Really well put MostlyHarmless! I would add, if you go into a disaster expecting to be armed, but it ends up you can't be (your arsenal under the rubble, water etc etc), where are you then? You would be armed with your paranoia, and not much else.

Do expect folks around you to work together - sharing water, food, medical supplies, transport. I have seen that from strangers to strangers, I don't have any reason to expect anything else.

And if you do go out armed after a disaster, please remember, there will be folks - like me - who are unarmed, who won't let you go into a shelter, or transit their property, or enter their gated community, or enter their business, without surrendering your weapon, probably into the custody of the local sheriff's department, if they'll accept it - not because its part of some grand scheme to disarm Americans, but because there's no other practical solution to delivering services in a disaster. We have already decided for legal liability and practical reasons that an armed populace in certain places in a disaster context is a higher risk than an unarmed one, and the rules will be posted, and you'll have to obey, or move along. You will have to relax your paranoia at least for a little while, if you need a place to sleep or eat or get in the doors to get some intel on what's going down. Then again, in every disaster I'm familiar with, these places are okay for being unarmed, and in the case of shelters they have enough security to ensure no one is going to cause you harm while you're there.