Your comment brought to mind something I saw yesterday. I saw an Hispanic kid, a young teenager, standing on a sidewalk in front of a store with his pants and underwear down to his knees doing his business. He was with a group of adults and they just stood and watched as if it were normal. This kid made no effort to shield himself in any way. In fact, he was facing the parking lot, so he was in full view of dozens of cars and passing traffic. This happened within feet of the front door of a business with clean public restrooms. In the past I’ve seen winos taking a leak, but this seemed much different. It was really brazen. I had the sense I was witnessing the new American reality, an ignorant, crude, third-world, impoverished reality.
They are on the march.
Seriously.
Your story has assured me completely that poverty or prosperity are a person's (or society's in larger scale) choice, and isn't an outcome of unfavourable circumstances.
A slingshot loaded with a hex nut would make him think twice about doing that again. Hex nuts aren’t traceable by ballistics either. The 1/4 inch ones are the best.