Probably there's a big concern about civil unrest.
There isn't a food shortage; there will be a slow down of cargo movement because of extra safety precautions and less people working, but there is no reason to expect people to go hungry and riot over this. Food shelters will not be closing down. Water, electricity will continue working.
Things will get quieter for a little while, shopping malls will be empty and then running in a reduced capacity as things return to normal.
> less people working
Something here doesn't make sense to me.
Based on the panic buying I saw yesterday and the reports of the same from elsewhere, a significant number of people do not believe this.
Keep safe, limit non essential travel, preferably cook your own food that you eat at work, avoid crowded places and wash your hands. I alsi don't use taxis and publuc transport. Walk or bike if you can.
But basically, people want guns to deal with all the other people who have guns. Most of them are dreaming, though, because they're not well enough trained to use them effectively.
You buy a weapon and try to intimidate the armed aggressors with your weapon.
They actually know how to handle weapons and shoot you as soon as they see your weapon because they know how dangerous these things are.
You're now shot and are either dead or currently bleeding out.
How did this improve your situation exactly?
Escalating conflict is not necessary in your favor. It can be, but its way more likely to backfire than help you
Yes, that's exactly it. It's actually quite hard to train people to freely kill others. Most naive people think about using guns for intimidation. The first lesson in my weapons class (as I recall) was to never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. Maybe the second lesson was to point and shoot as an uninterrupted process. Not any faster than you can do smoothly, but not any slower either.
Burroughs, who was quite the gun nut, also recommended that. He also advised to first take out assailants with shotguns.
There's a great anecdote in Hunter Thompson's book about hanging with Hell's Angels. Involving a guy who pointed a handgun at one of them, and got shot with it. Also a great sequence in some Seagal film with an Aikido reverse move with an assailant's shotgun. It's a riff on a sword move.
Trained > untrained
Untrained gun > no gun
No gun == no gun
Re guns, sure. Generally, no.
Looting houses during a quarantine means that the looters would go into houses that are actively occupied, at a time where the occupants are nervous and potentially armed. Pretty much the worst case scenario.
Doesn't mean there aren't dumb criminals, but between looting houses for food or shoplifting food from stores, one is clearly less risky.
The problem is that to really be risk-free, you need everyone converging on the idea simultaneously, so that the police are overwhelmed -- this has happened with toilet paper.. whether it'll happen with looting corporate offices is to be seen. For now though, it's still pretty risky.