From what I have seen the thermal/night vision sales boom has two parts:Here’s something I find very surprising. My brother‘s business is selling night vision and thermals, and even with the economy the way it is, people are still lining up to buy $5000 thermal scopes. His business is BOOMING.
1: It’s the cool thing to do in the hunting social media scene now, and technology has gotten really good. It’s become a proven effective tool to use.
2: There’s a lot of people who wanna play dress up and larp, who may also distrust the government. There’s a fear that they cannot get said technologies later on, or that they may have an actual tactical need for them in the future.
I personally don’t see the point for me at the time being. I hated wearing NVGs in the Marines. It’s just one more thing to lose, that many more batteries to carry, and it sucks to carry around in general. I have a few more firearms and some suppressors to buy before I have a free $5k of play money laying around. I also like my sleep quite a bit.