So although it's not depicted in the movie - it does talk about the fact that the co-pilot had a gun. When the accident first happened and he knew that his injuries were incompatible with life - he pleaded for the boys all night long to get his gun so he could kill himself. In the book "Alive" it mentions it in the section about the crash and the co-pilot but then (to my recollection) it doesn't really mention it again. In the "Society of the Snow" book - the chapter that Gustavo Zerbino "wrote" - he discusses it. He says that someone held the revolver an that he held onto the bullets - so that if anyone wanted to kill themselves, that wouldn't be an option. Later in the book, the chapter "written" by Vizintin - he talks about when he first climbed the mountain with Canessa and Parrado - that he had the gun with him.

I guess I'm assuming it was just the revolver and not the bullets? Why would he have taken it on the trek out? He could have given it to someone else? Maybe it was in case they saw an animal they could kill and eat?

And - fully admitting I'm not Catholic - why did the boys get to decide that no one was allowed to kill themselves? Shouldn't that have been a personal decision? (And I do think there's a difference between 'helping' the co-pilot by handing him a loaded gun and just not preventing anyone else from doing it)

Does anyone else have further information about the gun? Thoughts on the whole scenario with it?

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