My limited but non-zero experience in real-world situations has shown that "Angry Mobs" are far more likely to be armed than "Peaceful people", across regimes, situations and armament laws, regardless of the initial starting point.

The thing to hope for in "If we run out of food" situation is that some people at least will co-operate. Once it gets to "Angry mobs", and most importantly "who does and doesn't have a gun" - peaceful people will lose, one way or another.

Again, it's a personal & subjective perspective (which is why I've vouched/upvoted your comments - we're all allowed a personal & subjective perspective and it tests our ideas:), but it also means it's less theoretical than for most folks - having been variously in a civil war, starving situation, and facing angry mobs, turns out, last thing I personally wanted to have is a gun - it's just another highly desirable item for an angry mob and paints me as a bigger target.

So I try to have a reserve of food and medicine and important things at all times - but a gun has never joined the list. I know vividly from experience that if it comes to defending my stash, I'll loose very soon - if not to the very first "wave of angry mobs", then very very shortly thereafter. Popular SciFi movies and series notwithstanding :-/

>My limited but non-zero experience in real-world situations has shown that "Angry Mobs" are far more likely to be armed than "Peaceful people"

And my point is that it doesn't really matter that much if the angry mob is armed or not, whereas you having one can have a huge impact on the outcome. There are a lot more of them than you. They can very easily kill you with a gun or without one. But you cannot possibly hope to dissuade any angry group of people from attacking you without at least a gun. Obviously it won't make you invincible, and gets less likely to help as the size of the mob increases (for that situation, you'd want to have a bunch of other armed people at your side), but that's not the point.

>which is why I've vouched/upvoted your comments - we're all allowed a personal & subjective perspective and it tests our ideas:

Downvoting to show disagreement is pretty sad behavior.

You get downvoted despite saying a tacitly true and very valid dichotomy.

There is a fundamental asymmetry. Attackers only have to fight battles that they judge to be worth fighting. If they don't think their chances are good enough, whether because they don't have the right weapons or the right numbers or the right circumstances, they can wait for a better opportunity.

Defenders have to fight whatever battle is brought to them.