A friend of mine who served in Afghanistan said that the Afghanis living in the mountains had no idea America had invaded and no idea about a war or 9/11. At first they had thought the Americans were Russians. I think you over estimate how big America is and how remote some places can be.

I've traveled through some pretty remote places in both hemispheres, and the US has nothing on isolation compared to the mountains in Central Asia. Remoteness won't really protect people here, not like it would there.

This may be a pandemic, but it’s not a zombie apocalypse.

> rural areas won’t be safe from desperate people.

That's why you need to buy yourself a private, remote island, or at least a farm on a remote island. Also, if you don't live on it alone (regardless of ownership), it may not import more food than it exports, otherwise the other inhabitants will want to get your food.

Of course this is hard to find such an island as there aren't many such places and unless you're very rich it'll be beyond your budget anyways.

Also want to stress again that it won't be enough to just have an island, it has to be remote as well otherwise people just swim over. The number of boats is limited usually so likely few people will get to you.

> unless you're very rich it'll be beyond your budget anyways

I mean, there's a decent supply of islands (many with houses) that go for barely more than a Bay Area single-family home.

Not even "barely more". With 30 seconds on Google I found a 6 acre private island in Northern Ontario with a fully furnished 2200 sq ft house connected to marine electric and phone service for 360k USD.

Something more remote is even cheaper, because there's a ton of supply of islands that are only accessible by float plane, and not much demand.

> rural areas won't be safe from desperate people

At least for America, most city folk don't seem to understand just how armed their rural counterparts are. They'd be pretty darn safe.

That's actually a pretty good pro to stay in cities.

Mass hysteria + lots of guns = not a place I'd like to be.

I don't know if rural folks may realize how well-armed we are in the cities. Nearly everyone I know has a gun, and none of us is the crowd you'd normally associate with gun owners in cities.

Well the the stats don’t lie. Gun ownership is significantly lower in cities than in rural areas/small towns.

Per capital is higher in rural, but there are going to be more guns in a N mile radius of you in the city, and a lot more armed individuals (ten people with one gun each are more dangerous than one person with ten guns).

Is it possible that the stats are of the flavor (total guns)/(total people) and inflate rural ownership because of a gun for small game, a gun for large game, a gun for self defense, and in certain parts of the country a gun for extremely big fish? Or is gun ownership when computed as (count of people with guns)/(total people) still inflated in rural areas?

As kortilla mentioned, while you may have a different experience, the statistics are pretty clear. Also, not all firearms are equal, and while I can't back this part up with stats, my general experience has been that rural folk are much more likely to own more effective firearms: many own a semi-automatic rifles chambered in an intermediate cartridge and some own semi-autos chambered for a full rifle cartridge. Both are a lot more deadly than grandad's pump-action shotgun or a 22 lr plinking rifle, which is closer to what most city folk seem to own. All that aside, most rural people use firearms more often rather than keeping them in closets "just in case" and therefore will be much more effective.