A Prepper’s Rant On Crime And Consequences

The older I get, the less patience I have for pretending this is normal. When you can’t ride a train, sit on a bus, or walk down a street without hearing about another unprovoked stabbing or shooting, “random crime” starts to look like something bigger and uglier: societal decay happening in real time.

I talk through the headlines and personal reactions that pushed me into a full rant, including public attacks, “teen takeover” chaos, and the way mainstream narratives can twist facts to inflame division. Then I lay out what I see as the core drivers: consequences disappearing, violence becoming the default response to minor conflict, social media turning brutality into entertainment, parenting breaking down, and personal responsibility dying in the home, at school, and in the courtroom. If you care about personal safety, situational awareness, and practical preparedness, you’ll recognize how these forces change your day-to-day risk.

From there, we get honest about what to do when society won’t fix itself. For me, that means shifting toward self-reliance and building peace on purpose: fewer points of friction, stronger boundaries, and a realistic plan that might include land, distance, and living more off-grid. I call it building my arc not to stop the flood, but to get out of its way.

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Transcript

Sponsor Intro And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper, sponsored by Duct Tape, the real Duct Tape. It fixes everything except that decision. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America. From border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Everybody, this is Keith, and welcome back to the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast. It's June the 13th, 2026.

Breaking Format With A Rant

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And I'm going to depart from my normal format that I use for my podcast. And this is probably going to come across as a rant. I normally don't rant, at least not via the podcast. So if this comes off as the grumpy old man you kids get off my yard, then that's what it probably is going to sound like. Putting together this script last night about eight, nine o'clock, and they always tell you, you know, never type angry, never text angry, never send an email when you're angry, just step away, come back in a few hours, and see if you have a different perspective. And if you really want to send the text, the email, or whatever it happens to be, then go ahead, if not, change it. Well, I did. It's been a good 12, 15 hours, and I'm still pretty pissed off. So here's my rant.

Random Attacks And Media Anger

SPEAKER_01 1:16

I am sick of it. I am sick of every day hearing about another random stabbing, shooting, another unprovoked attack on innocence and innocent people just trying to live their lives. That guy in Texas that was sentenced to 35 years in prison for murdering Austin Medcalf at the track meet. Okay? Horrible situation. And what's almost as bad as the crime itself is the mainstream media straight up lying about what happened, about the evidence that was presented, not exaggerating, not fudging, not stretching the truth, but flat out lying in an attempt to stoke the racial divide that has already occurred with this case. And to top it off, earlier yesterday on Friday, I saw posts of people urinating on that young man's grave. I prayed that those pictures are AI generated, because if they are not, if they are real, I cannot think of anything more depraved, disgusting, and barbaric than what those people are doing. If in fact that is the state of society, we have lost our way and we're not getting it back. We've got that attempted beheading in Belfast, stabbings in Dublin, London has turned into a knife crime zone. As I was putting together the script last night, I saw a video of a 17-year-old girl in the UK stabbed in the neck as she was walking down the street. Luckily she survived. But a child cannot even walk down the street without being the victim of violence.

Public Spaces Feel Unsafe

SPEAKER_01 3:12

So here at home, over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, 37 people were shot. And politicians and leaders in the community are out celebrating that nobody died, nobody was murdered. So that's some kind of victory in Chicago. We had 37 people shot over the long holiday weekend, and nobody died. They all lived. How pathetic is that? Less than a week ago in Atlanta, a 66-year-old grandmother named Margaret Swan was sitting on a Marta train in broad daylight. Some guy came up and stabbed her to death 18 to 20 times, stabbed her to death completely unprovoked. Earlier this week in the Bronx in New York, a 41-year-old father of seven, Jonathan Pettigrew, was on the bus on the way to pick up his daughter from school. He simply asked a teenager to turn the music down on his phone because he was blasting it via the speaker. The kid pulled a gun and shot that gentleman dead right there on the bus. You can't go to a restaurant, a store, a sporting event, any sort of large gathering, a festival without gangs of teens showing up, assaulting each other, assaulting other people, destroying property, and stealing stuff. It happened about a week and a half ago in Ohio at a church festival. They had to shut it down because of a teen takeover. And we've got people losing their minds at fast food restaurants because their order is wrong. They're jumping behind the counter, throwing things at the workers, climbing through the drive-throughs, shooting people, stabbing people because they didn't get enough ice in their soda or their fries were cold. Where in the hell is this kind of behavior coming from? Who taught these people that this is acceptable? Or better yet, who taught them not to act that way? This is not the America, this is not the society that I grew up in. I grew up in the Midwest, and none of this nonsense was happening while I was growing up. You went to school, you learned your ABCs, and if you didn't get the grades, you were held back. Now, illiteracy is through the roof. Kids are just pushed through the system, whether they can read or not. They are not allowed to fail because I guess that might hurt somebody's feelings that little Johnny has to repeat fifth

Five Reasons Society Is Cracking

SPEAKER_01 5:58

grade. So let's call this what it really is. This isn't random crime. This is societal decay in real time right in front of our eyes. And here is why it's happening. Number one, we have completely removed consequences. Criminals get arrested and they're released so fast back on the street, even before the victim gets home from the hospital. Two, violence has become the default reaction. People don't argue anymore, they just attack. The smallest disagreement or inconvenience ends in bloodshed. Three, social media has made violence into entertainment. These idiots are out there doing stuff on purpose now because they want the views and the clout. Not really sure how assaulting somebody and putting it on social media gives you clout. What do you get street cred from somebody from doing this? Number four, there's no parenting anymore. A whole generation of kids has grown up with no real authority and no one teaching them how to behave in public. Number five, personal responsibility is dead. Nobody is taught that their actions have consequences. Not at home, not at school, and definitely not in the courtroom.

Building An Arc And Finding Peace

SPEAKER_01 7:24

So after laying all this out, I know a bunch of people are wondering what do we actually do about this? And here's the straight poop from me. Society is not going to fix itself. I don't think anybody can agree that it's going to fix itself on its own. No amount of money or social programs is going to fix societal decay. Me, like many other preppers, I have reached the point where I believe the world cannot be saved. I would like to think it could be, but I really don't think it can. Every single day I just want to remove myself from all of this crap. I want my cabin up in the mountains, high enough that I can see snow on the ground in the winter. I want enough land that I cannot see nor hear my neighbor. I want to be mostly off grid in a state that doesn't tax my pension into oblivion. Texas and Tennessee are both appealing to me right now for their much lower taxes. So I guess, in a sense, this is my version of building my arc. Not because I think I can stop the flood, but because I'm smart enough to get the hell out of its way. Maybe some of you out there are feeling the same, maybe you're not. If you are, stop feeling guilty about what's going on. Sometimes the smartest move is to stop trying to fix a broken system and start building your own peace.

Final Warning And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 9:00

That is my rant for Saturday, June 13th, 2026. And as always, folks, be careful out there, take care of one another, and until next time.