Identifying whether or not the poo has hit the fan is a common question. There does not seem to be a good answer. It seems that it is entirely dependent on your personal situation.
In the US, there are a lot of firearms. The only other country that may be similarly well-armed is Israel or maybe Yemen. Israel has a very regimented training process for its citizens and it is actually fairly difficult to have a firearm as a private citizen but it is possible.
When I say a lot of firearms in the US, I’m saying enough firearms have been sold in the 2019 and 2020 calendar years within the US to arm every able-bodied teenager and older in most smaller countries… including Yemen. The US has more firearms than people. Even Yemen only has 14 million firearms… which is about half their population.
Most humans don’t want to die. Humans are experts at doing risk calculations with a heavy weight assigned to self-preservation. Most humans are afraid of repercussions so that prevents them from getting involved with any altercation.
Most humans won’t bring a rock to a knife fight or a pistol to a rifle fight. Most humans want to be in a superior position. So that means bringing 10 guys in SWAT gear in a MRAP on a no-knock warrant to go toe-to-toe with one guy armed with a rock.
The victors write the narrative so it is difficult to know the true history of past altercations. For example, look at Sri Lanka. The civil war lasted decades and the only reason there was a victor is that the other side ran out of resources. Can you imagine living in a country where you grew up with constant attacks?
People can and do awful things when they think it is “normal” or they think they can get away with it. They even can convince themselves to do awful things to blend in. Essentially that means people do things that they normally wouldn’t because they don’t want to deal with the repercussions of poor behavior… but other people go along with it to blend in. In other words, Germany nearly a century ago. The amount of people that committed and/or stood by while awful happened was tremendous. Why? for their own survival. Plus, if you look back at the economics in Germany at that time life was pretty good if you were of the “proper type”. Prior to that, tons of people were poor.
So my question is, what if Turkey or Venezuela had sufficiently-armed citizens? Lots of people could get away with awful things because no one could do anything about it without being at a severe disadvantage. Would you have mutual aid between neighbors because they know if they don’t help no one is going to reciprocate? Would the people that are being well-compensated and sanctioned be willing to go toe-to-toe with an armed general population?
So what does SHTF look like in the US? We don’t know. No other country is well-armed in its private citizenry. The US has a different dynamic just because the people are well-armed. Could it be like the Balkan Wars? Could it be like Venezuela or Argentina where it is a steady and slow burn to desperation over a generation? Firearms seems to keep tyrants at bay.
We need to be aware of our surroundings and if you are then you will know when things are bad.