Yet with "Statistically speaking hurricane prepping is much bigger deal in America than survivalism" you imply that 'survivalism' does not include hurricane prepping, so is not the same as the 'prepper culture' from the paper.
Since you identified pre-WWII farm culture as being close to prepper culture, could you explain how survivalism fits in, and how it's different from hurricane prepping? Because I think you are talking looking at the similarities in self-sufficiency. In that case, isn't the back-to-the-soil movement of the 1960s more similar to pre-WWII farming culture than the prepper culture, despite the lack of interest in weapons in that movement?
> I think it's also part of a larger campaign to sell more hamburgers and wal-mart stock
That seems like rather weak evidence. Statistically speaking, presidents on TV get killed a lot more in real life, and space aliens visit Earth a lot. Once upon a time I thought the popularity of all of the SF shows was part of a larger campaign to get us used to the idea of extraterrestrial life, before making the announcement that aliens existed.
I appear to have been wrong, as I had no idea at the time that space aliens had been part of TV culture for decades, and it's been decades more without announcement.
How will you know if you are wrong?
> because they don't have the firearms they would need to restore peace on their own.
Do you have any idea of how may firearms (per capita) are needed for that? Because Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, and France are still in the top list of countries in per capita gun ownership. How many more will they need?
> after a major emergency
That is a very broad topic. Sweden, for example, had many preparations for a nuclear exchange, including tax rebates for people who built bomb/fallout shelters in their homes. Switzerland still requires households to maintain a year supply of food, and a bomb shelter.
How is it that in all these preparations, they've forgotten to ensure a large enough supply of weapons for post-nuclear internal peace keeping?
> hundreds of thousands if not millions of veterans currently own rifles strikingly similar to those they carried in the armed forces
Yes, and Switzerland "The vast majority of men between the ages of 20 and 34 are conscripted into the militia and undergo military training, including weapons training", though they don't keep ammunition at home.
In the 1990s, my European co-workers in the US, who were all of draft age during the Cold War, had been conscripted, including from Germany, Austria, Romania, Bulgaria - from both sides of the Iron Curtain. My Army wife and an Iranian ex-co-worker swapped stories about serving in the same part of the Middle East, just on opposite sides of the border.
So plenty of Europeans have some experience in the military, at least for some countries.
> In the Middle East these troops were frequently tasked with restoring order to urban areas exploding in internecine strife
Now you're going on a tangent that seems little to do with pre-WWII farming culture.
What sort of military training, and more importantly special forces operation experience, did your grandmother's family have, and how was it useful for their farm life?
