Post 105: What Big Picture? The Purge

Let me start off by saying I haven't watched this movie or its sequel. I have a big problem with the movie's premise.

Essentially, according to the trailer and description, the movie is set in a universe like our own, except that every year there is an annual 'Purge' where for 12 hours all crime is legal. During this 12 hours, the country/town/world (I actually don't know what scale the purge is on) falls into chaos.

The main premise of this movie seems to be: the only thing keeping people from turning into thieves, murderers, and rapists is fear of punishment.

This raises a lot of questions for me, both about the movie and about what that would actually mean.

Some of the questions I have:

1. If this was an annual thing, wouldn't stores have really good security? And wouldn't people have a whole heck of a lot of security features on their house?
2. If it is legal for 12 hours and illegal again after, can people be persecuted and/or prosecuted for things that they did during that time once they are illegal again? What if they committed assault during the 12 hours, but then the person died after the 12 hours were up? What about people who committed theft? It is illegal to possess stolen property, so even if it was legal to steal it, it would be illegal to own it.
3. Is this like the Hunger Games, where there is really only a loose explanation of why they are doing this and everyone just accepts it?
4. If this is more than just a city, is the 12 hours different depending on the time zone?
5. If people do steal from work or don't show up to work or hit their boss while it isn't a crime, can they be fired for their actions later?
6. What about religion? Just because murder is suddenly legal, doesn't suddenly mean that there aren't religious or moral reasons not to do it. So, does this proposed place not have religions?
7. If people do turn into murders just like that, then why don't people just lock themselves in a panic room for 12 hours? I mean, is that one person they sort of want dead really worth risking being killed themselves?
8. Why are people suddenly hurting people? I mean, I feel like theft would be a much bigger issue than assault or murder.
9. Just because it is legal, doesn't mean it is okay. There aren't laws against having affairs or insulting people, but that doesn't make them right. So, are people really just like 'oh, cool murder is legal now; let's go kill that co-worker who was annoying me'? And I mean, what about after? Are their coworkers just going to go back to work and be like "oh yeah, you murdered an entire family of people, but its cool because it was during the purge so can I borrow a stapler?" 
10. Doesn't the idea that it is only the consequences that matter suggest that the people in this place would do all the same things if they thought that they wouldn't be caught? So, it isn't really even the laws that were stopping them to begin with.

Sometimes I consider watching, just to see if any of these questions are answered. However, I keep coming back to the fact that this just seems like such a disturbing idea to me.