The One You Have

 A good friend of mine opined on Facebook:

"In a SHTF situation, I would be hard pressed not to pick the Glock for my handgun and I don't even like Glocks that much."

That is a legitimate opinion from a guy who knows hi way around handguns.  In the past I have opined that in the pantheon of fighting pistols, the 1911, the K-frame revolver, and the Glock 19 all deserve serious consideration. 

But, what millions of people have discovered during the past eight months is that when the S does indeed HtF you will probably be unable to run out and buy the preferred handgun or rifle.  At that point it becomes academic.  What you use to defend home and hearth are the ones you have on hand at the time, whether grandad's 1903 Hammerless, or dad's Remington 11.  Both will suffice in a pinch, and have sufficed for many decades.

When the wind picks up, the limbs start falling and the electrical grid fails (or whatever SHTF scenario you might imagine), the things you have at hand are what you have to work with.  You can't run out and buy a generator, or non-perishable food, or another case of 9mm ammo. You are on your own for three days.  Help is coming, but for the first 72 hours you should not expect any help at all.

People in Louisiana learned this again last week.  Hurricane Laura was the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in the last 160 years.  This morning, many are still without electrical power.  In many locations, the grid was absolutely destroyed.  We are now 12 days into what may become a multi-week adventure for lots of people.This was not a zombie apocalypse of modern fiction, but an apocalypse nonetheless.  What people had when the wind quit blowing was less than what they had when the sind started blowing.  It was a resource-eating, asset-destroying situation.  The default position was what you had on hand when the wind quit blowing.

What is the best SHTF pistol?  The one you have on hand when the wind quits blowing.