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The intent here is to discuss firearms for personal/home defense in a lawless situation, and possibly how to make your home more defensable.
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Lawless situation is broad Sir. Its difficult for me to consider the capabilities or likely courses of action of an undetermined threat. The likelyhood of a large lawless situation in my town is very small. But home invasion has increased by 200% within our community in the past year though. I have to consider what the lawless mind would want to enter my house for.
My house is within 1 mile of an interstate, on a large road, there are several houses nearby. Three entrance points. Single story wood frame, lath and plaster home, with aluminum siding, an open floor plan, with one main choke point. A significant amount of high end home electronics, and furnishings. A very stout front door and frame, good exterior lighting (landscape lighting and motion lights), good locks.
My wife is no joke, while I was in Iraq she once upon a time had her purse snatched, she promptly ran the f*****r down and kicked his ass, at the time she was pregnant with our first child. I have superior children due to her genetics. She has an option of pepper spray, 9mm or .45, or 12 ga. I think she'd probably grab a flashlight, if she heard an obvious strange noise. I suppose we could write and conduct a 'battle drill' for home invasion, sort of like a fire drill.
As far as creating a more defensible space, some things you could do to your home on the outside, involve plants - roses and pyracanthus, they can discourage people from wanting to get a peak inside your windows, obviously we could consider barrier material built into the landscape to provide COVER from direct fire projectiles, some barrier options include raised planter beds, in the yards around the house - like decorative parapets, which can also serve to make approaches to entrance points into channels or 'fatal funnels' if you will.
You would want to make sure your floors or at least the beds are at a lower level than your parapets outside the house. If someone goes driving by, firing into your house, you wouldn't want a bullet zipping through you while you lie in bed. Cinder block, isn't very good cover, unless its doubled up and filled with sand or cement. 115gr FMJ 9mm will go right through it. If you use landscaping to create fatal funnels outside, you can also use low voltage landscape lighting to silhouette persons travelling the funnels. You can alter the walkways to make them from noisy gravel, or cinders, instead of paved cement, its difficult to cross that stuff without making a sound. Certainly a good family dog discourages baddies too.
A large lawless situation, in my area would have to result in utter chaos in the San Francisco/Sacramento urban area - with a population approaching the the size of a small country, if something were to happen there which would cause the population to flee, they would either go east to Reno, but in the winter this is very difficult at times, or they could flee south to the Valley, or north to Redding - where we're at. There are a limited number of vacant houses, apartments, etc. A sudden 1% shift in population (1% of theirs) would be a very bad thing here. IF the immigrants remained civil, there would be long lines at the 15 or so odd grocery stores, and the Fairgrounds, Schools, and Campuses would be full, traffic would be at a stand still, Police and Fire services would be augmented from the evacuated areas, people would be under a great deal of stress trying to find loved ones, and comfortable shelter, I don't think food would be a problem (due to a huge walmart distribution center) , but water, trash and sewage would be of immediate concern.
I am fortunate to have a relatives with larger more rural properties. I suppose I would sell the house to anyone with the money immediately and move the family to my folks. Otherwise we'd be too close to traffic, and the chaos of town. A family contact plan might be useful too.
I think its a good idea to map out secondary routes around town in order to avoid the roads which will likely be clogged with traffic. Consider also, how much time its going to take you to get from point a to point b under different traffic conditions.
How's that?
A long term lawless situation, months or more, you would have to consider defendable terrain and all that goes with it. Put on your platoon leader hat and plan your defense.
7624U I think wheel guns are very reliable. But when you're not a Pro or heck even when you are and you're scared, people miss. Plenty of cops and others have been in shoot outs and missed at very short range. Hard to miss with 12ga. bird. Think of the most untrained person in your house having to operate that weapon.