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If you're in your last days, why not buy an extra gun? More is more. It's not like they're infantrymen who'll be running around and fighting for a long time, they don't need to be especially mobile.
Weight is the limiting factor. More loaded mags is top priority.
I like shotgun sports. They are good fun. A loaded shotgun is way too heavy to possibly justify.
What if the gun breaks down though? How heavy is it really to carry an extra ar15? Googling it seems like it weighs about 3.5 kg.
It doesn't seem that ludicrous..
The backup gun is the handgun, not another rifle.
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That's ~6 more fully loaded 30 round magazines they could have brought instead
Are you aware of any active shooter situation where the shooter actually ran out of ammo? On the other hand, north hollywood is at least one case where a double-feed disabled the shooter's longarm.
I guess not, but apparently they bring less ammo than a guy who's going to the range might bring, as per BJ Campbell.
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If I've learned anything from watching Forgotten Weapons, it's that the magazine and feeding reliably is far more important to professionals than magazine size, and that often the magazine gets more engineering effort than the rest of the gun. But from pop culture you'd think the magazines were single-use and disposable.
In fairness, both America and France had the idea of making magazines cheap and disposable (for the original M16 and FAMAS, respectively), but both militaries backed off of the idea really quickly (which probably contributed to the perception of the M16 and the US-issue magazines as unreliable--you have these cheap, easily-bent aluminum magazines serving from Vietnam all the way to the Gulf War, I imagine), because the idea of a cheap magazine just being thrown away probably offended some bean counter or desk officer somewhere. Ian has talked about this before.
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They already had a sidearm that was plenty sufficient for engaging unarmed children and senior citizens.
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