So how many of us are going to face an opponent who is equipped with the latest generation thermal imaging in CONUS? If that is the threat you are preparing for you are preparing to fight a government agency.
What’s a current generation set of goggles cost today? What kind of sighting equipment do you need on your firearm to aim while looking through thermal? What does that cost?
My wife’s sampler says everything that needs to be said about this. The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.
No one is inadequately equipped if they don’t have thermal imaging capabilities. I honestly don’t see a good cost/benefit ratio for the average person looking to defend their home.
I live in a borderless (and increasing lawlessness) Arizona county on a remote, retired horse ranch, very close to designated wilderness areas. I don't have IR, but I do have IR compatible red dots for ARs and shotguns. I have thermal for outdoors, and I'm going to add another thermal that has longer battery life and an identifying range at ~300 yards, our stables are about 100 yards from home. I could have definitely used a thermal last week to pick up on a heat signature (daytime) in mesquite (we also have very large 4 legged predators). For home defense and for those who have draperies, table cloths, shower curtains
et al, thermal will pick up heat signatures that a white light can't. I'm also reading that there's an increase in the number of adversaries who illegally enter residences/businesses. I learned decades ago to train for the 5%, not the averages, we have ambient night lighting inside and a pair of German Shepherds, we've experienced attempted entries during the last couple of years, and I've had to fall back on decades old military/LE training and experiences (experiential knowledge), but that's a different story...I don't assume there will be electricity on should there be an attempt to gain entry. (long sentence)
For inside, I train with high lumens flashlight (one hand) and WML (one hand) together, an issue with laser/light combos is after the first shot, the muzzle blast will create home dust and that dust will illuminate the laser path to the weapon. During a home invasion, I doubt there's enough time for IR or thermal to boot up, when things go bad, they go bad extremely fast, but, with proper training, the human brain can multitask very efficiently.
FWIW, I remember a speech from 2008 about having a trained civilian army as large and well-equipped as our standing Army. Why? Where would recruits come from? I see a lot of positives for currently owning quality thermal/IR equipment.