What kind of gun were you thinking of arming yourself with when SHTF? It may be hard to decide, but having the right gun for the scenario at hand is very important. Before you make any bank-busting purchases, take a look at the handgun build instruction below.

The Katrina Pistol needs no instruction book, fires when the trigger is pulled, lights up the night, paints the target, floats a red dot on the point of impact, and launches jacketed lead downrange with extreme prejudice.
When developing this pistol, it was not hard to outline the general features. Choosing a Glock for the platform was an easy choice. No other pistol has the same reliability and lack of external safeties as the Glock. The two Glocks most likely to claim my Katrina Pistol title are the Glock 17 and Glock 19. Both are 9mm, have rails, and double-stack magazines. Since the G17 and G19 are available in MOS, or Glock’s Modular Optics System, it was a no-brainer to move in that direction.
Caliber: The cartridge of choice is the 9mm. No questions asked. The parabellum round is likely the most common defensive round in the global arsenal. It’s a battle-proven round with plenty of bullet options. Other considerations include the .45, the .40, the .22 Long Rifle, and the .380. But those other calibers, while effective, each carry their own inherent disadvantages. So to simplify the start of this project, 9mm it is.
Weapon Mounted Light: There are small lights available today that fit small pistols, produce small lighting areas, and have short lives from their small batteries. For my Katrina Pistol, I want a huge, mountable light output. The perfect choice is one that blasts out hundreds of photons across a wide area for a long time. CR123 batteries are fine since they are powerful and have a 10 year shelf life. Moreover, they work in freezing temperatures.
For this build I went with the Streamlight TLR-2G. It’s a rail-mounted 300 lumens light with integrated green laser. Three hundred lumens is bright enough to travel fast and ID targets, but not so bright to impede your own vision.
Green Laser: The concept behind a laser is simple, but the execution of using one is a little more complex. Painting a target with a laser mounted on your handgun expedites ballistic performance. Where a laser really comes into play is when using the pistol away from your face. While red dot sights negate all discussion of sight radius, lasers negate the need to have your eyeballs behind the gun. A further benefit is that the laser can be used for one point-of-impact distance and another sighting option can be for a different, likely much greater distance.
Red Dot Sight: As anyone who uses a red dot on their AR 15 knows, it simplifies the aiming process to epic proportions. One eye, two eyes, blurry eyes, daylight, darkness, through a gas mask, offhand, weaver stance, flat on your black, strong hand, weak hand, both hands, it doesn’t matter. The bullet hits the dot.
For this Katrina pistol build I am going with toughest sight I know of, the Trijicon RMR. The battery operated reflex red dot sight that is small, lightweight and one of the top choices for the Glock MOS system. Running for years on a single 2032 battery, the RMR, Ruggedized Miniature Reflex, is an adjustable-brightness red dot optic available in several MOA dot sizes. Furthermore, the red dot system is housed in an incredibly tough aluminum housing with specially engineered corners to distribute force.
High Capacity Magazines: Sometimes called “Happy Sticks”, the Glock-branded 33 round magazines are worth every cent. While it’s true that some other guns will run oversized mags, few do so with the reliability, durability and capacity of the Glock’s. In fact, the only double stack 9mm Glock mag the 19 won’t eat is the 10 rounders for the Glock 26.

As you can see, the primary focus of the ideal disaster firearm, or Katrina Handgun, is ease-of-use. It fires when it needs to, stays on target, keeps the target visible, and has the ability to fire over and over again until all targets have been defeated or dispersed.

This is the gun you want to keep in your bug out bag, ready to go when the time calls for it. It's probably your best bet for survival until you get away from the urban areas and the crime waves that ALWAYS hit when disasters strike.

If you found this article informative or interesting, there is much, much more to learn on the subject at SHTF Blog.