Headscratchers / The Purge

• In universe, why don’t the Sandins just shoot the Polite Leader and the gang in the beginning? They threaten the family then say they’re going to leave for a while. Why not just shoot them in the back as they’re leaving? Obviously, it’s so the movie can happen, but in universe it makes no sense.

• Why don’t neighborhoods plan in advance and band together to crush any troublemaking?
  • The third film reveals that some people do that, but the group seen is shown as something of a sub-culture more based around not hurting each other during the Purge than mutual defense, and it’s a rare phenomenon judging by how the characters seem surprised by it.
    • Also, probably a combination of Franchise Original Sin and the Grandfather Clause; the premise of the first film was an annual night where all crime is legal, but the actual plot was that of a home-invasion movie, which obviously wouldn't work if the home had their entire neighborhood backing them up (and the Sandins would look like idiots if they weren't following an otherwise common practice.) The first film also somewhat implied that the Purge had been embraced by the country to such an extent that imposing any kind of order on its night (outside your home) could be seen as immoral. Subsequent films had different plots and expanded on the world, but were still largely beholden to the image of the Purge (everyone hides in their homes) that the first film presented.

• Why don’t people realize that vigilantes and well-meaning police running around during the Purge would ironically make it a really BAD time to be an asshole?
  • Vigilantes and well-meaning police aren't a thing, because, again, culture has apparently fundamentally changed; Leo only decided to help innocents on Purge night on a whim, it wasn't his original intention, and he's noted as an exception to an unspoken rule. Of course, not everyone out on Purge night needs to be well-intentioned to be a threat to you...

• An advanced society is more averse to violence, and so it makes more sense to see Americans engaging in non-violent or even victimless crimes (E.g.: petty theft, trespassing, vandalism, money laundering, public drinking, exhibitionism, illegal parking, etc) in the open than the unrestrained pandemonium we kept seeing in the movies.
  • Regarding this point, The First Purge has that covered. A lawless society IS indeed shown to be far more greedy/hedonistic than murderous, its the NFFA themselves who hired mercenaries to increase bloodshed. We also do hear of and see a few “Purge Parties” in later films, they’re just no the focus of the plot.

• Taking the premise at its face value, the legal repercussions of the purge are ridiculously impossible. For several months at least, you would be arresting people for their crimes and they still might have to stand trial, during which time they have to prove that their crime took place within the "legal" time, and ALSO that they didn't premeditate their crime before the beginning of the purge, which in terms of laws as we understand them also opens them to prosecution. The police, the prison system, and the courts would get YEARS of backlog from each purge, which would grow exponentially worse with every purge until there would be no point in even having a legal system. The only way I can see of the court system keeping pace with this Sisyphusian nightmare would be to send out a hit squad to legally murder all witnesses and claimants from previous years during the purge, and that starts to sound like letting wasps loose to control the spider population and then releasing bloodthirsty vipers to cut down on your sudden wasp infestation.
  • In terms of premeditation: it's only illegal to premeditate something that's a crime. Thinking "I'm going to murder someone WHILE ITS LEGAL" shouldn't be a problem.
    • That's only true if you haven't engaged in any preparatory acts at all outside the protected window, otherwise it's the same as starting to stab somebody a minute before the warning siren.
  • The series seems to show that the NFFA have instituted Orwellian surveillance, so anyone trying to cheat the system and commit acts shortly before or after the Purge will be caught.

• Are all crimes actually legal? In the trailer we're shown a brief shot of one of the family's neighbors sharpening some instrument of torture and/or murder, so it's not against the rules to prepare for The Purge ahead of time to get the most out of the 12 hours. So what's going to stop someone from amassing a huge criminal army to take over the country the second The Purge starts? Or hijacking a nuclear submarine and blowing the whole country up? Or killing the President? It's unlikely, sure, but certainly not impossible.
  • What's to stop the arsonists from setting fire to half the national forests, or the sadists from breaking into a zoo and torturing and killing all the animals? Are companies going to dump all their tons of chemicals into lakes and rivers during that night?
    • The NFF are supposed to be ultra-right wingers. Odds are, the animals in zoos have long since been made into coats, and wood in national parks into houses, and you can dump chemicals in the ocean all year round.
  • It seems there's no rule about PREPARING to defend yourself during the Purge, so there's nothing stopping a zoo or military installation for REALLY preparing for it.
    • There are regulations on the types of firearms you can use as well as the level of government officials you can target, so at the very least "killing the President" and "blowing up the country with a nuke" are right out. What's more, the main character makes a living selling home security systems so people can protect themselves from the purge so I highly doubt the military and zoos aren't equally ready.
    • Actually, the regulations concerning what firearms are allowed might as well not exist. Sure, rocket launchers aren't allowed, but since the police won't be doing anything until the purge is over there's still nobody who's going to stop you from using the rocket launcher.
    • Rocket launchers aren't exactly easy to acquire compared to other forms of weapons, though, so it makes it a lot harder to acquire and a lot easier to tell when someone has (since their use is also distinctive); if rocket launchers are listed as a prohibition even during the Purge, then possibly the authorities make an exception if someone manages to get their hands on one.
    • As of the second film, it seems like a huge amount of the crime is committed by the government itself, with several NFFA death squads traveling the streets. Even without the police, the few laws that are still in force wouldn't be too hard to enforce, since the government has a large pseudo-military presence roving through the city.

• Are sex crimes are included in that "all crimes are legal"? Can a pedophile abuse children once a year? Can a father rape his daughter once a year and she has to live with him the rest of the time? No matter how psychologically scarring that is?

  • Short answer: yes. Rape and other sex crimes would be legal in this world. Note the lady in the first part of the credits lying on the ground, who looks like she's just been gang-raped.
  • In the series it makes clear that, yes, sex crimes are legal during the purge. More than one of its subplots are about women falling into or righting their way out of it.

• What's the rules on theft?
  • Though it’s nowhere near as common as it should be, the films and series do make it clear that looting and larger heists do happen during the Purge, so presumably yes, anything stolen during The Purge is legally yours.

• What’s the rules on kidnapping?
  • Detaining someone beyond the time limit would probably be prosecuted. Of course, if they can't boot you out before the clock runs down, they may have to kill you so you can't complain about their sloppy timing...
  • I guess depends on the crime. If you kidnap a woman to rape her then you have to let her free after 12 hours, same if you kidnap someone to torture him/her. But in those cases I guess the wiser thing is to kill them anyway cause next year they can legally seek revenge on you. If you kidnap someone for ransom, well, it makes no sense cause probably the family won't be able to pay during that period.
  • On whether or not you can keep someone you kidnapped during Purge Night: it's possible the person you kidnapped may be presumed dead with all the killing that goes on. Bob could kidnap Alice that night and the next day when she didn't show up for work everyone will assume someone killed her during the Purge. Sure, Bob would be in hot water if the cops ever raided his home and found Alice tied up in his basement, but that would require Bob to do something stupid that draws scrutiny to him.

• Just how exactly is this rule enforced? Are we to believe that suddenly all criminals, people who by definition do not follow rules, are content to commit all their crimes on a scheduled night once a year, and the rest of the 364 days they wait calmly and patiently? Does any of this make sense?
  • The point is that its not enforced. Every other day, a criminal would be caught and sentenced as per the law. The one night, though, there are no police to stop them. It does not need enforcing.
    • What I meant was, how did giving criminals a chance to commit their crimes on a a certain night somehow reduce the crime rate to its lowest ever (and somehow reduce the unemployment rate as well; I guess the home security system industry is hiring everyone)? It must either because in the future, we have a new method of enforcing crime or the vast majority of the people who would commit crimes are cooperating by following this one rule for some reason. The latter is absurd, because criminals are not the sort of people who are patient or follow rules; that why they are criminals.
  • The series reveals (in a pretty massive retcon) that the Purge doesn’t work as advertised; the government just covers up all extra-purge crime. Before that, the implication was that that those who are most likely to be the perpetrators and victims of crime are mercilessly eliminated.

• I can buy Sandin not counting on a group of well-armed, well-funded crazy people deliberately breaking in as a reason for his security system to fail. But why in God's name wouldn't he have a backup generator for the rest of the house?
• There are no laws. But police and emergency services are suspended? How exactly is that enforced? If it isn't nothing stops police from playing vigilante?
  • Most police would probably be more concerned with protecting their own families than anyone else. Not to mention, as stated above, the series shows American culture has fundamentally changed to where such heroic inclinations are vanishingly rare.

• If emergency services are suspended, does that mean that anyone unlucky enough to suffer a heart attack or a house fire or whose town gets hit by a hurricane on the day of the Purge is screwed?
  • Yes, since the Purge is meant to purge the U.S. Basically, it's meant to kill off as many people as it can and "thin the herd", so to speak.

• Does this movie simply assume that all Humans Are Bastards? Just like there's nothing stopping anybody from going on a murderous rampage, there's also nothing stopping anybody from building up their house into a fortress, herding their family inside, and waiting it out. I'm sure there's a higher number of people doing this than there are people who go outside and start killing/stealing (if only because there's a high chance of being killed yourself).
  • For one’ there’s the simple question of scale. Say you live in a city of 50,000 people (not particularly large by today's standards). Lets say that 99% of people barricade their homes, and only 5% go out looking for people to kill. That means there are now 500 people out looting at best, looking for people to kill at worst, which is terrifying.
  • For two, reading the film thematically, the answer is “yes and no.” All the first film’s antagonists (the neighbors, Henry, the gang of Purgers) are presented as otherwise “normal” people, but the film also acknowledges the existence of compassion and restraitns in the Sandins. Plus, the film tries (but in many viewers eyes, failed) to show that this was a culture different from our own (it’s ruled by the “New Founding Fathers”). The message is thus “in a society that has embraced the idea of one night a year where all crime is legal, anyone in your life with any reason to dislike you (who are more common than you think,) becomes your mortal enemy. Which is why the Purge is bad..

• How the heck does having crime legal for one night bring down unemployment and boost the economy?
  • It’s implied that the Purge eliminates the nation’s welfare recipients en-masse. How does that improve the economy? It’s a common talking point among the right that welfare recipients are “drains on society.” Said talking point is false, because those "drains of society" are still consumers who put money back into the economy, and getting rid of the unemployed would drive wages up and raise prices as now the pool of potential employees is smaller and overall more highly qualified, and thus more expensive.

• What about financial crimes? If you get to keep property you steal during Purge night, as mentioned above, what's to stop an accountant, banker, or hedge fund manager from using Purge Night to dump all their clients' funds into their own personal account? It would seem that the complete undermining of all financial responsibility one night a year would pose a far greater problem for societal cohesion than the bouts of random violence.
  • Most likely because that would result in several thousand people gunning for them on the next Purge night.
    • Which is why Step Two in such a scheme would be to use the money they've swiped to move out of the country. Multiply that by a few hundred accountants who get that idea every year, and you're talking a lot of funds drained out of the economy...

• If they are killing off the poor, then who are they getting to clean their toilets, pick their crops and do other tasks that the wealthy aren't likely to do? I didn't see any robots (the kids toy not counting.) It's the immigration problem writ large.
  • They're presumably not killing all the poor off in one twelve-hour stretch. Even after the mayhem of the Purge, there's still going to be plenty of poor people survive the night ready to pick up where everything left off the next day.
  • According to the website of the New Founding Fathers of America party they solve the problem by having completely open borders, and "are confident that those deemed undesirable by the populace will be purged as such"
  • Yes, if there are 100 million poor, and 5 million of them are unemployed, you 'need' to kill 5 million poor people. then you've got the right number of people remaining to do the jobs that are available. And you've eliminated poor unemployment.
  • Well then janitorial duties would actually become high paying jobs, as more and more people die, the need to fill those positions explodes. After all, janitorial duties are outright VITAL in any circumstance, especially right after a devastating riot when you need your place of work returned to OSHA standards as fast as possible or face losing up to millions of dollars.
  • Artistic License – Economics.

• So if someone's a green card holder living in the US, is it still legal to kill them? They're not a US citizen.
  • I'm assuming that part of getting a green card is accepting that they must follow the rules and laws of the country. It likely would be in this world. Of course, that assumes foreigners trying to move to America or that any that aren't rich are there.
  • You could go to your embassy. But otherwise, saying "I'm a foreigner" won't save your life normally illegal or not.

• Maybe they explained this in the movie, but what government would condone this kind of idea?
  • The New Founding Fathers of America, an incredibly corrupt and evil oligarchy of elitists with a state-controlled personality cult surrounding them who use the Purge as a smokescreen to Kill the Poor for fun and profit and maintain an iron grip on the populace. The Series and sequels reveals that they are totalitarian in some ways, use the Purge to eliminate their political rivals.

• Why don’t people go on vacation to avoid the Purge? We see in the other films it’s solely an American phenomenon.
  • Not everyone can afford plane tickets and hotel stays for their whole family every year, and doing so leaves your valuables less guarded. Of course, you could insure your valuables and it doesn’t need to be a full-on vacation; just a few bus tickets and a single night in a motel. You could even skip the motel if you slept on the way out and pulled an all-nighter.

• Why did they let the neighbors go at the end when it's obvious to anybody that the neighbors will just try again? Hell, what's stopping them from just saying 'screw the rules' breaking into their home and killing them, purge or not? They know how to breach their security now so that's not even a guarantee and they outnumber the Sandins.
  • Its Mary's own twisted way of spite against her neighbors, given that they admitted they secretly hate the Sandins, now they still have to live with their hatred, without any catharsis and with the unpleasant bonus of having their shameful secret exposed. Another way of perceiving this is Mary is basically saying "I'm better than you" to her neighbors in terms of both morals and status. Notice she was mockingly cordial with them while they sit down together waiting for the purge to end.
  • Maybe the Sandins will move to a different location as soon as possible.
  • On an emotional level, the Sandins are traumatized, shell shocked and tired of the bloodshed. They just can't bring themselves to kill anyone else if there's no immediate threat. Not ruthlessly logical, perhaps, but traumatized, shell shocked people who are tired of bloodshed rarely operate according to strict and ruthless logic.
  • As for what's stopping the neighbors saying "screw the rules" and killing them purge or not, the fact that the purge is over by that point and murder is illegal again would probably be a pretty big incentive not to. Especially since the first suspects would likely be those people who live next door and tried to murder the main characters during the purge but failed.

• Why are the rich kids so stupid as to try to break into a well-secured private home to get at a single homeless person rather than leaving to cruise around for another target? They can't be sure how many people are in the house, they don't know how well armed they are, and the residents would obviously know the terrain better than the invaders. That just screams unnecessary risk.
  • They mentioned vengeance: The homeless man killed one of their friends in self-defense. That's why they want him so bad.
  • For the Evulz. Killing other homeless people is fun, but easy; killing a homeless person who is hiding in a highly-secure private residence is a challenge. The leader of the gang even says as much to Mr. Sandin- "Thank you", for making this Purge night extra-special.

• How come the Sandins didn't just lie, and say the guy ran out the back? Or barring that, make a big production of pretending to kill the homeless guy themselves? Have him scream and plead, fire off a couple shots into the floor, then silence. "Hey, get out of here now, he's done for." As others have said, the Big Bad could have just gone on his way and found another target.
  • Because the guy would demand a body, and or just kill them anyways for sport.

• How can there possibly be rules saying that a certain kind of weapon isn't allowed? Let's say somebody decides to use a rocket launcher to kill the neighbors. Sure, that's against the law since that weapon is too powerful, but since the police aren't going to stop anybody rocket-launchers might as well be legal; heck, for all intents and purposes they are legal since you can use them without being stopped by the police.
  • Nobody would stop you during the Purge, but the series reveals that the country is under 24/hour surveillance, so it’d be hard to get away with afterwards. Not impossible, though, because Carmelo’s group violates the weapon restrictions using flashbangs, but suffers no apparent consequences. Plus, without emergency services for 12 hours, there's little you can't destroy for a fraction of the cost and without risking being prosecuted with gasoline and a box of matches.

• It bugs me how the gang was running around freely. Why don't groups of killers/looters turn on each other?
  • We see clearly in the sequels, they do.

The only rules of the Purge are that government officials of "ranking 10 or higher" must remain unharmed. Well if emergency services like the Police, Firefighters, and Ambulances are shut down for the duration of the Purge then who makes sure that no one attacks a government official?

• The powerful have their own fortresses and security details, and the attackers could still be investigated and prosecuted later. That is, until the third film, where the NFFA revoke the protections on government officials, and the resistance movement finds a way past their defenses.

• What do you think insurance is like in this world? Either you make it so the policy lapses on the purge or you charge extra for that coverage to deal with the money you lose from all the damaged property.
  • The third film states that insurance companies benefit the most from the Purge, because everyone has to insure absolutely everything, and the companies can charge whatever they want.
  • Artistic License – Economics - in fact insurance companies can't charge whatever they want because you can't draw blood from a stone, and insurance companies are already extracting about as much as they can from their consumer base, to the extent that people drop their insurance, enduring life-altering consequences, when their rates go up. so as with increases in natural disasters the purge would just result in the collapse of the insurance industry.

• Emergency services shut down. This seems to include hospitals. So what happens to people already INSIDE? Are they left to their own devices? If not, how do you get the personnel to show up on that day, risking their own lives?
  • Most likely the employees pull double shifts (16 hours), coming in a couple hours before the Purge and leaving a couple hours after. As for security, hospitals probably hire enough guards/mercenaries to deter the crazy fools and the not crazy ones realize that destroying a hospital they might well need after the Purge is a stupid idea.

• What percentage of the nation's economy would go just into repairing the damage, physical and otherwise, done during the purge?
  • Enough to destroy the economy outright.

• Just how good is the security system actually promised to be? Note that James mentions outright that the gang could tunnel underneath the house or gas them out. But for the gang to gas the family out requires them to open the house to let the gas in. This means that James knew they could break in even with the system set; and not just "break the door down" either, since you want a small opening to prevent the gas from escaping. Yet James still sold it and the neighbors still bought it, which means either James did in fact scam them or they are complete fools. Factoring in that the power system is external, and...Just how stupid are the wealthy people buying the security system only to realize that it sucks a little while later? On top of that, just how wealthy are they that they can afford a full-lock-down home security system? People don't have that much cash to spend on such a system unless they were saving up for it or are the filthy rich among the filthy rich. Which then means they got angry for him selling them either what they wanted or what they couldn't care less about. And, in my book, this would support them being stupid, right?
  • I guess I ought to clarify: the system blatantly doesn't cover all the holes which could be used for entrance; this is proven to us when the one window is shot at to let the gang members in. It also blatantly doesn't cover the floor, which is still a floor and not reinforced with metal. You don't need to be smart to see that anyone who wanted to could find either an unprotected opening or dig their way in, and I'm assuming construction vehicles exist in this universe so anyone determined enough could use them to dig.
  • More or less, it works just like any other security system. Sure, it can be bypassed, but why bother with the extra effort when the next house over does not have a security system. And, much like today's security system, since it's seldom tested, it's assumed to work a lot better than it actually does.
  • Exactly. The promise is "Random punks walking past won't be able to break into your house easily." That's still worth a lot. People are at significant risk of random strangers trying to break into their homes. But they're not at a significant risk of facing determined strangers who will put hours of effort into breaking in. Events like the one in the film must be rare.
  • Considering this is the guy who is a top seller for the company that makes the damn things, the fact he DOESN'T have it is all the more striking.

• Considering just how deadly the Purge can be, it makes me wonder just why the home security systems didn't have active countermeasures? It would have been quite funny for the Polite Leader and the gang to get vitrified by the security system the moment he pushed the doorbell. It would be like Home Alone from Hell.
  • Because this movie is trying to emulate other home invasion films like The Strangers, where the characters didn't have the advance warning the Sandins did. It'd also probably be a strain on the film's incredibly tight budget.
  • That would be monumentally more expensive.
    • Surviving determined nutjobs seems worth the expense.
  • Cheap version: small hatches that can be easily opened from inside, just large enough to push the barrel of your shotgun through.

• How do Fire/EMS people handle the purge? Do the firefighters just sit in the firehouse all night waiting for 7AM to go run around and put out all the fires? Maybe sometimes they just go put out fires anyway because there are no laws so stealing a fire engine is legal?
  • Some of them might steal a fire engine and put out anyway. of course, while the Purge immunizes them from prosecution, there is no indication that it would immunize them from termination.
  • The fireman from Fahrenheit 451 style. They put out fires, and anyone who tries to fuck with them is lit on fire in return.

• Would children be targeted during the purge? What if it happened during school?
  • Presumably some children are targeted during the purge (the Sandins' are), but as for school the Purge explicitly is shown to happen overnight.

• One aspect poorly mentioned is arson. The most deadly action someone could take would be to set fire to neighborhoods. With no fire trucks available, it becomes trivially easy to burn down whole swaths of cities and suburbia. People could not just hide in their homes to survive, they would need to actively engage those nearby.
  • Who's to say that sort of thing doesn't happen? I'd imagine that the kind of places most likely to be impacted and devastated by such arson are impoverished areas where landlords are less concerned about fire safety standards, and it would be seen as a way of "purging" society of undesirables in one fell swoop.
  • Actually cities and economic centers would be hardest hit. Cody From Alternate History Hub explains that this is what will cause the purge to stop being used by he government. While it is a metaphor for the rich to kill the poor, it also backfires by hurting the rich in the one way it can (Beyond killing them) namely burning down all their property.

• Once they'd decided to fight rather than turn the stranger over, knowing that the strange had already killed a member of the gang, why did they not ask him for help? It seems rather obvious. I've heard this justified by saying "well, he might have turned on them," but they were clearly at a Godzilla Threshold in that regard.

• Why does no one wear body armor? This should be an essential whether you're roaming the streets on a killing spree or locked up trying to survive the night.
  • The Government operated killing squads]] are seriously suited up. [[Armor Is Useless Doesn't really seem to help them, though. That being said, body armor would seem like a good investment, however they may be in high demand and price that the poor don't really have access to them, and the rich folk just hide or hire guns for them.

• So Zoey's boyfriend Henry believes that James is standing in the way of their relationship because he doesn't approve. Fair enough. So does Henry try to reason with James? No, he tries killing James on the night of the Purge. Ok, even if Henry had succeeded and he didn't get arrested due to the Purge laws... what next, dumbass? Do you really think that Zoey's going to want to go out with you after you've KILLED HER FATHER?!
  • This seems like a case of a couple juggling the Idiot Ball to be honest. The boyfriend tells Zoey he wants to talk to her father on Purge night. There is absolutely nothing in the world so important it can't wait twelve more hours. So it's entirely plausible he thought that her invitation to come over amounted to permission to kill her father. And maybe it was all the way up until she actually realized he would do it. It would honestly be far from the craziest things teens in love have done.
  • The screenwriter probably though to himself "Who wants to kill who? Boyfriends their girlfriends dads!" and thought the scene through about as well as the rest of the movie. That said, A. one of the ideas of the Purge is that by morning, everything is forgiven. and B. the daughter was siding with Henry after her father shot him, so maybe her relationship with her father really was that bad.

• If the underlying motive behind the Purge is class warfare, why isn't theft the most popular crime instead of murder?
  • According to the sequel series, theft does happen, it’s just not the focus of the movie and the government sends out death squads focused solely on killing.

• Why wear masks when what you're doing isn't illegal?
  • A. To scare people. B. Legal or not, there's an issue of revenge.
    • Also, Purgers are intentionally dehumanizing themselves with the masks. When they know there aren't repercussions, and their actions can't be traced back to them, it's a lot easier to drop their earlier morality. It's much easier to do horrible things when you feel like you're just going with the crowd.

• Who in their right mind would EVER go to a "Purge Party"? It's the one night a year someone can legally commit homicide, so what guarantee do you have that your host/hostess won't try to kill you with poisoned refreshments or something equally treacherous?
  • Because you're paying a shit ton of money to them. If they pull something like that, they're out of business and a target for the next Purge.
  • You presumably only go to parties with people you trust, and ones that have some sort of protection.

• Why did the Polite Leader turn the power off to the Sandins's house? Wouldn't that make it much harder for them to find the homeless guy? Even if he was just being a dick and wanted an excuse to kill the family, he still keeps them off when he's the one invading the house. Doesn't make any sense.
  • It scares and intimidates the people inside, who since they have not given up the homeless man have now "volunteered" themselves onto the kill list. The gang are used to hunting at night; the family is used to waiting the night out behind closed doors, so darkness is more of a hindrance to the family that to the gang. It is scarier, and these guys are obviously sadistic. It might make it harder to find one particular person, but it makes it easier to pick a group of people off one by one.

• Extending the legal protection only to the highest officials looks like a stupid thing. What's the incentive for supporting a government that can't even protect its own employees? And obviously any government would just collapse without the rank and file of clerks and bureaucrats. In fact, The Purge eliminates a rational reason to lead a respectable life, since everything you've earned during the years of hard and decent labor might be perfectly legally taken from you in just twelve hours by some thugs. Sooner or later you'll just realize that you actually have no alternative to giving in the reign of chaos - but, what must be more important for the New Founding Fathers, you have absolutely no reason not to support an anti-government rebellion as well.

• With only a limited amount of time in the purge, WHY is polite Big Bad taking his time waiting to get into the house to take out ONE guy? Why are all of his friends perfectly patient about waiting, too? There's plenty of fun to be had out there!
  • Honor Before Reason.
  • The sequel implies that they paid good money to kill The Stranger until he escaped and killed one of them, so killing him is personal. And if they go anywhere else, they'll be killed by the much better armed death squads.

• How does America still have an economy? The costs for rebuilding after each Purge would be horrific, and companies would have to hire private armies to protect their inventory, and so would have less capital to expand and to hire people, and less incentive to stay in a country when they have to spend millions to get the safety that other countries grant for free. There would also be problems with hiring, as a lot of decent employees would kill each other off during the Purge. And all in all, why the hell would anyone bother building anything when there's a very good chance that it will just get destroyed during the Purge?
  • Magic and plot convenience. In real life there would be no economy.

• Why don’t the American people in this universe, especially the poor, rebel against the government that institutes the Purge to wipe them out?
  • They do in the TV series and sequels, but how the Purge lasts as long as it does in-universe comes down to a couple of factors. The most obvious is the Anthropic Principle; an anti-Purge resistance can exist, but not succeed for quite some time to allow certain stories to be told. Its also made clear that most people, even those opposed to the Purge, don't realize it's intended to KillThePoor, nor fully grasp how much danger it puts them in, thinking hiding in your home with a gun is sufficient protection. It's revealed in later films that the New Founding Fathers decided on the idea of the Purge after they'd been voted into power, so presumably some of the many people who voted for them would choose to believe that the Purge was a good idea rather than admit they voted for the wrong people. The Purge also really does provide the country with a thriving economy thanks to Artistic License – Economics. It's also implied that before the Purge was implemented, crime had gotten so bad that many people were willing to accept this sort of tactical-surrender ("crime will happen either way, might as well make sure it all happens on one night where I can hide in my house.") and while the Purge doesn't actually reduce crime, the government has evidently done a very good job at making it look like it does by covering up all extra-purge crime.

• What about FAA regulations during Purge Night?
  • Presumably, the pilots don't want to die. Airports probably lock everything down. I really doubt most Purgers know how to start a plane, much less fly it. Even if they do, most won't want to die.

• Why would Eva pick, of all days, Purge day to ask her boss for a raise? Even if she clearly didn't intend it, it comes with an implied threat, and there's always the risk that the woman wouldn't survive the night anyway.
  • Because thinking about his own mortality might convince her boss that being generous towards an employee might swing a bit of luck / karma / divine favor his way, on the most dangerous night of the year...?

• Why is America still heavily populated? People would be moving to places like Canada, Mexico and Anywhere they could reach? Even if it's illegal, once out of America's jurisdiction, they could go pretty far off the radar. Trying to find a man in Canadian Wilderness can be very difficult.
  • The people may just not have the resources to do that. IRL, people live in violent slums, polluted hellholes, or even active war zones because they simply cannot afford to leave.
  • Because the Plot Marches on, and the death toll is heavily exaggerated, since only a very small proportion of the population actually participates, and most importantly the film.... Has no sense of reality what so ever. And its also government propaganda that we're making these theories off of.

• What about criminal practices that cannot be completed within the time frame of twelve hours, like operating a drug ring, a pyramid scheme, or human trafficking? Not all crime is committed For the Evulz; some is committed because people think Evil Pays Better — they have something to gain from being dishonest or threatening. Yet, apparently, no crime is committed outside of this twelve hours.
  • In the films, this was Fridge Logic, because even characters like high-ranking politicians and police opposed to the Purge seem to agree that the Purge “works.” The Series reveals that the NFFA just covers up all extra-purge crime.

• Who finds killing innocent people so much fun that they're willing to risk their own life to do so? Going on a twelve-hour killing spree of the homeless might be your idea of fun, but since you know everyone you meet has carte blanche to kill you... Who would consider it worth the risk? Yes, there are some like Pete from northern Virginia who have a specific goal in mind that they're willing to risk their life for, but risking your life for the joy of wanton destruction and chaos? Do people who find that fun have no self-preservation instinct of their own?
  • Mob mentality + stupidity + government propaganda + government death squads, and the streets are very dangerous.

• Why would Pete from Northern Virginia or anyone go on the radio and announce who you're planning to kill? You've just immensely shrunk your chances of succeeding.
  • 1. Rule of Funny 2. Pete may not have thought it through. He’s like those people who post on Facebook that they’re faking a sick day when their boss is following them.

• Whether propaganda or true, why don't the statistics mention that they've also apparently cured all mental illness? Hard to believe that people who kill because they hear voices in their head and such would wait until the one night they know they have permission to kill.
  • In Real Life, the mentally ill are many times more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpetrators. They've probably only "cured" Hollywood Schizophrenia (what you're talking about) in the sense of having purged a huge majority of all mentally ill people.

• Where did the Polite Leader and his gang attach the chains to pull off the Sandin's barricades? The barricades were smooth single pieces of steel, there was no place to attach them.

• What's stopping a madman and his army of loyal soldiers from taking over our country?
  • Taking over a country takes a lot longer than 12 hour sans the Government may decide to just break their own laws (I mean they do it for less all the time) and put down the rebellion/invasion.

• If all crimes are legal, how about High Treason and Espionage? A foreign power could equip a horde of mooks to just charge the Pentagon or Langley and send in a commando team to pick through the wreckage for any intelligence to sell. Heck a citizen could do that and sell all data before the twelve hours are up. Or a charismatic and ambitious military commander could literally lead a coup during that time and its technically legal so long as he incarcerates rather than kills the president.
  • Because the government is sadistic pricks, not idiots. They'd likely react the matter as an act of war and respond in kind with their disorganized, poorly armed and motivated, and poorly equipped military since all their fund go into repairing their economy every year after the city leveling fires every year.

• Why would anyone live in a wooden house with lots of windows as if it were still good old suburban America? Wouldn't most houses of the wealthy look like bunkers or fortresses with solid stone walls, slits for windows and heavy steel gates for doors?
  • The super-wealthy probably live exactly like that. Not everyone is super-wealthy, however, and bunker-fortresses ain't exactly cheap to build. If you can't afford to build one, you probably don't got much choice in the matter.

• How is it that the international community has done nothing to condemn the Purge. At best, the US Economy would tank with countries putting embargos on US goods and services. At the worst, there would be a coalition of nations that would invade the US with the goal of stopping the purge.
  • Embargoes would be a huge issue, but America has two oceans on either side nuclear missiles and a massive army; invasion isn’t on the table.

• What if someone stole city/government property like a police car during Purge Night?
  • They probably keep it, though they wouldn’t be able to use it as if they were an employee i.e. they’d have to modify the car to take the sirens out.

• So people carry on with their lives after a Purge? How does that work? Wouldn't some people have PTSD? You can't kill a neighbor's daughter, and expect him to NOT exact revenge on you.
  • The first movie does show that people are traumatized by the Purge, and further installments show people do seek revenge (but on future Purge nights) but also that much of America has embraced the idea of the Purge so much, they’ll instantly forgive anything done on Purge night.