Here’s a related story from the Vietnam War era. A detective I had the honor of working with at my first law enforcement agency was a Vietnam combat veteran, as were several in our ranks. It really was a privilege to work with those guys and learn from them. They were some of the best cops the U.S. ever had. Anyway, Howard told me that, when he got in-country, he really didn’t want to carry the M16 he had been issued; he’d heard about the gun’s early unreliability issues. He’d run across another soldier carrying a .45-caliber WWII-era Thompson M1 submachine gun. He traded this guy his M16 along with some other undisclosed items for that reliable Thompson, which seemed to be an ideal jungle-fighting weapon with its .45 ACP bore. In actual combat, I’m sure it was. What Howard soon found out, though, was that the Thompson alone weighed about 11 pounds, not including spare magazines and ammo, quite a load to heft compared to the 6.5 pounds of the M16. It wasn’t too long before he’d realized his mistake and went about unloading the Thompson on another unsuspecting soldier in exchange for an M16. The combat load of a Thompson just wasn’t something he wanted to hump around in the jungle all day. Indeed, the weight of the Thompson, along with its complexity in manufacturing, finally did in the Thompson as a frontline combat arm.
Anything that reduces as soldier’s combat load, as long as it doesn’t reduce effectiveness, becomes favored frontline gear. It is for these same reasons that the weapon/s you choose for guns to be used in an emergency evacuation must be light and easily maneuvered. This also means that some great guns that work for shelter-in-place situations won’t cut it for emergency evacuations.
The reverse can just as easily be true. For example, my all-time favorite rifle is my M1 Garand, which was manufactured in 1942, arsenal-refinished once, and given a new walnut stock by a previous owner. This amazing example of combat weaponry was purchased for me for my birthday by my father. It is highly reliable, extremely rugged (although I would hate to mar that excellent hunk of black walnut), shoots the all-time greatest and most versatile battle cartridge ever devised (that would be the .30-06, and so my apologies to all you 7.62 NATO/.308 fans out there), and is simple to operate. It is great to have not only for fun shooting, but also for defending my property at extended ranges. In fact, it is one of the first rifles I will pick up for that use. But despite my personal attachment to that Garand, I don’t want to lug it around over long distances at a loaded carry weight of more than 10 pounds plus a healthy supply of loaded clips (the WWII combat load on an ammo belt held a total of 80 rounds), and whatever other pistol, food, clothing, and gear I would be carrying. If I can save four pounds or more on my primary evacuation weapon, I’m all for it.
Portability also includes maneuverability in confined spaces—vehicles, buildings, concealment/cover locations, etc. While rifles like the M1 Garand or the M1A/M14 can and have been used in the past for close-quarter building search situations, such rifles are not my first choice for those missions. Give me an M16/AR-15 or M1 Carbine any day over the Garand.
SIMPLICITY — The tactical preparation gun needs to be simple to operate in all facets, including loading, clearing, making safe, and firing. This is especially important in terms of getting the weapon to run from an empty and unloaded state, if that’s how it’s stored. Is there anything in the “make ready” process that you’ll easily screw up? There is always something that someone can mess up, but let’s choose a system that keeps that potential to a minimum.
So, how quickly can you go from empty to boom without injuring yourself or someone else? For me, simplicity also means you aren’t hanging bucketfuls of equipment from your tactical preparation firearm. That includes flashlights and most electronic sights. I know I’ll catch flack over that statement, but I think that the K.I.S.S. principle reigns supreme here. The more electronic equipment you have on your weapon to rely on, the more likely it is to break under extreme conditions. Yes, I know we use these items on S.W.A.T., and the military makes extensive use of these items in combat, but both those circumstances are supported circumstances. You won’t be supported in the same way. Your supplies will be finite, and unlike S.W.A.T., your weapons will be in use constantly (even in terms of just being carried). How many different types of batteries do you want store at your home or lug around during travel? How much benefit do you really get from that red dot sight?
Don’t get me wrong, during normal societal conditions for law enforcement or civilian use and where resupply is not a problem, add whatever additional pieces of equipment you feel you need. But weapons selected for use in conditions of complete societal disruption should be capable of being brought to ready instantly, with minimum action needed on the part of the operator. There should be no knobs to fool with, buttons to push, systems to check, or batteries to test. This is the same principle I use when it comes to recommending police patrol rifles and shotguns for department-wide issue. The guns stay in their basic iron sight format. No electronics are allowed unless the weapon is personally owned and departmentally approved. This way the individual officers not only can decide what and how many accessories they feel will be beneficial to them, but how much additional gear they want to be responsible for. Want this in simpler terms? Your survival gun, unless it is for shelter-in-place long-range precision, should be one you would be able to bury in the ground (in a protective container, of course), come back to months later, dig up, and be able to fire without failure.