Lol, did a deep dive into the topic that probably put me on half a dozen different watch lists. But the fact of the matter at the end of it seems to me that, either in case of social order breaking (fully) down, or in preparation for writing a fic set in such a scenario in Germany, the easiest means for self defense for an average Joe/Jane protagonist would be a crossbow.
The heavily regulated nature of any kind of nitrate-based fertilizer (
any kind of primarily nitrate-based product, really) is more likely to get you into the crosshairs of law enforcement than prepare you for doomsday, even if you where just to buy the parts and have them sit around separately.
On Youtube, people were talking about using stump remover or the content of cold packs to synthesize nitrate, but you can't get the former outside the US because of the nitrate content, and producers of the latter have moved to urea probably precisely because of that, too. Besides, in a break-down scenario, how likely would it be for Amazon to deliver cold packs to your doorstep? Though... thinking of it, Amazon would probably be the last thing still functioning by the sheer power of greed.
I even found a review for a 3 kg bucket of
curing salts on Amazon where the buyer got a visit from the police (because he wasn't running a business, and I found out 3 kg of curing salts literally is enough for
hundreds of kilograms of meat), even though nitrate contents in that stuff are just 0.4-0.5%! So you'd need dozens of kilograms of that stuff, right?
So, not worth it.
*shrugs*
A repeating crossbow has the advantage of reusing the bolts, and in any kind of scenario water and non-perishable foods probably would be higher on the list (at least early on) than any kind of weapon.
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