Originally Posted By Lowdown3:
Yes, as thermal has dropped in price a helluva lot more folks have them. Quality of course will vary from the "$500 is too much to spend" types with low resolution and slow speeds to actually useful in bad situations devices like an RH25V2, Nox 18, etc.

And yeah you can have NV, thermal, gear, train regularly etc. as well as be in with your neighbors.

It's never been an either/or thing, despite the trappings of the new "prepper" crowd that thinks they have re-invented wheel on basis concepts that have been around in survivalism for 50+ years now.

Originally Posted By lumper:
There seem to be two categories of teen age / young 20's boys in my rural area.  Farm boys, who's idea of entertainment is driving around & finding a place in a field at night looking for something to shoot, coyotes are a common fun thing, and those that sit at home and play computer games.

The farm boys most all have newer thermal or older night vision.  It is a couple thousand dollars or so.  A hard working young man can get a physical labor job in this area and easily make over a $1000 a week.  They work and they have the money.  They get out and actually use their equipment.  In a situation where there is a lack of food, those who plan on hunting, rather than having food stored, better plan on being hungry.  There will quickly be nothing left.  Game laws are a suggestion now while people are fat and content.  Someone with a hungry family?  They will get anything they can, leaving nothing.  

This is nothing like the great depression, where a night hunter would perhaps have battery light (in those days, probably a car battery and a headlight) or much more likely a simple oil lantern, perhaps a carbide light if they worked mines, that would barely shine 30 or 40 feet.  The deer were nearly wiped out then.  Compare to today.  It would not be uncommon that a farm boy can identify a target, shoot 200 + yards in pitch darkness and hit a coyote.  If my boys can do it (and they can), others can as well.

Heading to the hills to poach deer on other peoples land is a bad idea.

Originally Posted By tc556guy:

I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not. Yes, both urban and rural areas have druggies.
A lot of the urban lowlifes avoid the rural areas as much as possible
I suspect that in any crisis they'll stay in the cities until they're forced by circumstances to leave
The rural low-lifes are the ones that rural good people will have to worry about
Plenty of rural SNAP recipients will be looking to liberate stuff from their rural neighbors
You're right that they're happy to live with less as they squat in their run down trailers cooking their drugs