The best home defense gun

[Glenn E. Meyer]

https://www.guns.com/news/2019/06/27...e-defense-guns

Tidbits:

The second-most logical choice for home defense is a shotgun because they’re easy to use to address a threat. Unlike a handgun or rifle, shotguns don’t require precision accuracy to hit a target. A shotgun fires shot shells instead of a single projectile. The shot is comprised of small pieces of metal that look like ball bearings. As they fly through the air, the spread covers a wider area with a tremendous amount of energy like a small net of death.

he drawback to home defense shotguns is limited maneuverability. Without proper training and practice, a shotgun is difficult to safely handle in an enclosed space. According to federal regulators, the shortest barrel available for a shotgun, to keep it under the mandatory 26-inch overall length, is 18 inches. However, gun makers have found ways to make a shotgun feel shorter than it really is. By changing certain characteristics of the design — like removing the stock and shortening the barrel — it can become a 12- or 20-gauge “firearm” instead of a shotgun. Maintaining that mandatory minimum length allows the design to be sold like any other firearm.

Semi reasonable discussion of handguns and ARs. However, the shotgun stuff - well, well. Just anecdotally, I had a good ol' boy coworker who was incensed that his fragile, elderly wife would not learn to or practice with a 12 gauge pistol grip pump. Then he switched her to a Glock 23. That didn't work either.

I like to shoot my 1300 Defender but it's not something I would recommend to the beginner. Took a couple of shotgun classes (Moses, Givens).

[mtnbkr]

https://www.guns.com/news/2019/06/27...e-defense-guns

Tidbits: Unlike a handgun or rifle, shotguns don’t require precision accuracy to hit a target.

[Norville]

Where’s that Captain Picard face palm picture when I need it?

[MasterBlaster]

Where’s that Captain Picard face palm picture when I need it?

[feudist]

If you think about it, it's kind of strange that the shotgun myth exists.

At one time, perhaps even still, shotguns were far more widely distributed than rifles above the .22LR.

Anyone who ever shot one-even with birdshot-would see that the pattern doesn't magically expand.

I guess it shows how few people ever did fire a gun throughout history.

[RevolverRob]

If you think about it, it's kind of strange that the shotgun myth exists.

At one time, perhaps even still, shotguns were far more widely distributed than rifles above the .22LR.

Anyone who ever shot one-even with birdshot-would see that the pattern doesn't magically expand.

I guess it shows how few people ever did fire a gun throughout history.

I'm not sure one follows the other. When I've shot clays for instance, the reality is, even a little bit of shot hitting the clay will blow it apart. Most shooters (including myself) don't lead very well and are really hitting clays or birds with the spread of the shot, not the actual bulk of it. Then you hear stuff like, "Don't use the sights, use the barrel." Also, if most people are anything like me, it's pretty tough to gauge distance of clay pigeons flying through the air. So, for all you know you're hitting them at 20 feet, instead of the 30 yards you're actually shooting them at. So, you end up with a warped sense of what shot spread looks like.

In other words, I think the shotgun myth persists, because when people shoot clays and birds, they don't have to actively focus on the front sight AND they don't know what distances they're shooting at. Meanwhile with a handgun or rifle, you know if you don't aim you will miss, regardless of distance.

It's not until you start shooting at patterning boards or actual targets with buckshot that you realize how much work you need to do to make the shotgun do what you think it should do. It's also then that you realize why bird-hunting shotguns and people hunting shotguns are so different from one-another in the way they are setup.

[Darth_Uno]

I recall Larry Correia stating, and I've often stolen this, that a shotgun is not an Indiana Jones boulder of doom.

If someone kicked in my door while I had the safe open I'd probably grab an AR. Can't really quantify that, beyond an intuitive sense that I'd rather have a rifle with 30 rounds.

I keep a 'roided up 870 (glorified deer gun) by the bed though, so...

[Sigfan26]

Best way I’ve found to dispel the myth of magic shotgun spread is this: If shotguns had spread how some people think... Trap, Skeet, and Sporting clays wouldn’t exist (it would be too easy). There wouldn’t be a market for specialized $5K+ guns for the specific sports, and dove hunters would never miss a bird.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OlongJohnson]

I've heard a GS employee tell someone, "At close range, the bird shot pellets are still all together and act like a slug."

[pangloss]

I've heard a GS employee tell someone, "At close range, the bird shot pellets are still all together and act like a slug."

Not to be argumentative because I agree that the GS employee advice is very bad advice, but simply as an aside: Before I was born, my dad was bird (or maybe squirrel) hunting with a close family friend. They jumped a deer at point blank range, and the friend found that at about 3 yards a load of birdshot (or maybe #6s ) to the neck will kill a deer. I don't know what size the deer was, and that's an important variable. The entire ordeal could have been a 1 in a 100 sort of event, which is one of the reasons why I keep buckshot in my 870. In any case, that's a story that has always stuck with me.