster is to keep giving the ever greater and greater entitlements people like yourself demand to an ever increasing number of immigrants, legal or illegal.
Right, that’s is why responsible middle class CITIZENS are fleeing California. That is why crime is off the chart, that is why violent felons are being released by the hundreds, that is why San Francisco, a once beautiful city is plagued with filth, crime, and drugs, that is why ANTIFA and ANARCHIST and BLM are burning down businesses and looting.
Wall off California and let people like you have it. Its disgusting and needs to slip into the ocean. Thank you San Andreas Fault. (funny how socialist Newsom is begging President Trump for federal money because your liberals have failed to maintain the forests. Its not global warming, there are no fires in Canada, its land mismanagement).
You sound a bit unhinged my friend. There are plenty of conservatives who live in California who would tell you otherwise.
As a state it has it’s problems but you are straying deep into blatant falsehoods.
I think it’s funny that we as Americans are still so arrogant that we believe that liberals or conservatives are going to get their way after this. We are divided, becoming more divided each day, and countries like China and Russia are wringing their hands in glee at our childish antics. They are waiting for the day we break and implode and they can come take America and they will when that time comes. We have destroyed America by our child like violence with one another and our ungrateful attitude towards our own country and how blessed we are to live in America. We could defeat them together but we will never be able to divided and we are divided past the point of no return now. Better brush up on your Chinese and Russian.
We are more divided because the left has no self preservation instincts and wants to drag everybody else down with it. Case in point it is burning it’s own cities because, if we are to believe the leftist narrative of unjustified police killings, it keeps electing politicians who use their police to kill black people. It ain’t republicans electing the city council and mayor of LA, Chicago and NYC, or 90% of the other places these killings keep happening, sorry to tell you. Sorry but I don’t want anyone so stupid they burn their own cities over the actions of the officials they themselves keep electing, making decisions for me.
It’s 2020, I see the unrest across our great land. I see democratic states and cities letting lawlessness continue and grow stronger. I see even on this site people disagree with what is happening with the nation we grew up in. Our children and grandchildren will not have the luxuries we had nor the memories we had, unless we come together as Americans. Love, respect and GOD is the answer. If you don’t believe in GOD, then we can at least all agree on love and respect for each other. Why are we letting our politicians divide us ? These very things is how this nation was born. We left a nation of tyranny to form a free nation and now we go back to that same place that we allow our leaders to take us, all for the sake of their power over us. We all should wake up and see what they are doing to us as a free nation. Before it’s too late.
I suggest you direct your admonishments about how we really don’t want civil war to the left wing terror mobs burning buildings, vehicles, and anything else which will take flame all across America.
Unfortunately, in my personal opinion, I feel like America has passed the point of no return. Its like a sickness, once a disease has manifested itself into the body, if not seriously treated, it kills the host. We have forgotten we are ALL people, and everyone is sick with hate. If the hate don’t stop………..forget the virus, its humans that will be the disease.