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Review of Preppers Home Defense Book by Jim Cobb

A while back I purchased Prepper’s Home Defense: Security Strategies to Protect Your Family by Any Means Necessary written by fellow blogger, Jim Cobb, of SurvivalWeekly.com and Survival-Gear.com. Apparently he’s written quite an assortment of other books on prepping but this is the first for me.

I must say that this is the first book in a long time that I choose to read cover to cover because this is an area of my preparedness that I really feel is inadequate, at least, with respect to preparing our home and family for a real SHTF event.

That said, the book didn’t start off with anything I could outright do (like beefing-up my doors) but, instead, discussed the overal idea of a security plan, concepts that are critical to overall security, and actually posed far more questions than answers. I must say that was a little disconcerting as I was looking for answers and not a million things to ponder. Granted, many of the questions posed are truly pertinent to developing a good security plan and mindset so I really need to go back and reconsider them. In addition, Jim also covers OPSEC very early on (both pre-collapse and post-collapse) and for good reason.

After that introduction, Jim gets into the stuff I would expect to be covered, including perimeter defense, structure hardening, safe room considerations, and hidden storage ideas. I won’t give away the details but I did learn a few new things that I wasn’t aware. In particular, I enjoyed the chapter on perimeter defense. Overall, however, I knew the vast majority of the information contained but it was still good to hear again.

Next, Jim talks quite a bit about firearms, alternative weapons, and hand-to-hand combat. Again, I learned a few new things but for the most part I knew what I already felt like I should know with regards to these topics.

Last, I was keen to read the final few chapters on guard dogs, communications, and children–among others–all of which were good primers are things I should be aware of. I should probably re-read the chapter on communications as that’s another area of my preparedness that’s less than stellar. He also tackles bug out considerations as well.

I can say that you’ll learn quite a bit and be glad you read it. That said, however, I had hoped for a bit more from this book with respect to post-collapse security and maybe even tactics. In essence, I was looking more for more of the “out there” ways that I could better secure my home but maybe that was asking for too much. Overall, my take of the book is this: if you know very little about home security considerations then you should definitely buy the book and read it cover-to-cover like I did. If you’re looking for extreme ways to prepare your home for a post-collapse scenario then stick to the Internet forums. 😉

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Damian Brindle

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Comments

3 responses to “Review of Preppers Home Defense Book by Jim Cobb”

  1. Jim Cobb

    First, I’d like to thank you for purchasing and reviewing Prepper’s Home Defense. I will readily admit the book may be lacking in a few of the more hardcore “out there” approaches to post-collapse security. That was intentional. The idea behind the book is to provide the average person with ideas they can implement to augment their home security and defense strategies both now and later.

    I approached the overall topic trying to keep in mind that many readers aren’t military veterans, aren’t security experts, and in fact might not even own a single firearm. Thus I felt it necessary to take things down to a fairly basic level in many cases. One needs to learn to walk before they can run and all that.

    I had toyed with the idea of including a chapter on the more esoteric and exotic security devices one could fashion at home. Eventually, I declined to include that information in this book for the simple reason that I felt it far more likely one would need practical advice on perimeter security over knowing how to assemble a homemade claymore mine (and risking them blowing their fingers off through not paying close attention to details).

    Also, just for clarification for your readers, I only have two actual books available on Amazon currently — Prepper’s Home Defense and The Prepper’s Complete Book of Disaster Readiness: Life-Saving Skills, Supplies, Tactics and Plans (expected release — August 2013). The remainder of the titles shown on that Amazon Author page are back issues of Survivalist Magazine, for which I wrote a column for several issues.

    Again, I very much appreciate you reading the book and taking the time to share your thoughts with your readers.

    Reply
    1. millenniumfly

      I still enjoyed the book and recommend it for sure. Like I said, I was just hoping for more considering that I had no knowledge of what to honestly expect other than to think that with the title “preppers home defense” that maybe it was going to provide me with some very serious recommends as to what people like me could do. That said, I think I’ll re-read it again sometime as you’ve posed many good questions, most of which I don’t have a great answer. 😉 Thanks for your dedication and hard work, Jim.

      Reply
  2. Anna Lapping

    I have read this book as well, and I agree with the reviewer. The book was OK in some areas, but lacking in others. For someone who is new to prepping, I’m sure it was much more informative, but to me it was “old news” except in a few areas

    Reply

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