The focus seems to be on what you would take knowing it was coming and you had time to prepare. The reality is that what you have at the moment when things come crashing down is what you will use.
It's a frequent theme in knife forums, owners go on for pages about what edged tool they would prefer, but the truth is that what you have on you at that moment is all you get. Daily life isn't like prepping out for a wilderness camp trip off the grid hundreds of miles from civilization. Our survival situations would likely be along the lines of getting trapped in a blizzard five miles from the nearest exit, or the grid shutting down and hiking out of Manhattan.
We recently had a young man nearly freeze to death trying to walk to the nearest shelter which was within eyesight of his car. A gun or knife wasn't what he needed - a winter coat that was warm enough to prevent him succumbing from hypothermia was. This is where we focus too much on the forum center of interest and miss the big picture - there is usually a family left dead in the snow every winter because they left the house during bad weather with inadequate clothing to withstand a night in a storm.
Frankly, any gun or any knife would be good enough, what you need is a common sense view of your overall risk every time you step out of the door. Dress appropriately, decide if you really need to be out there in the first place.
Having lived thru the destruction of two towns hit by tornadoes, I can say that most of the follow on injuries are caused by the hero complex and not assessing risk. It's just slow hard work digging out, don't go overboard trying things you never have or attempting tasks that a team of knowledgeable workers wouldn't attempt. Yet people get injured or killed in clean up every year. And I have my scars to remind me.
Focus less on the tools, we have plenty, and whether they possess a singular feature or not rarely makes a critical difference. What should be focused on is having the skills to use them, and being knowledgeable in the big picture. Are you going to freeze to death, do you have a way to make fire, is there some way to carry and purify water? I don't see a gun helping much at all, and a knife has very limited utility. Better more knowledge and less risk than spinning your wheels wondering if maybe the 9mm would be the better choice freezing to death.
