1. Have you also arranged to be part of a team, stocked up on body armor, communications equipment, and first aid supplies? All this, of course, in addition to stockpiling food and water.
My family is my team. Having just moved to a new neighborhood, I shall endeavor to add the occupants of Grove Park to my team.
Body armor? good reminder. Been meaning to get some. Maybe of limited utility though, being effective only against COM pistol shots (vs. pistol to extremeties, or rifle to anywhere).
Am progressively stockpiling food, water, comm, and medical supplies. The SHTF gun, of course, is to ensure I keep the supplies when someone else decides what's mine is theirs.
2. If not, what is your reasoning for getting and keeping a rifle as an individual?
Largely redundant per above. Worst case, as Al Capone put it: "You can get more done with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word." (Don't get me wrong: I certainly don't advocate looting ... but when it's your dependents' lives on the line, you'll want the upper hand to create & maintain order in your favor.)
3. Is SHTF really an inside joke that was never meant to be taken seriously?
When I was an infant, my parents were faced with news reports predicting insufficient supplies of natural gas - during a raging week-long New York blizzard, with no alternate heat source and inadequate supplies ... and a needy new baby.
A year ago, just after Katrina hit, a rumor of a gas pipeline shutting down caused a run on gas in the Atlanta region. Before going to work the next day, I walked to the gas station - no gas, didn't expect any for a week. With only half a tank, and work being some 50 miles away, I wasn't going anywhere ... and if the gas shortage held, in mere hours nobody else would be going anywhere either, and for quite some time. Urban apartment life suddenly seemed very ... limited.
I'm not laughing.
In each of these and in many more cases, society came perilously close to breakdown. Lots of people get dangerously stupid, or just dangerous, when society collapses. Being able to stop or deter attacks is reasonable.
SHTF isn't a joke. It can be fun to think about, and we may laugh about mutant zombie hordes attacking, but that's merely a veneer over a deadly serious matter. S does HTF. Often. As there's 6 billion people on this planet, things are going very badly very often for a lot of people somewhere right now - and you don't know when your turn will be. When it is your turn, you'll want a tool that ensures others don't just take what little you have.
I question the idea that a rifle, as opposed to a handgun or a shotgun, would be of any practical use to a lone individual.
A rifle has significantly more power, range, capacity, and accuracy than either. What's to question?
Other than concealability, why would you chose a handgun or shotgun over a rifle? Moreso, why would you pass on a rifle when you could have all three? A handgun on your belt and a shotgun in the corner does not preclude a rifle on your shoulder.
Practical use of rifle to lone individual in SHTF:
- Deterrent. Thugs scoping out a SHTF zone will pass on the guy with the rifle. They may not see the handgun, and know the shotgun has limited capacity and range ... but the guy with the rifle can fight back despite distance and some concealment.
- Hunting. Handguns are generally disallowed for hunting because (save rifle-caliber oddities) they are unreliable and more likely to waste game than harvest it. Shotguns are fine for birds, and required for deer in some jurisdictions precisely because the range is severely limited. .308 can drop pretty much anything, and .223 is adequate when used with care.
- Defense. The SWAT team you mentioned primarily uses
rifles - think about it. More ... well ... anything than handguns or shotguns: power, range, accuracy, capacity (assuming EBR).
- Offense. Soldiers use rifles primarily for a reason. Individual operating alone? think sniper.
When the professionals know they are going to be in a gunfight, the do bring rifles, but they also work in teams of at least four men, all of whom have body armor and helmets.
Methinks you just answered your question: when pros are going to take on
one person with a rifle, they need all kinds of equipment, training and teamwork to have any assurance they'll all get out of the fight alive. That's one dangerous MF they're up against ... and he's just some schmoe with a gun!
Now consider that when SHTF, looters and other criminal opportunists will be out to take advantage of you & yours. If taking you down reliably requires a SWAT team, you've got good odds against muggers - who will probably move on when they see the boomstick you're holding.
Professionals anticipating a gunfight are planning for a
paricular gunfight.
Individuals preparing for SHTF need something general-purpose: a rifle.
BTW: body armor stops most pistol & shotgun rounds ... but to a rifle it practically isn't there.
BTW2: this is a GUN discussion board. If I want to talk in-depth non-gun SHTF details, I'll wander over to Near Death Experiments and Frugal Squirrel.