Well, I agree with him. You can, with practice, down a deer with a .410 slug. In fact, in places that's the preferred thing that poachers use, but it's still a light load for ethical hunting. Of course, in a survival situation anything goes, including snaring the deer or using a deadfall.

But I digress.

Please use trigger locks, too. Or make sure the weapon is unloaded and fasten it tightly shut with a plastic cable tie. I am a staunch and strong believer in weapons safety...believe it or not. That's why I keep loaded guns around the house -- I agree with Mark Twain that the deadliest weapon around is an unloaded gun.

Don't meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his mother every time at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old rusty muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it makes me shudder.