In the past couple of years, I have seen a lot of escape and evade kits. Are there a lot of people illegally detained, or is this nothing more than a fad?

Jeanette Isabelle

I might be off base but I think it's a fad. True, you could be kidnapped and cuffed where having a hidden key could be useful but stateside that doesn't seem to be all that common. Author and police trainer Greg Ellifritz extensively travels in some sketchy countries in Asia, the Middle East and South & Central America and says there it's a good idea to have some E&E gear but in the US it's probably just a fad or a Walter Mitty fantasy.

Apropos of nothing, and it's just my guess, our Forever Wars have created a vast amount of veterans with combat experience. It seems like a lot of them return to the US and parlay the training provided by Uncle Sugar to start security & firearms training companies. So they're just kind of teaching what they were taught, much of which doesn't have a lot of applications in civilian life.

You´d read more about it if it was a bigger problem.
One thing that might turn into a problem is the stay at home during the lockdown. It means a lot of lost income for burglars and muggers. They might want to find a way to make up for that.

I agree that in the USA this is far more fad than not.

Also, the E&E kits I've seen are essentially useless without training and practice.

To be honest, the e&e kits look pretty benign in comparison to:
OPMOD Battle mug: a titanium mug with 3 1911 rail, an m16 carry handle and a
crenelated base for defensive use.

$24000 zombie response kit

Perhaps we need to develop a new taxonomy that distinguishes between survival kits, developed by and for folks who plan for non-zero probability life-threatening situations, entertainment kits
designed by and for folks who are willing to spend resources to prepare for fictional scenarios, and commercial kits, developed by and for folks whose interests are the marketing possibilities involved in the combination of anxiety and expendable income.

The Battle Mug is a gag. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised for the Recombinant DNA to get one for me for Fathers Day or a birthday, if it were 1/5th the price.

For a company to include the Battle Mug in a kit unironically is not a good sign.

When I teach concealed carry classes I urge all of my students to avoid anything on defensive firearms, ammo, clothes, and other gear that might make them look bad in court. This definitely includes any unfortunate text or graphics; zombie stuff is not recommended. While I'm not aware of any court cases where zombie graphics played an important part, I am aware of other cases where less than well-thought out text added to a firearm harmed the owner's case.

Back to E&E kits. Learn the laws of your locality -- some places, some components of E&E kits are illegal to carry. I'm not an attorney but I believe if the police find that kind of thing on your person it can be used against you in court.

That battle mug is pretty funny. I like it. I can easily imagine a segment of firearms enthusiasts who'd appreciate and enjoy it.

Best E&E kit (as I see it) is a valid passport and lots of money.
Because E&E kits are for those in a hostile country to get them home. Otherwise, in your own country, a BOB will suffice.

Irony is a little tricky these days. Folks say all kinds of outrageous, manifestly false or ill-advised things, and, when challenged indicate that they were speaking in irony, or using a colloquial definition of the term. "Literally" no longer means literally. "Decimate" no longer means to reduce by 10 percent, it seems to mean annihilate. "Nucular" is now an acceptable pronunciation of "nuclear".
Thus my suggestion to distinguish between survival kits based upon their developers intent. The battle mug serves a commercial purpose. The distinction applies to media programming: programs are designed to attract viewers, entertain,and sell products: not designed to educated or transmit truth.

Cool, but not realistic. For me, non sexy planning wins every time.

Gear I am most likely to use in an emergency?

A granola bar

Gear I'll most likely use in an emergency depends a lot but usually it's a combination of cell phone and bank card.

part of my USAF job required me to occasionally schlep 1:250,000 aeronautical charts for unit use... they were distributed from the same vault that issued pilots their "blood chits" (blood chit is a promise to pay an amount of money ($50,000 in gold I was told) for the helping with the safe return of a US airman shot down in enemy territory ...some time later I was sitting in an adult drinking establishment up country Thailand in 73, and noticed that a couple of the older gentlemen carried heavy ID bracelets made from gold...and rumors were that they could be used a link at a time to do the same thing... the ladies working in the establishment also carried baht bracelets with gold charms labeled with their weight in grams...their di di mao cash support

my next purchase was an elephant hide money belt, and in it I added a copy of my orders with security clearance on it, a new $50US bill, and when I got back to the PI, took a picture of my birth certificate and front page of my passport with a macro lens on slide film, to make a DIY microfiche of the data...

at the time cash money was high my E&E requirement...and even some 45+ years later, the idea still has some merit... though a little more than the $50 I could afford on an E5's salary

Les

Talk of gold, and Survival Cards elsewhere on here, remembered Combibars.

https://www.combibar.com/

Cards of precision metals, breakable into smaller units.

I think a map, an app, the willingness to go around and $40 is a good city E&E kit.