Security

One thing that's we've considered and consider over and over again is what happens in a social collapse, temporary or longer term, when law gets tossed aside.

It always starts with the looting of "I need an upgrade" items.  TV's, stereos, computers, etc as the tissue thin veneer of civilization is tossed aside as the fear of reprisal and punishment goes away. 

And then people start to get hungry and thirsty...

Can you as a family protect yourself against a mob? 

No, you cannot.  Don't lie to yourself.  Mob Rule is phrase for a reason.  You're unlikely to be the Spartans holding back 10 to 1, 50 to 1, 100 to 1 odds.  And remember what happened to them.  

In any situation where violence rises, someone's going to get hurt.  And in a situation where medical help is unlikely to be found, what are you going do to if it's you?  If your child is on the ground with a lung punctured by a bullet?  Your wife is bleeding out where a broken bottle cut into her neck?

Better to not get in that situation don't you think?

You can, with sufficient force and brutality, possibly disrupt a mob.  Even cause it disperse.  But then you have a whole lot of people who are pissed, afraid and coveting your stuff.  And some of them are going to be fair shots with a weapon, all it really takes is one person who's a decent shot to wreak havoc with your carefully laid plans for laying low.

And depending on your situation, they're going to find you.  Starving mobs of people are going to go door to door trying to find food and water, whatever they can find.   And given the number of guns in this country, they're going to be armed.  And hungry enough or having hungry enough people, wives, children, friends depending on them for their lives that the life of someone they don't know weighs less in the balance of their qualms at taking your stuff through force up to and including lethal force.
So what can you do?  As best as we can determine you have three options, at least good options.

Option 1:  Get lucky and overlooked.  Be the mouse in the walls, the roach under the cabinet who only scurries out at night when there's no one around.
Cons:  Luck is a fickle bitch and never to be depended on.

Option 2:  Be part of the group big enough and strong enough, and well armed enough, that only the most and truely desperate will attempt to take what you have.
Cons: You have to share all your goods with those who didn't have the foresight to do so and thus potentially come out the worse for the bargain if you all end up starving to death before you can get a new source of food that doesn't include each other.

Option 3:  Get you and yours so far away from anyone else that you vanish.  This also requires a bit of luck to stay off the grid.
Cons: You're alone with your problems.  Anything of a serious nature can wipe you out.  Google pitcairn island for an example of this.  And you have no defense at all from the guy with a rifle crouched down at the edge of your corn field as you're trying to plant it. 

We'd ask that you consider these options as you stockpile your preperations and assume you're just going to close the door and be okay.