Mel comes up often in posts like this, and I'm surprised that people so easily bash a dead man's reputation while having so little facts.

People fail to note that Mel was wheelchair bound (for some time) and diabetic. Some try to make it appear that he was a healthy 47 year old who was so obsessed with surviving when the SHTF that he lost sight of the need to deal with the here and now.

From what I have read about Mel (written by people that knew him), there were other severe health factors involved in his death. CHF is treatable, but for how long? He died in 1980. Perhaps he had been suffering with it for 20 years.

In response to the original poster, you can't go wrong with a bolt action 22 and a Remington 870 pump.