Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
Haiti continues to be in the news, which makes sense considering its a pretty big deal as far as disasters go. I said that Katrina would be the paradigm, the baseline, the benchmark for measuring and comparing disasters for quite some time and I still think it will but mostly for domestic ones. Realistically, a disaster like what happened in Haiti probably wouldnt have had nearly as severe repercussions in the US. So, while Haiti will be the standard for measuring disaster response in international (esp. Third World) scenarios I think Katrina will be the benchmark for US disasters.
Of course, certain parallels are shared…infrastructure failure, major logistics failures, many cases of ‘all dressed up and nowhere to go’ rescuers sitting idle because no one knows where to go or has the ability to get there, etc, etc.
Does this mean there aren’t lessons to be learned out of Haiti that are applicable to those of us living in the US? Nope, there are plenty of lessons. Whats the biggest one? Stuff happens. Be prepared.
Haiti is very much worth watching because disasters like these are incredible opportunities to see what works, what doesnt and what unforeseen problems arise.
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A fella I know returned from the SHOT show (which had its own drama with a few arrests being made by the feds. Most notably a S&W suit. Go Google it.) with a few catalogs and such. One of the interesting things was the folks at PTR (makes of the fine HKlones of HK-91s) have, of all things, a version in 7.62×39. Yeah, makes no sense to me either. I mean, why spend around $1100 for an HK91 in 7.62×39 when any garden variety AK will be just as reliable. Sure, accuracy will probably be better but Im just not seing a need for a 7.62×39 HK91 clone. However, as someone who used to own an original HK93, I gotta tell you…a .223 variant would be mighty nice. Reliabile and accurate, it would be a great alternative to the piston AR’s that seem to be all the rage these days. No moving parts on the barrel to affect accuracy so theyd shoot quite nicely. Get it to take AR mags, price it around $1000 and you’d have quite the seller, me thinks.
