The Kansas City Star reports. "'Can a natural person change into this monster that many fear?' Alfredo Carbajal, the militia’s main spokesman, said in an interview. 'The possibilities are yes, it can happen. We have seen incidents that are very close to it, and we are thinking it is more possible than people think.'"

  • bzishi

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but when the zombie apocalypse happens, I’m heading to Kansas. I figure a nuclear plant in would be the best place to hide: electricity & water, a security fence with armed guards, and if all else fails it will have a concrete containment to hide in. That, or Cheyenne Mountain (which would probably be harder to get into).

    • Cowicide

      I don’t know about the rest of you, but when the zombie apocalypse happens, I’m heading to Kansas.

      In the meantime, if any real mega-catastrophe not seated in fantasy happens, I’ll be sure to stay as far away from delusional, useless, hick militias as possible.  

      Well… after gassing them and taking all their weapons and food, that is.

    • dragonfrog

      What assurance do you have they won’t just shoot you on sight as a possible zombie?

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

        Cloak of Invisibility FTW!

  • http://www.facebook.com/mikesilvermanks Mike Silverman

    Apparently Governor Sam Brownback actually signed a proclamation declaring last October as Zombie Preparedness Month in Kansas. First move he’s made that I kinda approve of – of course, he’s doing his own part to bring about the apocalypse in my state!

  • faithnomore

    Seeing as Kansas is solid bible belt territory, by my reckoning, the state already has a zombie problem.

    But that’s just my jaded opinion…

    • GawainLavers

      “Kansas militia prepares for zombies”

      By enrolling them, I presume.

      • wysinwyg

         ”Kansas militia prepares for zombies”

  • http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

    I’ll stay here in Canada.  Cold weather is your friend during a zombie apocalypse…

    • DisGuest

       Doesn’t that just keep them better preserved?

      • http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

        With no circulation they’ll just freeze in place, and once the thaw comes they’ll break down that much quicker.

        • invictus

          Let’s examine that notion, actually. Zombies, presumably, no longer have a functioning heart. How then does their system maintain circulation? I don’t recall encountering a plausible explanation of this, but I admit I’m not particularly well-versed in zombie lore.

        • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

           Given that zombies are a raging affront to thermodynamics, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘canonical’ answer on the matter.

          Some scenarios postulate more or less overtly supernatural zombies( ‘the unquiet dead in unhallowed ground, liches and necromancers, etc, etc.) and those can presumably act however narrative convenience requires. At best, they’ll at least act consistently within the bounds of the story arc; but magic is a tactical nuclear handwave for more or less whatever you want.

          Some are very soft sci-fi, in that they invoke some vaguely plausible biological mechanism for zombieism as something resembling a transmissible disease; but they ignore, dismiss, or handwave the question of how something that used to be a medium sized mammal with significant metabolic demands can survive more than a week or two of zombie behavior without shutting down(World War Z is the example that comes most readily to mind, though it is hardly the only one. Incidentally, its zombies did freeze during the winter; but became a menace again when they thawed)

          Some go somewhat harder sci-fi, with zombieism being more or less an aesthetically dressed up version of super-rabies. These settings may or may not play fast and loose with a few powers of ten in terms of metabolic sustainability and such; but they explicitly mention the zombie population as being subject to some degree of energy need(the ones in 28 Days Later starved pretty quickly, if memory serves, though they didn’t show the signs of emaciation that normal starvation should have caused). Depending on how fast the hypothetical disease spreads, and whether the zombies feast on the delicious brains of their kills or not, this scenario can either be played for a fast, apocalyptic, burnout or to have a smaller; but much more persistent, zombie population lurking on the outskirts and maintaining itself through feeding on kills and occasional new infections.

          • invictus

            You need to write a Zombie Care & Maintenance Manual. Seriously.

          • http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

            I’m going with the classic definition of an animated corpse in some degree of decay.  Assuming the decay is progressive rather than simply arrested at some point, eventually a zombie would rot away to nothing.  One hard winter would certainly put a big dent in the zombie population under those circumstances.

          • Pizik Spaeth

             Isn’t most of that taken from a paper some undergraduates wrote based on Zombiism? ;o)

          • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

            Plagiarism is a serious accusation. Did you have a source in mind?

      • http://twitter.com/rvitelli Romeo Vitelli

         Yes, but it’s easier to get away when you’re on skis.

        • peregrinus

          The Norwegian movie “Dead Snow” cancels out that avenue of hope.

      • Felton / Moderator

        Maybe, but at least it’ll slow them down.  Take that, non-Romero zombies!

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

      You’ll just get Ice Zombies.

  • http://www.cdllife.com/ Andrew S.

    This is one of the reasons why people who live in Kansas City, Missouri get upset when you think they live in Kansas.

  • Boundegar

    Well we have less to worry about than we did in October.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBewrP1X_is

  • phoomp

    I’ve seen incidents very close to zombism as well … every Sunday evening at 9/8 central.

  • http://twitter.com/AbelUndercity Abel Undercity

    Further proof that the Zombie Apocalypse is just the Survivalist Rapture: The Big “See, I Told You So!” 

    • UnderachievingSheep

      I always thought the current meme around the zombie apocalypse was just a pop culture phenomenon (you know, a bit of fantasy and irony thrown in together with a heaping dose of humor). And then I read this interview with the survivalist guy who in 2012 had over U$D 1 million revenue selling stuff to other fellow survivalists. I was rather shocked that there are people who, like you pointed out, treat a zombie apocalypse as a sort of Rapture scenario and they prepare for it accordingly…

      http://www.buzzfeed.com/chadwickmatlin/meet-the-entrepreneur-behind-the-apocalypses-must

    • dragonfrog

      A friend of mine recently did a survival course where zombies were used as a sort of unifying scenario – not that anyone took the zombie part seriously, but it provided a fun motivation for practicing evacuating wounded comrades, for example.

      • http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

        That part seems useful, but so few of them seem interested in anything other than shooting.

        Raising food and livestock, learning welding, carpentry, engineering… installing renewable energy sources… there are so many things that could be said to be fun “zombie prep” that would also improve people’s lives in measurable ways, and add deep resiliency to civilization’s infrastructure.The threshold to taking any “preppers” serious in the slightest, even for the violent war catastrophe they lust for, is when they can show you their horde of antibiotics. Short of that, they’re just gun nuts who fantasize about shooting their way to happiness.

        Too bad preparing to become Twain’s Connecticut Yankee seems unlikely to be the next fad.

        • Manny

          Learn to knit socks. Everyone forgets about post-apocalypse socks, but try running away from a tank or a zombie with slipping shoes and blisters.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kevynjacobs Kevyn Jacobs

    Oh Kansas… *shakes head sadly*

    (And these people have a right to bear arms? Scary.)

  • Wreckrob8

    Natural person? WTF is a natural person? How do I tell them from unnatural persons? Which poses the greater threat of zombiedom? We should be told.

    • http://www.ikaink.net Itsumishi

      Natural person as opposed to a corporation is a person I believe. Corporations of course could already be classified as zombies, feeding off the vulnerable and weak before taking on stronger subjects whilst spreading like a disease across global society.

    • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

      Depends on who is saying it.

      If the somebody saying it has formed a militia, I’d be at least considering the possibility that they are using ‘Natural Person’ in the sense sometimes found among Redemptionists, Freemen, or Sovereign Citizens. Among certain flavors of American conspiracy theorists, the distinction between ‘natural persons’(who conveniently aren’t subject to any laws aside from extremely eccentric interpretations of ‘common law’) and the strawmen whose names appear on inconvenient court documents, or the ones set up when a birth certificate is issued in order to serve as collateral for some sort of jew money cabal(the details are… detailed).

      For his sake, I’m hoping that this guy is simply unnecessarily emphasizing that most corporations are not at risk of becoming rotting, brain-hungry creatures of nightmare; but there are alternatives.

  • webstu

    Remember:  9% of adult Americans are, clinically, mentally ill.

    ~13% are functionally illiterate.

    Just a reminder.  

    • Hanglyman

       Not that I doubt it, but what’s the source for those?

      • webstu

        College textbooks, citing various and overlapping studies.  

    • Gloo

       I guess these conclusion could be applied to the whole western world population but still, this story about militias and zombies let me startled. 

  • Eark_the_Bunny

    Sure we have zombies, I call them the ‘tea party’.

  • technogeekagain

    “… we are thinking it is more possible than people think.’”

    Sounds like they don’t consider themselves people. I think I agree.

  • Tim Drage

    They missed a trick: I misread the title as “Katana militia”

  • Jason Sewell

    Am I the only one not even slightly entertained by all this Zombie nonsense?

    • GawainLavers

      I don’t even appreciate the irony of it being “the meme that will not die” anymore.

      I’ve realized that its popularity stems from the fact that it is, hands down, the laziest fucking meme ever.

      • Boundegar

        Furthermore, you kids get off my lawn!

  • http://twitter.com/peterbruells Peter Brülls

    Well, that’s a very good reason why the militia should be well regulated.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1741355973 David Quick

    Zombie movies are fun and cool but this seems to be a Psychological Operation to DE-sensitize the troops for when they might need to open up with live ammunition on to a crowd of “unlawfully assembled” and unarmed Civilians. Most of the Zombie Programming lately seems to be about Dehumanization and pushing the Plague of Humanity concept from Eugenics. Even that World War Z movie has a “Horde” of Palestinian Zombies being mowed down by “Heroes.” Fun and games aside having Domestic Military training in similar scenarios is creepy.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Drop/100000929402049 Robert Drop

      These aren’t “troops,” though, but a private militia*.  Same idea, though – they’re basically training to desensitize themselves to the idea of shooting at “the other” (in reality, brown people, lib’ruls, ATF agents, etc.).

      *Which means, statistically, that they’re basically just a random collection of some racist, reactionary gun-nuts, which is even scarier than the thought of actually regulated, controlled US troops doing the same.

  • http://www.jimdraws.com Thorzdad

    We have seen incidents that are very close to it, and we are thinking it is more possible than people think.

    For instance, there was this one guy, about 2000 years ago…

  • rob_cornelius

    Uou created these monsters, yes you with your snark and irony. Now look what happens when stupid people hear about them.

  • http://borborygmist.influxofdust.com/ Wayne Dyer

    I’d really hoped this was an existing militia/survivalist group that had gone a bit nutty.  Instead it’s a nutty group that’s gone a bit militia/survivalist.

  • http://www.genreville.com/ Josh Jasper

    “The possibilities are yes, it can happen”

    I’d like to call in an airstrike from the airborne statisticians division, with backing artillery fire provided by the 88th semanticists brigade, and a SMASH from @grammarhulk:twitter  please.

  • http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

    For some folks, “zombies” is code for “blacks when we end welfare”

    Just in case you weren’t aware.

    • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

      Are they going to savagely devour the brains of our White Women to sate their bestial appetites and everything?

      • CH

        Ooooh… I’m sure those militia guys are fantasizing about it right now while they… clean their guns.

        • fuzzyfuzzyfungus

          Are you implying that they’ll be in their bunk(er)?

  • Nick_D

    It occurred to me the other day while watching Walking Dead that the zombie genre has pretty much become little more than gun/survivalist porn. Sure, living in an underground bunker and drinking your pee would probably be a blast, but I have a little more faith in, you know, society/civilization/etc.

    • retepslluerb

      Anything that turns into a genre becomes automatically a kind of XYZ-porn.

  • timquinn

    What about the real scenario he is obviously thinking about. Something like a major cities water supply getting doped with a slow acting drug that turns everyone into raging psychopaths. It isn’t that hard to imagine that happening.

    • CH

      Obviously? I think you give them too much credit here.

    • http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy

      Haha, that’s rich. So someone with the ability and resource to make such a drug in quantities sufficient while possessing the ability and resource to successfully distribute it through a hydro system while being someone who would desire to do so and act on the desire would be how statistically improbable? 

      These fools in Kansas will repeat the deeds of the Apollo program before they face such a threat. 

      Super villains never are and only the terminally stupid prepare for them.

      • timquinn

        I know, right? Like 19 guys deciding to crash 4 airliners. It will never happen.

  • mikei

    I worry more about mummies.  They’re all bandagey and stuff.

    • ldobe

      Oh crap.

      I just envisioned a bleak, post apocalyptic hellscape:

      A hoard of zombies and mummies crest a hill chasing a lone survivor. Quickly dashing behind a rock he twists the handle on a detonator. Dozens of claymores explode shredding most of the hoard, but the mummies’ tangled bandages hold their corpses together. They charge onward, inexorably. An unstoppable force.

      Defeated, the survivor pulls a small ampule from his head band. As the the screaming horror approaches, he contemplates briefly, puts the ampule between his teeth and bites.

      A gurgling cry echoes for a moment, quickly replaced by the sound of crushing bones and rending flesh.

      • Wreckrob8

        The curse of the zombies?

    • travtastic

      “Keep shooting! Someone’s treating the wounds as soon as they get hit!”

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RREC2OY32JFN6JWSK4KZNBZF7Y Jim

    >> We have seen incidents that are very close to it, <<

    On TV.  And as everyone knows, if it's on TV, it must be true.

    • C W

      You’re talking about a militia, they’re not known for being the smartest, sanest demographic.

  • C W

    They also likely masturbated to the recent Red Dawn remake, both are as likely to occur.

  • OriGuy

    So a zombiegenic virus is possible, but anthropogenic climate change is an absurd conspiracy theory?

    If Kansas were overrun by mindless zombies, how could you tell?

    • http://profiles.google.com/steve.nordquist Steve Nordquist

      Absurd conspiracy fact with limited lemma insurance available. And there would be fewer minds. For a tell, you’d have to be either in the Redfield Family Canon, a pastafarian necromancer and seer, Rob’s press secretary, possibly this Rotini Theooquemadi person, or a retail banker. You’d probably see orders for more crates with rare items to be airdropped for later levels.

      Yeah, the feds who can endorse militia can’t have titles of esteem, but they can make militia aliases. And fans of Zack Snyder and George Romero can get into that…

  • Spikeles

    Don’t forget your copy of The Zombie Survival Guide

  • http://twitter.com/Dreamerr03 Super Mario