...consider some redneck car armor for your family/commuter vehicle. Used police surplus ballistic body armor panels (soft armor) can be found online for as little as $25 each. Stuff them behind your door and rear hatch interior panels, plus in front/under your driver instrument cluster pod.
Lower your windows on your doors, remove your interior panels, and insert old phone books. Duct tape them out of the way of the glass windows and electric window motors. This can be done by an amateur with as little as 1 hour of your time per door.
Lighter calibers of street-thug firearms such as .22, .38, and 410 shotguns won’t penetrate into your interior through your metal outer door panels plus through phone books.
This is a very quick and inexpensive way to help protect your family from muggers and small domestic riots where some bad actor in the crowd is likely to have a small pistol.
You can do the above without even alarming your family that an elevated level of threat exists. The windows will still work, after all. Your car will appear normal.
If you want to go the extra step, pick up on-line some Llumar or C3 bulletproof window film for your windows.
I’m not talking about being Rambo. You aren’t going to be machine-gunning down whole crowds of muggers or rioters before one of them can shoot your car from behind or from the side. TEOTWAWKI is *not* Hollywood! A little armor can thereby improve your daily sense of security without running up a big bill.
NIJ Level III Bulletproof backpacks (search Google!) sell for as little as $190. Even college students can have some easy protection.
Obviously the above is worthless against more powerful firearms, but a rioter is less likely to be carrying around heavy artillery without being picked off by whatever police/national guard forces are still around.
A little armor. A basic firearm. Bonus points if you have a dog with you.
You’ll do fine, even as crime increases along with the economic crisis.
Good advice