Using tools is a skill. Wood lathes, for instance, are extremely simple pieces of equipment - they hold a piece of wood and spin it. You can see and understand

Using tools is a skill. Wood lathes, for instance, are extremely simple pieces of equipment - they hold a piece of wood and spin it. You can see and understand how they work in about 30 seconds. But even with years of practice you'll generally find yourself far less capable than a master lathe worker who seem to have this ability to take any piece of wood and chisel it into seemingly anything imaginable with a few strokes. Shop class is about teaching these skills, which are also highly transferrable. And everything, at some fundamental level, is hand built. Think about the building you're in right now, or the road you're driving on. Or whatever else. Even for things where processes can have some high degree of automation when they break or need customization - it's back to a guy and his tools. For that matter on the factory line those machines need regular maintenance and repair once again from a guy and his tools. And no, tool boxes are prime time theft targets in highly urban areas - probably more so than rural. Thieves don't usually steal things to use them (with such skills they wouldn't be thieves in the first place!), they steal them to sell them. And tools, especially high quality, are relatively expensive and one of the most resellable things in existence because good tools last practically forever - many feature lifetime warranties in any case.