I have a love/hate relationship with movies and shows about the zombie apocalypse. On one hand, as an engineer the scenarios and situations that the survivors need to overcome fascinate me. On the other hand, the idea that zombies can continue to function indefinitely is a violation of conservation of energy. However, there are still a number of the storylines that resonate, so I continue to watch, fully understanding that there’s only so much logic and reasoning that I may use before it all breaks down. I will give you some advance warning, I will make some references to plotlines in The Walking Dead, though from years past. Beware of spoilers.
Apart from the obvious ‘undead taking over the world’ plotline, zombie shows are an interesting demonstration of engineering and battle of attrition. Once civilization ends, you have to be mindful of anything that will no longer be in production. Specifically, you’ll need to be especially careful about which activities require ‘consumables’. I’m not referring to items like food and water; those will be fairly easy acquire if you’re outdoorsy and resourceful.
Consumable resources during the zombie apocalypse
Other than the obvious fact that normal alive humans have now become consumable, what are we referring to? With the human population decreasing in size, there is no shortage of cars; they’re not a consumable. However, fuel has become a non-renewable resource. Most cars run on conventional gasoline, so that becomes a very valuable resource. With the increase of recent gas prices, we’re also painfully aware of how useless our vehicles have become without gas. There are naturally a couple of contingency plans. First, you may get an electric vehicle, which you’d need to charge through solar or some other means, but feasible. Second, you may get a diesel vehicle, which you may run off agriculturally produced fuel (or even filtered oil, I believe). We can collectively agree though, a vehicle without fuel is worthless.
One other extremely valuable resource is ammunition. As the undead walk the earth, having a firearm is extremely valuable. However, no one is manufacturing bullets anymore, so however many existed as the world turned to undead, are the ones that remain. Exceptions to this rule exist. The Walking Dead aired episodes where Eugene manufactured bullets, but this is exceedingly rare. Additionally, he used precisely his role as the manufacturer of bullets to sabotage a group and render them defenseless. It was a triumphant moment I enjoyed, but not one I expected.
Was Chris Rock right?
I’m not referring to the Will Smith incident. Many years ago, Chris Rock suggested during a comedy routine that most effective gun control would be to raise the price of bullets. He suggested $5,000 per bullet. We all understand that there are many guns already out there, and they are possible to get (even illegally). However, guns without bullets are effectively inert paperweights, and you may use a bullet precisely once. One of two things will occur. First, people don’t have bullets, so they can’t shoot the guns. Second, people will already have a supply of bullets, but are apprehensive to shoot them because it is prohibitively expensive. In either of these two scenarios, there are considerably fewer mass shooters.
What if we set the price of a single bullet at $1,000? Let’s say that you have a gun at home, someone breaks in, and you shoot them to protect your family. You’re not going to empty thousands of rounds of ammunition within your own home. Should you shoot five times, that’ll be $5,000. Wouldn’t most people (who can afford a gun), happily pay $5,000 for the safety of their family? Once you file a police report, you may even get the police to replace any bullets that you expended… or allow you to purchase them at the previous prices.
Make it prohibitively expensive
Sure, once you raise the prices, there’ll be some hoarding. However, the hoarding is pointless. There is no shortage of bullets; they’re just expensive. Naturally, there may be someone out there who purchased thousands of rounds for less than $1 per bullet and, of course, they can sell them for something like $50, but realistically they can only do that for so long. They’ll eventually run out of them. Eventually, the entire market will settle.
The Robb Elementary School shooter in Uvalde, Texas carried 1,657 rounds on him. If we priced bullets at $1,000 each, that’d be $1.657M. Even if he expended precisely one bullet per casualty, that’s $21,000 plus the price of the weapon. That’s about 1½ years of minimum wage full-time pay in Texas. If an AR-15 costs less than two bullets, then he can have 10 AR-15’s.
Doesn’t this impinge on second amendment rights?
First, the second amendment protects the right for a ‘well-regulated militia’. Which well-regulated militia did the Uvalde shooter belong to? Though more to the point about the price of bullets, where in the second amendment does it say that it must not be prohibitively expensive? It doesn’t. Raising the price of bullets doesn’t prevent you from owning or operating a firearm; it simply makes it so that you most don’t frivolously shoot things.
You could argue that making it that expensive to operate does impinge upon your rights. However, the biggest suggestion from the gun lobby is that everyone should be armed to stop a random shooter at a school, hospital, or grocery store. That idea is tragically flawed. First, guns are expensive, costing hundreds of dollars; this means that poor families are denied safety and security. Are their lives less important because they’re poor? Second, this means that your kids will need an armed guardian when going to the local Dairy Queen, or your 80-year-old parents will need to learn to carry one when grocery shopping. Doesn’t this sound absurd? Third, Uvalde had hundreds of good guys with guns; it didn’t help.
This doesn’t make it more prohibitively expensive to defend yourself; it makes it prohibitively expensive to shoot things (or people) frivolously.
Why can’t people just make their own ammunition?
Let’s reflect back on alcohol during prohibition. When people warn about drinking moonshine and going blind, it is due to lead poisoning. If something is produced illegally, then there are no standards by which it is produced. If there is no one to hold accountable, no such thing as consumer protection. This phenomenon has now manifested itself in other places. The use of fentanyl in illegal drugs is pervasive. People do not intend to buy fentanyl, but their product is laced with it. Test strips are more readily available. There may be little difference between the availability of legal marijuana in Washington or illegal marijuana elsewhere, but since it is regulated, there’s now accountability that your product is not tainted.
People could make their own bullets, but it’d be contraband. Additionally, this is one instance where you want a legitimate product from a well-regulated industry. As tragic as the July 2012 movie theater shooting was in Colorado, it could’ve been worse because the AR-15 jammed during the incident; one of the causes of gun jams is bad ammunition. If the Uvalde shooter’s gun jammed with bad ammunition, how many more people might’ve survived? Furthermore, that’s just the case of the gun jamming; poorly manufactured ammunition can also damage your weapon. Do you really want to experiment making your own ammunition?
Moreover, if I were the government looking to cut down on this black-market activity, I would be tempted to taint that batch and release it. They could either produce the occasional unit that will intentionally fail OR they could put a tracking device on the occasional black-market bullet to know where it went. Before you assert that it’s not feasible, we’re putting RF-ID tags on credit cards so that they may be used with Tap-to-pay, so yes… it is.
What about legitimate gun use?
Regrettably, this is one scenario that would be impacted, but I think we can ultimately manage it. Shooting a firearm is a skill, and like any other skill it can atrophy from lack of use. I encourage every responsible gun owner to regularly operate their firearm in order to prevent this. How do you do that if shooting ten rounds may cost you $10k? A proposed solution is that you’ll have regulated shooting ranges. They’ll supply the ammunition while you’re on the premises, and you may shoot to your heart’s content, but none may leave the premises. Gun ranges already exist, they’ll just have to manage that aspect of the business. Bullet casings may have lot codes that may be tracked and if some become publicly available, then the gun shop is held liable and may lose their license. It’d be like serving an underage drinker at a bar.
The more nuanced scenario is hunting. How do you allow for hunting when it is not restricted to a location like a shooting range? One proposed answer is that you get a bullet stipend with your hunting license. Bring your casings back and you may get more. It’s really no different than the deposits for cans and bottles at the grocery store, just a much higher deposit.
Is it a hassle? Absolutely! …but so is limiting your liquids to a quart-sized plastic bag for air travel, yet we still do it in the name of safety. After the events of 9/11 air travel has changed considerably, but it generally hasn’t impacted air travel and people generally don’t complain. We understand it is for a greater good.