Help Newb to Defend Home against the Horde

[paherne]

I originally posted this story in a different forum, but a helpful member referred me here to get more helpful advice.

A few days ago, my city was ravaged by looters. My apartment is 2 miles from the target shopping area so I thought I was safe. Then the looters started moving closer and closer. They attempted to hit a few residences. The residents called 911 but were told, "Sorry, you're on your own. The police are occupied." Thank goodness the looters were looking for quick crash and grab because the residents defended their homes and the looters moved on to the next target.
Once we learned the police wouldn't help, we were all trying to come up with weapons to defend ourselves. Some suggestions included spray sunscreen, hairspray and a lighter, and a hammer. I'll give you a few minutes to finish laughing. We were woefully unprepared.

After a few days, I emerged from my apartment and ran into a neighbor who was inspecting our rear security gate. The looters tried to break it down and the gate was busted. The door held, but it was close.
I do not own any firearms. Neither do my neighbors. I need to prepare my family if this ever happens again.

I live in the Los Angeles county area. I need help selecting some guns.

Question:
Please recommend a firearm, gear, and accessories that I can legally obtain in CA to ward off the horde. Think protection against the zombie apocalypse. If the looters turn into rioters, I don't want to be stuck with nothing but spray suncreen.

Assume no police protection is coming in your replies.

I found a great training facility with ex-special forces as instructors. I plan to take many classes there so I don't end up as a fool hurting myself or my family.

I'm glad you thought of training, but given that you're in LA, I would make a recommendation. ITTS, International Tactical Training Seminars run by Scott Reitz, is in LA and will teach you specific, tested CA legal self defense techniques. The Website is internationaltactical.com and you can sign up for a class and rent a pistol if you are not sure what to buy and how to go about it. I would recommend this so you don't buy a bunch of stuff you don't need. This is the advice I would give to a friend, citizen or relative. FTR, I'm a 27 year CA cop, POST Firearms Instructor with numerous outside schools from some of the best instructors in the business. You will find no better instruction than ITTS offers.

[paherne]

As to the posters giving advice to use bear spray or wasp spray instead of OC, I am not a lawyer and cannot give legal advice, but I would point you to CA Penal Code section 244:

CHAPTER 9. Assault and Battery [240 - 248] ( Chapter 9 enacted 1872. )

244.
Any person who willfully and maliciously places or throws, or causes to be placed or thrown, upon the person of another, any vitriol, corrosive acid, flammable substance, or caustic chemical of any nature, with the intent to injure the flesh or disfigure the body of that person, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three or four years.

As used in this section, “flammable substance” means gasoline, petroleum products, or flammable liquids with a flashpoint of 150 degrees Fahrenheit or less.

(Amended by Stats. 1995, Ch. 468, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 1996.)

Bear spray is listed with the USDA and most cans are labeled not for use on humans. Wasp spray would definitely be a violation of PC 244.

There is always the necessity defense, and if I was going down in a blaze of glory with nothing between my family and rioters but me and a can of wasp spray, it would get used. However, I would stick to OC spray and possibly a fire extinguisher as legally-defensible, non-caustic chemical devices. Remember, the person you spray is not going to go to the police and say that they were coming to rape and pillage at your house. Their story will be that they were just innocently ringing the door bell to ask to report a crime via your telephone, when you suddenly and without warning assaulted them, for no apparent reason.

[Malamute]

Remember, the person you spray is not going to go to the police and say that they were coming to rape and pillage at your house. Their story will be that they were just innocently ringing the door bell to ask to report a crime via your telephone, when you suddenly and without warning assaulted them, for no apparent reason.

A good reason to have a basic security cam set up, perhaps even one inside if having one outside isnt possible due to rental situation. I also wonder if a cell phone can be set to record (audio) if in your pocket or on a neck cord (possible usable video), and someone should probably be cell phone filming any encounter from behind the person in front of the defensive formation, such as it is. Not much discussion of intent and your response if on video. Instant upload to secure site or your youtube channel or facebook or whatever may not be a bad idea if possible.

[Rex G]

Welcome to P-F!

Go to you-tube, and search for the Thunder Ranch video presentations on the shotguns. There are several of them. This is a start. These are cut from their DVD videos, but contain useful information, rather than advertising fluff.

Shotguns are my comfort guns, and I do not feel qualified to give rifle advice. (I was trained to be a “patrol carbine” officer, with an AR15, but that is not applicable to your situation.)

If you have no experience with shotguns, and no personal coach, you may want to start with a single-shot, a double, or semi-auto, rather than pump-action. I have seen guys, bigger and stronger than me, short-stroke their pump guns, when the Two-Gun or Tactical Shotgun class at the PD academy reached the “tactical” part. Running a pump requires discipline and rhythm, and, clearing the stoppage, caused by a short-stroke, is NOT intuitive.

For about three decades, I never short-stroked a pump gun, until, well, the day I did. Then, it started happening, again, occasionally, but often enough to be scary. An aging, gimp shoulder was probably part of it, but I believe I had lost my rhythm, too. One of the PD range instructors, who had been one of my rookies, years earlier, prescribed a Magpul stock, with no spacers, to get the whole gun closer to me. We worked-out my rhythm problem, but my long arms hate short stocks, when I try to get a proper check-weld, so I bought a Benelli M2, with the Comfort-Tech stock. I had already planned to buy a Benelli, eventually, anyway, because I liked the bold profile of the sights, on the Tactical version’s barrel.

I had previously used an earlier, HK/Benelli M1 Super 90, but its thin-top stock was a torture device, so I sold it, and kept using pump guns. That first Benelli was reliable, however, so I quickly returned to Benelli, when I felt assured that the Comfort-Tech stock was better, and to take advantage of the slug sights. I wanted the slugs to stop terrorists in trucks, if that became necessary, as the Super Bowl was about to come to town, and I guessed (correctly) that I would be posted at a street barricade, downtown.

Benelli is not the only source of good auto-loading shotguns. There is plenty of love, on this forum, for the Beretta 1301. My chief did not authorize me to carry anything except the Remington 870 or Benelli M1/M2, and that applied both on and off the clock. I have simply stayed with Benelli, adding a second M2, after retirement. I considered adding a Beretta 1301, but its safety button is positioned differently than my familiar shotguns. I’d rather keep such things simple, by keeping them the same.

Keep in mind, that showing/displaying a weapon, if faced by a crowd, is not, necessarily, wise. A firearm is not a magic wand.

I saw one anecdote that indicated bear spray is weaker than the OC spray made for defense against human attackers. To be sure, check the actual concentration of Oleoresin Capsicum.

[Jim Watson]

The traditional "riot gun", a pump shotgun with minimum legal length barrel of 18" (or even less for Authorized Personnel) has several advantages.
It is cheap, powerful, and less restricted than rifles and pistols.
But it has disadvantages. It is subject to short shucking which leaves you not ready to shoot.
The better automatics are acceptably reliable but are much more expensive*.

But mainly, it is a fire extinguisher type item. If you are smart, you will get training and will occasionally shoot enough for familiarization, but unless you are very conscientious, that won't be much. Blasting away with a shotgun declines in fun factor pretty fast.
You COULD get an extra full length barrel and take up Trap or goose hunting which would be a fun incentive to keep the gun in your hands until it felt natural.

*The Stoeger auto is a common entry gun for 3-Gun but the high round count of a competitor wears it pretty fast. But it ought to hold up for a class and occasional practice. Ought'n it?

[Rex G]

Other replies have mentioned revolvers. It is good to see that the Ruger GP100 is CA-legal. The GP100 is my “comfort handgun.” The weapon nearest-at-hand, here by the recliner, is a 3”-barreled GP100, with a tritium Big Dot front sight. Also near at hand, is a 4”-barreled Ruger Speed Six, inside a Safepacker*, with spare ammo ammo in reloading strips, good for grab-and-go. Revolving pistols remain viable! Auto-loaders are just a passing fad.

OK, I am not opposed to auto-pistols, and have several. My point is that one need not feel deprived, if one has to live with restrictive ammunition-capacity laws.

*The Safepacker is made by The Wilderness dot com, in AZ. A Safepacker is both a holster, and, a case/container made to hold a firearm, so actually met the definition of legal “open carry” in AZ, when it was developed and marketed, and may well still do so. (I am not a lawyer, so do your own homework regarding legality of carrying handguns “openly,” inside such items.

[19852+]

I used to live in CA so I do know how oppressive CA gun laws are for the law abiding citizen, no problem for not so law biding .... Having read most of these posts I would not recommend bear spray or wasp spray. As far as weapons go; whatever you choose make sure you have witnesses and/or video proof to back up your side.

[robhic]

I think there could be situations where you appropriately point a long gun and folks get the idea and leave but also situations where you could just leave instead of having to shoot six drunk people in masks.

I hate to be ugly but this part made me laugh. I hate seeing those morons in the 'Guy Fawkes' masks (probably don't even know what it's all about ...). The image of some man-bun wearing pansies, wearing those stupid masks and having an AR or a 10 or 12 gauge shotgun pointed at them just caused me to LOL. Actually seeing them if the big ole scary gun went off would really be a hoot. But that's getting past even just being ugly ....

[DueSpada]

As to the firearm alone, if your experience with guns is little or none you might consider a 20 gauge instead of the 12. Less recoil, easier to handle.

[Dave T]

I sometimes think "tacti-cool" gets to those of us in the gun community and we think nothing will do but being armed like a member of a ranger battalion, or SWAT team member.

For a more low profile, and possibly easier to acquire approach, consider a 357 Magnum revolver and a lever action rifle chambererd in the same cartridge. You can even find 7 & 8 shot revolvers if you really think more is better. 357 lever action rifles based on the '92 Winchester or the '94 Marlin are compact, hold 10 rounds in carbine form and perform above their pay grade with full power Magnum ammunition. The rifle length versions of these hold even more and yet are still fairly compact to handle.

And don't over look the old standby, the 30-30 Winchester (Model 94 Winchester - 336 Marlin). It is the ballistic duplicate of the 7.62X39 and just an ol' deer rifle to those who get twisted in knots at the idea of law abiding citizens owning an assault rifle (AR). In the shotgun category a double barrel might be easier to find than a pump shotgun (think of the tens of thousands of LA residents who will be trying to buy them). A double will clear most any hallway and can be reloaded, with practice, before the smoke clears and their ears stop ringing so bad.

And less anyone scoff at these suggestions: revolvers; lever actions; and double barrels have been protecting and defending people, homes, farms and ranches for decades. You won't look like someone's tactical ninja operator, but with a little training and practice you won't be anyone to mess with either.

My $.02 worth. YMMV,
Dave