You assume that people desperate enough to rob others would have the skill sets to succeed, and that resistance would be useless regardless of one’s prior training- does that about sum up your position?
So is your argument to not have anything of value otherwise people will eventually kill your family for it?
To your point, long-term hobbyist self-sufficiency isn't a viable option in a societal collapse. That said, to assume people would keep behaving as they did pre-collapse is a bit unrealistic, especially over any reasonably time frame. People adapt to survive, and the people already putting in the work to understand survival stand a much better chance than ill-prepared opportunists, especially if you pit the two against each other.
Your scenario still makes the assumption that these half-ass bandit gangs make all of the right decisions, which doesn't happen when people lack training, nutrition, and rest. All they have to do is make one mistake and they're out of the game forever. Hungry, unskilled bandits will be far more prone to making mistakes when attacking people who are well-armed and well-fed. Casing a potential target takes time-- at least weeks if done correctly. Time is a precious resource when you're desperate and starving. I'd be far more concerned with an angry mob than I would be a team of novices who think they're operators.
Your scenario also seems to assume targets are islands. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know all of my neighbors and more than half of them are legitimately capable people- we're all one SOS text away from surrounding any given house. I realize that's not a typical situation, but this is America and it's not as rare as one might think.
All of this to circle back to my original point- if you're going to have anything of value, it behooves you to have enough firepower to defend it. Keeping valuables isn't an automatic death sentence.
You assume that people desperate enough to rob others would have the skill sets to succeed, and that resistance would be useless regardless of one’s prior training- does that about sum up your position?
So is your argument to not have anything of value otherwise people will eventually kill your family for it?
To your point, long-term hobbyist self-sufficiency isn't a viable option in a societal collapse. That said, to assume people would keep behaving as they did pre-collapse is a bit unrealistic, especially over any reasonably time frame. People adapt to survive, and the people already putting in the work to understand survival stand a much better chance than ill-prepared opportunists, especially if you pit the two against each other.
Your scenario still makes the assumption that these half-ass bandit gangs make all of the right decisions, which doesn't happen when people lack training, nutrition, and rest. All they have to do is make one mistake and they're out of the game forever. Hungry, unskilled bandits will be far more prone to making mistakes when attacking people who are well-armed and well-fed. Casing a potential target takes time-- at least weeks if done correctly. Time is a precious resource when you're desperate and starving. I'd be far more concerned with an angry mob than I would be a team of novices who think they're operators.
Your scenario also seems to assume targets are islands. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know all of my neighbors and more than half of them are legitimately capable people- we're all one SOS text away from surrounding any given house. I realize that's not a typical situation, but this is America and it's not as rare as one might think.
All of this to circle back to my original point- if you're going to have anything of value, it behooves you to have enough firepower to defend it. Keeping valuables isn't an automatic death sentence.