> TEOTWAWKI Blog: Reader Question: What to do with extra firearms?

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8/27/13

Reader Question: What to do with extra firearms?

This came up in the comments for the latest chapter in You Took Away Tomorrow:

One question I've had off the top of my head is arsenal wise. If you were a guy that had hunting bolt and lever rifles or extra pistols laying around, would you take those? Say your .243, .270, .30-30? For me I can't imagine leaving them somewhere, but taking 5-10 non tactical weapons that wouldn't help a lot seems like a lot of space and weight to carry! Thoughts?

The idea here being that, for whatever reason, you're forced to evac/bug out from your current location and are faced with the problem of having a bunch of potentially useful but non-core firearms.

If you have room to spare, I would take them and whatever ammo you have. They can be used for their intended purposes (hunting for example), equip someone else who would be otherwise unarmed, or at least used for barter.

With the right skills, a scoped deer gun or a pump 12 gauge and a few boxes of ammo could allow a man to survive for a long time and provide defensive capabilities to boot. Nothing to be snobby about.

If you can't take 'em with you don't have the room to spare--quite plausible--then I would consider the following options:
  • Hide and secure them for potential retrieval in the future. Cache 'em and/or lock 'em up.
  • Leave 'em with a trusted local contact - could be a gift, could be some last minute bartering, could be for safe keeping until your eventual return
  • If unable to do either of the above and you had the time, I would disable the weapons in order to keep them from falling into the wrong hands