Well, it's 5:30 and I'm about to leave for work, so why not give a mention?
We went through Katrina in our neck of the woods. The eye wall passed over head and we were without power for weeks. Mississippi suffered greater damage than New Orleans (yet everyone thinks New Orleans is what suffered). That is not to minimize the flooding and problems in the Crescent City, many dealt with the storm. In New Orleans, thugs were the main source of trouble, though people acting foolishly made matters worse. Who didn't actually have food in their pantries? A Wal-Mart sack of can goods, cereal, even a six-pack of beer, what ever, would have been fine for a day, perhaps two or more, before help arrived. Too many folks down there ignored their own resources and then cried out for help. Those people made it hard for the responsible ones.
In my town, which was a few years before the thug of a police chief and his minions came on the scene (he's since been fired), we had a terrible mess but nobody went crazy. The only looting occurred when two New Orleans refugees (yes, really) broke into the pharmacy down the street. They were caught within minutes. The police acted professionally and the people got to work. I carried a 45acp on my hip for exactly one day, but no more. My small town acted in unity and nobody went nuts. Folks found out I had a working gas stove, so I became a source for boiled water (mostly for coffee in the morning). We also grilled and fried all food in our thawing freezer. We kept all we could use and gave out cooked burgers, chicken, and even some beautiful red fish filets that broke my heart to grill (couldn't store the cooked fish, ate all I could eat, and could not bear to see them go to waste). My neighbor let us use his pool water for toilets, and we worked on each others yards to get things cleaned up. Folks came by to borrow books because I have a large library, and one woman I did not know dropped off a bag of ice because we had a 9-month old. August in Mississippi was hot, real hot, but we got by.
For most of that SHTF event, my firearms remained locked up. However, a Mosin makes an excellent storage rifle for food/hunting. I keep an old 91/30 stored away just for that. 7.62x54r ammo is plentiful and is all over these days, so much so that I would have no problem finding it were I to need it. But, I bought it cheap a decade ago and now have all I could ever use. Yet for me, SHTF does not mean taking out zombies, but rather dealing with nature in the long term. Short term issues should not be a problem in our town. We formed a functioning citizen government before our own small government got to work. We did not need police, National Guard, or a mayor to keep order. We kept it ourselves.
Given I have two perfectly reliable D-166 Finnish m28/76's, I can think of no better long-term rifle to own. Ammo will last if stored, the rifles handle heavy and light bullets, and the sights are so good that a scope is not even needed.