Advice for folks who won't ever practice

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I would say that those of us on this website are in the vast minority.

I don't know what the actual numbers are on people that have prevailed in shootings or gunfights who were completely untrained (I would love to know these numbers) but I suspect it is a significantly larger number than those that have been through 400 hours of professional pistol instruction.

I don't know what your definition of completely untrained is but the "Armed Citizen" section of NRA magazine has people every month who I would guess a substantial portion of, outside of possibly the military, have never had any "Formal" training. I know I have taught several people to shoot who have never fired a firearm before. And two I distinctly recall didn't even know if their firearms were loaded. They were.

[LHS]

Being the office 'gun guy', I frequently have people ask me about guns for home defense. I get a lot of "What kind of shotgun should I get for home defense?" Now I love shotguns, but I've seen what happens when someone short-strokes an 870 under stress, and long guns present their own challenges in terms of secure storage with children in the house. Plus, almost everyone thinks they can just load up some #7-1/2 birdshot and be good to go without endangering people on the other side of the drywall.

I almost always end up recommending that people get a decent 9mm autoloader, some kind of device to secure it (i.e. a Gunvault) and then get TRAINING. If they insist on a shotgun, I tend to steer them towards an 11-87 for simplicity's sake, and recommend Federal LE132 00 buckshot. And then I invite them to go shooting with me.