I am European.
I think that you are right about the fact we expect to rely on government support more (there are civilian groups for emergency, but when they "mobilize" they report and take orders from government representatives, at least in my country).
What I find a bit odd is the fact that you seem to imply that "having access to firearms" is really the main priority.
Ok, there is a flood and we are forced to take refuge on the roof of our houses.
When (if) someone comes to rescue us do we go with them because they have rifles, or because they have a boat, food, first aid, and a plan about how and where to take us until the flood subsides?
It's more like.. a disaster happens, so police response times have lapsed, dropped to days. Not everyone is stranded on their roof, tons of people have food but the real problem is that now heavily armed and well organized drug gangs are able to operate with impunity, and brutality, seizing whatever they wish (including the food)... It's a power-grab situation for a few days, or for however long the power stays off, or it would be, if combat veterans and ordinary Americans weren't so well armed.
Your scenario is not very common, at least in the West. (Even more so in Europe because we have higher population density, so a whole region getting "lost" to the national government would be really extraordinary).
Let's talk instead of real cases, ok? Marauders and Warlords were really a big problem during Katrina Hurricane? Was New York able to survive Sandy only because Frank Castle was patrolling the streets?
In comments below you cite Kosovo. I think that in cases like that there was already plenty of social unrest so if a city was cut off from the powergrid or the main roads I can imagine that someone would have tried to get the upper hand.
Something similar could also happen in some areas of Mexico, where the government presence is already pretty weak.
I can see how a veteran or ex-serviceman could always be very handy in a natural disaster, but that would be because they are able to lead, to follow orders, have plenty of practical skills and are trained to be self-sufficient. But the actual combat training or experience - nevermind the weapons - is not necessarily the most important thing to have when you are hit by a flood or a earthquake or a tsunami.
In the last 50 years of European history, has something like this happened?
For example, in 2014, southeast Europe received record levels of rain, which lead to wide-spread flooding and landslides. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Southeast_Europe_floods which points out that it was the most rain in 120 years of recorded history. Some areas were isolated for a few days, 300,000 households were left without electric power, etc.
How close were they to having drug gangs or other groups take over local power? Do you have any evidence to back up your thesis?
How would additional weapons have helped the situation that actually did occur? What mix of weapons should they have had?
Are there any lessons from other European floods (the recent British floods, the North Sea flood of 1962, the 1953 storm and floods, etc.) to show how perilously close things were to total discord, which would have been solved by more weapons backed by combat veterans?
(Of course, in the 1950s and 1960s, most of Europe lived through WWII and many were combat veterans. But they didn't have the weapons you think are essential. Yet somehow they survived.)
There's ample evidence in particular if you study the Kosovo War outbreak there were situations where regions were cut off from supplies, power was lost, but yet there was no invasion or shelling. Ireland comes to mind, there are some examples..
Could you be a bit more definite about those? What were they, how would more arms have helped, and which side should have had the arms?
Would you characterize them as being part of the respective civil conflicts? Or were they more like the aforementioned "now heavily armed and well organized drug gangs"?
You can do your own homework, there are well documented historical accounts. There are situations where a large city was cut off, for weeks no supplies in or out, the lights were off.. and the "shit hit the fan" for those people well before the shelling began. You can read for yourself how important the requirement to have at least a single firearm was for households.
I think it's the other way around. You gave an incomplete answer and now imply that I should be doing your homework for you.
You wrote:
> if you study the Kosovo War outbreak there were situations where regions were cut off from supplies, power was lost, but yet there was no invasion or shelling. Ireland comes to mind, there are some examples..
For Kosovo, the closest I could find was the Izbica massacre, where FRY and Republic of Serbia forces stole from several thousand villagers then killed 130 Kosovo Albanian men, and the Battle of Junik, where Junik was under siege for 20 days. However, both actions were carried out by partisans, and don't show sign of a third party filling a power gap.
There were 10 or so shell fired in Newry, and unpredictable power during the Ulster Workers' Council strike of 15 to 28 May 1974. Otherwise I found nothing like a city or village being cut off for weeks with no supplies or power in Ireland, and being shelled.
Certainly there are historic instances of cities being cut off, like the Siege of Leningrad or the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII, and the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. The German tally after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising suggests that there were fewer than 100 firearms in the ghetto, and nowhere near one per family, so that's not more a counter-example to your point. In any case, third party "drug gangs" or the equivalent power grab do no appear to play any significant role.
So I ask again, can you point to any post-war European examples?
This guy's material is genuine and it goes into great depth, but its only one example. The are other stories of course from this conflict that you can dig up which back up his account.
this video goes into some of his information about gang warfare. It backs up everything I was saying:
Thank you for the followup. The siege was one of the alternatives I considered earlier, but it didn't fit your description. You wrote "cut off from supplies, power was lost, but yet there was no invasion or shelling".
There appear to have been several types of gangs. The Selco link you gave talks about gangs in the size of 15-50. These appear to be different than the organized "drug gang" style of gangs you mentioned before. Selco writes that being alone, even armed, wasn't enough. He was part of a large family of 15, and that being in a group was the key to survival, not so much arms alone.
Do note that he also wrote that there was a lot of grey, not white on black. I don't think there's a good lesson from this. Having more arms might change the balance of which group gets which resources, but there's no good or bad side in those winners, only "me" instead of "you."
"The gangs control the thriving black market, which accounts for virtually all the trade in food, alcohol and vehicle fuel in the besieged city. Working with similar gangs operating on the Serbian side of the siege lines, the gangs run a nighttime smuggling operation that brings truckloads of contraband over the bridges across the Miljacka that separate the Serbian-held suburb of Grbavica from the center of Sarajevo. ..."
"The gangs' power is so great that the leaders of the Bosnian Government and army said recently that they dared not challenge them directly for fear of setting off an internal war in Sarajevo that would weaken the city's defenses. Bosnian Army commanders have acknowledged that key sections of the front lines around the city are under the control of militias loyal to the gang leaders and that challenging the gangs could cause the militias to abandon their positions."
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismet_Bajramovi%C4%87 , "When the war began, criminal groups were among the first to offer resistance the Yugoslav National Army besieging Sarajevo." Other criminal/military defenders include Ismet Bajramović include Ramiz Delalić, Jusuf Prazina, and Mušan Topalović.
That said, I'm still not clear how more pistols and rifles would have changed what happened in the city, in regards to how people lived. (Weapons were useful in defending the city, and the tunnel was able to supply more of those. That, however, is a quite different topic than what you suggested.)
I can see how this is good example of "shit hits the fan". I don't see how it's at all a good example of your original scenario, which was:
> a disaster happens, so police response times have lapsed, dropped to days. Not everyone is stranded on their roof, tons of people have food but the real problem is that now heavily armed and well organized drug gangs are able to operate with impunity, and brutality, seizing whatever they wish (including the food)... It's a power-grab situation for a few days, or for however long the power stays off, or it would be, if combat veterans and ordinary Americans weren't so well armed.
Case A (Sarajevo): there is a massive unrest, basically what amounts to a Civil War, then yeah - having access to firearms and military training is probably a key factor in your survival (you also have to decide what side you are on, though, which in the long run will also become a key factor in your survival, no matter how well trained you are).
Case B (Kathrina): there may be individuals or small groups that take a chance at looting deserted buildings. But they will have basically the same problems as everyone else (surviving the storm peak, being able to move around after the worst has passed). Situations where large, well-armed gangs siege you in your home which has remained intact and holds some kind of resource which is valuable outside of the disaster area (i.e. large amounts of cash, valuables) and you have to fend them off for days until the cavalry finally arrives seem to be extremely unlikely outside of a movie script.
You seem to imply that all "disasters" will end up like Sarajevo, my idea is that your reasoning applies only in cases of a natural disaster hitting a region where a civil war is already going on.
What I find a bit odd is the fact that you seem to imply that "having access to firearms" is really the main priority. Ok, there is a flood and we are forced to take refuge on the roof of our houses.
When (if) someone comes to rescue us do we go with them because they have rifles, or because they have a boat, food, first aid, and a plan about how and where to take us until the flood subsides?