Preppers

The Complete and Total Loser met a guy who had a rifle hanging on the wall of his apartment. 

An assault rifle.

"Do you hunt?" The Loser asked, knowing little about guns. 
"No," said the guy. "That's an assault rifle. It's only meant to kill people."

A sign proclaiming that the end is near.

He said he had it because he was certain society was on the verge of something big happening within a year or two that would lead to its collapse and that he wanted to be ready in some way.
This was in 1981.
People crave the feeling that the times they live in are the most interesting times there will ever be, that change will be fast and dynamic and they'll be one of the ready ones who cope with it well and survive, perhaps even lead. They will have taken a shortcut that will make them far more significant than they were before. This feeling is wired into our egos.

Meteorites destroy a large city.

Unfortunately, the likelihood of any of us being around for any sort of apocalyptic, end times event is minuscule. Life will just grind away at us all and we'll all die of old age if some form of disease or an accident doesn't kill us first. It's meaningless and dull, but that's what will happen.