Weapon Of Choice

When the zombie apocalypse comes you'll need a weapon and your success or failure at survival may rest on the single decision of what weapon to choose from.  This seems to be a topic of major debate and these are my opinions, however I'm always open to suggestions and additions. First of all I'd like to say that any weapon is better than no weapon.  I don't care if you are the best MMA fighter in the universe, you're not going to bare-knuckle fight your way through a crowd of zombies if the situation should arise. Secondly, the best offence is a good defense. Best not to fight a zombie unless you absolutely have to. Running away is always the better option. Do not waste time, resources, energy, or risk possible injury trying to be a hero. So without further delay I'll kick off this shindig.

Long Range
By long range I mean 100 yards max. You don't need a fancy scope and a Barrett M82 .50 caliber sniper rifle. You have no business picking off zombies 3 miles away and if you need a scope to see them then they can't see you.  For distances around 100 yards you could do it with a pistol but rifles offer a lot more accuracy. Surplus rifles can usually be acquired pretty cheap and they are definitely reliable, in my experience the older the better. Enfield, Springfields, Mosin, SKS, AK, M16/AR15.  Just about any centerfire rifle will do the job.  Shotguns, not so much.  Long range it will do very little if anything just alert them.


Medium Range
I would consider this to be anywhere from 5-20 yards.  Handguns are going to be your best bet here. Anything with a high enough caliber to pierce the skull will work. My personal favorite is the M1911, that thing will shoot in any condition and with a .45 round you can be sure you will get the job done.  The only downside is that it has a single stack magazine that only holds 7 rounds but it's what I feel comfortable using and I feel pretty accurate with it.  The M9 is a decent handgun holding 15 9mm rounds per magazine. In my opinion you don't need "The most powerful handgun in the world". *Dirty Harry voice* The larger the caliber, the more recoil. To me revolvers are sub par unless you just want to look like a bad ass Rick Grimes rockin the python.
Don't get me wrong, revolvers have their pluses. You can't find a more reliable handgun than a revolver. It's just the smaller ones tend to have less accuracy and the ones with longer barrels are usually chambered in .357, .44, or .50 cal which have a lot of muzzle flash and recoil which in turn reduce target acquisition time.  An alternative to handguns can be cross bows or other archery weapons.  They can be very accurate, provide reusable ammo, and produce virtually no noise.  Arrows from compound bows have been clocked between 150-370 ft/sec.  At those speeds you could definitely pierce the human skull.   When the time comes any weapon is better than no weapon and you should use whatever you feel comfortable with. 


Close Combat
This would be anything within arms reach and sometimes may be your best option if there are few zombies to take care of.  You want to concentrate most of your damage to the head area since it's really the only way to kill a zombie. Anything you can use to pierce, sever, or cave in the skull will work wonders. Baseball bats, golf clubs, machetes, swords (not that cheap shit you get at the flea market either), bayonets (if you happen to have one on your rifle), pitch forks, axes/hatchets, crowbars, knives, or sharp sticks. If you insist on being that guy with the shotgun this would be the time to break it out.  Gerber recently came out with a survival kit that has a plethora of blades for any situation.


Things Not To Use
Flame throwers, molotov cocktails basically anything that produces a flame.  It takes a long time for a zombie to be subdued by fire and until that happens they are still running around trying to eat you.  The only thing more dangerous than a zombie is a flaming zombie.  Setting a zombie on fire will likely cause more damage than good as they are likely to set your surroundings on fire and possibly burn up supplies.

Chainsaws, don't be that guy.  The biological mess created by using a chainsaw would be devastating. There isn't enough bleach in the world to sanitize everything that would be contaminated.  If anyone in my group insisted on using a chain saw I'd probably off them myself. 
Ninjitsu, KungFu, TaeKwonDo, Karate, Judo, MMA, boxing, wrestling,  back alley brawler skills, whatever hand to hand you think you know you just forget that mess.  If I have to explain to you why you shouldn't try to bash a zombie skull with your fist then I might as well let you use the chainsaw.  The zombie plague is spread by body fluids, saliva/blood. When you bash your knuckles open and get zombie guts all in it you are a good as dead. Combined with the fact that your adrenaline is causing your heart to beat pretty quick you can forget cutting off your hand in time.


What it boils down to is using what you feel comfortable with and make sure you are proficient with it. Having a weapon you don't know how to use is just a good as not having one.  Just because you have ammo doesn't mean you have to use it.  Avoidance is always the best option.  I personally would not use firearms against zombies unless there was no other options.  This should be reserved for the living who aim to steal your goods which may very well be an even bigger threat than the zombies.

Where to go when the zombies come

Typically in situations similar to these (not necessarily a zombie outbreak but any other wide spread illness) the CDC will set up "safe zones" where people can reach out for assistance. Usually the red cross will be there providing food and medical care. I touched base on this before in an earlier post. These "safe zones" are only effective if the outbreak is in a relatively small area and is easily able to be contained. User @zombietraining recently hit me with an interesting fact on twitter, "Even if only 15% of the worlds population became zombies, that's over 1 billion undead."  There isn't a fence in the world big enough to keep out a fraction of those numbers and I don't plan on being within that fenced in area when it gets breached.

population

population density

Try to avoid any heavily populated areas and stick to back roads if possible. Undoubtedly travel will become difficult as abandoned cars start to litter the road.  Take under consideration the population of the area you are in. Heavily populated areas are much more difficult to get out of and the outbreak will probably spread fairly quickly. Above are 2 charts, the first one shows the top 15 cities by population. The second shows the top 15 cities by population density (average person per square mile). At the bottom of this density list coming in at number 275  and probably the safest place (by safe I mean low population) is Anchorage, Alaska. It only has a density of 171/sq mile. In addition to a low population the climate is a lot milder there and the winters are much colder. Zombies tend to not move so well in temperatures below freezing consider that they have no blood flow to keep them warm. Keep in mind that it's just as cold for them as is it for you. Unless you really know how to survive in cold weather or you bring some sort of heat source or generators you'll likely freeze to death soon after the zombies.  Suppose you live in Florida and Alaska is a bit of a drive for you, I would suggest any area of low population such as farm lands or large forest. My personal pick would be somewhere in Minnesota, however, a true survivor must be able to adapt to life anywhere.

Can zombies learn?

Are zombies capable of grasping knowledge or just walk around aimlessly feeding?  In The Zombie Autopsies by Dr. Steven Scholoman, the virus deteriorates the the brain down to the amygdala which controls the fight-or-flight response. Zombies just happen to always choose the fight response because ventromidial hypothalamus (the part that tells you when your stomach is full) is destroyed so they are always hungry.  The part of the brain responsible for problem solving, the frontal lobe, is also destroyed as well as the cerebellum which control motor skills. All in all you get an individual who can't move very well, can't communicate, doesn't recognize anyone and is hungry all the time.
The T-virus from the movie Resident Evil destroys pretty much all of the brain except for the cerebellum and brain stem. Basically this reverts a person back to the most primal state with poor motor skills. I guess when you break a person down, the only thing they really know is that they have to eat to survive. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that you can't really learn anything without a brain. However if you can remember the instinct to feed then is there a possibility that you can remember other things.
In the 1985 film, Day of the Dead, Dr Logan believe that zombies can become domesticated and achieves this with a zombie he calls Bub. Bub seems to remember parts of its former life and certain objects. One of the soldiers becomes outraged and kills one of the doctors, Bub sees this and appears to become upset and even sheds a tear.
They touch base on this again in The Land of the Dead, 2005. The zombies in town seem to remember their former lives. They can be seen playing instruments and operating gas pumps, although not very well. A particular zombie named "Big Daddy" is seen getting upset at the sight of his fellow zombies getting killed (or rekilled I guess you could say) and eventually learns to use firearms.  He teaches his fellow undead to use weapons and eventually the go for revenge.

I can't say I like the thought of zombies being able to learn, it kinda takes away from the whole primal and basic nature of them however it would definitely be a game changer for survival.