Chris, Robb, and others: I would like to agree with you, I really would. I would have done the same thing that Robb did, and felt good about it. And of all the people on the forum, I consider myself the furthest from a TEOTWAWKI fanatic - I'm a Canadian, I don't own a gun, I haven't fired a gun since I left the military, and I have little desire to rush out and buy one.<br><br>But facts is facts, as they say. Check out the history of the Donner party. If I'm not mistaken, the only family that made it through without losing a single member was the family that refused to share their food supplies with the group.<br><br>The sad truth is, there's a huge difference between going hungry for five hours, and sacrificing your life for a stranger's kids. <br><br>Granted, we will never know what would have happened if the Donner Party had stuck together and shared all their scarce resources like one big happy family. And I think history/archaeology/ethnography shows that mankind can only survive long-term by forming a co-operative group; the "lone survivalist" mentality is, I think, doomed. (In the Donner party, the first to die were the bachelor males; the elderly and the children went next, followed by the married men. Of the middle-aged married women, only Tamsen Donner died, and it is still speculated that she was deliberately murdered.) Not that I'm an expert on the Donner tragedy; I've read one magazine article on it, and that was several years ago, so I could have many of my facts wrong. (But that's never stopped me offering an opinion before. :-)<br><br>It's nice to believe in a fairy-tale world, but it's important to recognize that the real world is seldom "politically correct", if only to know how to deal with it when it sticks its head in. (If I'm making any sense, let me know. :-)