this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Why do you think a pump action shotgun is ideal for home defense
Compared to a handgun it is. You shoot someone with buckshot and they're likely to just drop. You shoot someone with a 9mm and they can carry on for a bit. You'd need multiple, better placed shots to equal one trigger pull of a shotgun.
Even a stronger handgun round has far less power than a basic long-barreled firearm. Ideally they'd get an AR-15 but the Calfornia thing probably fucks up the math with the lower magazine size.
I think long guns in home defense are worse than hand guns. The ability to conceal a handgun and not expose your profile/location with them when you have the advantage of knowing the home layout is superior. You can securely store handguns in much smaller spaces than long guns--you don't need a big gun safe. I'd also argue that someone getting hit with any round is probably going to stop what they're doing.
That being said, I've never defended my home with guns nor have I done entries into other people's homes. Maybe you're right.
Why are you playing SWAT in a home invasion scenario instead of staying put? Plus, you vastly underestimate how much a handgun forces you to expose. You don't fire from the hip or with a limp wrist, you have to extend your arms to manage recoil. Doubly so if you have to fire 3-5 shots in quick succession. A shotgun may stick out a bit more when going around corners but in the fucking dark that's meaningless. Unless you're a guy who sticks his gun out from around the corner and waits.
PLUS, you can slip the shotgun stock under your shoulder blade and get LESS exposure than a handgun. You have to fire from the hip of course but that's workable with 8 balls of buckshot compared to a single bullet.
You shouldn't keep your home defense firearm in a safe regardless. You don't want to be fucking with key when you have someone breaking in. Even if the safe is smaller, it shouldn't be locked up in the first place.
You can arguing this with yelling at the person too, or shining a flashlight in their eyes. There is percentage that will stop if you do anything. The fact is you don't want to be using a handgun when you find the percentage that'll fight back.
Very good advice, but I'd argue that an unsecured gun with unsecured bullets in the house is more of a threat to your safety than home intruders, statistically speaking.
Doubly so if you have kids or if kids are ever in your home for any reason.
Or, frankly, any adult without at least a firearm safety training program under their belt.
Yeah, guns in the home are a much, much, much greater risk to you and your family than home intruders. Live by the sword, die by the sword, yadda yadda.
It is a gun. It isn't supposed to be safe
It isn't supposed to kill you or your family, either. Americans tend to have a very skewed perception of how often violent home invasions happen compared to accidental firearms injuries and deaths.
There is a clear spectrum where safety and utility are opposed. A safe gun is a toy. There is no way to have a gun as a useful tool and be safe. They are very useful tools for what they are for they just don't make situations any safer. I don't own a gun myself simply because I don't want to spend the time and anger managing the risks as like you said there is no real benefit to me in my suburb
Most of the "threat" of having it in the house is from intentional self-harm. The other part, that being accidents, can be mitigated almost entirely by teaching you and your family about gun safety. If the kids are too young, put it in a closet out of sight and reach. Don't rack the firearm if you want to be extra safe.
Assuming you aren't suicidal and follow basic safety, a gun is less dangerous than a kitchen knife. I can put a gun away in a condition that would make it very hard for a child to fire it even if they understood how. A knife's edge can't be turned off and is easily accessible.
This is another major advantage pepper spray has over a gun. If you actually want to defend yourself your gun should be easy to access and have loaded mags either in it or right next to it. That's really bad if you have kids in the house or whatever, or even if someone just breaks in and steals your gun.
Pepperspray? Paint it with glitter and leave it on the kitchen table. Who cares? If the kid gets it the worst thing that happens is a very, very, very upset kid for about two days.
I'd still say you should get a gun. Pepper Spray is great outside when you won't get splash-back and you can escape in any direction. Inside, you'll probably get some on you and the person you sprayed is now in an enclosed space with you. They may not be able to see you but they might still be able to flail around and injure you. Plus, most people work in groups when doing a break in. You may get one of them and then have to deal with 2 other guys without your spray. A firearm has multiple chances to stop the threat and is far more likely to cause others to gtfo.
Someone who would break into a home when people are there is a very different kind of thief and necessitates a hardliner approach.
I regularly train shooting my pistols without full extension for this exact purpose. It's more difficult to be on target. You cannot fire a long gun without extension in any circumstance.
Easiest to blow your adversaries, enemies, and nemesises away with.
I imagine a scenario where I need to grab my second magazine for my glock and thinking how hard it would be to reload a pump shotgun.
Buckshot makes it easy to hit at close range with minimal training, slugs allow a trained individual to take down armored targets
Not trying to be rude, but; Shotguns are just as hard to aim as any other gun at close range. buck doesn't spread much within 5-10 feet.
Slugs won't penetrate any armor that you'll actually encounter. Level 3 soft armor will stop slugs reliably.
No rudeness detected friend. Penetration's not the be all end all at close range. Anyone who's armor "stops" a slug to the chest from like 20 feet is going to be too busy convulsing on the floor and coughing up blood to continue menacing you
Pump action shotguns don't have magazine capacity and are hard to conceal. You can't, for example, keep one in your nightstand. You need to pump the gun to load it after shooting. I'd rather someone have a pump action than no gun but I don't think its the best first option.
If it's home defense, the options for concealment are many. I agree on the pump though, a semi auto is much better for defense. Magazine capacity doesn't need to be that high when every shot is nine shots.
Consider being "swatted". The scenario is 9 people with body armor. Do you think buckshot is better than 17 rd magazines x3?
If you get swatted you're fucked. There's no much reason to try to prepare for that unless you want to go full Rambo.
Yes. You are not taking down a swat team you didn't expect. A shotgun gives you a chance to be seen and decide to drop your weapon. So you have a better survival rate there. Really you aren't taking down any kind of team on your own. Our lives aren't that kind of movie
If you're being swatted no pistol on Earth is going to penetrate that armor and you need a rifle, but failing that, buckshot gives you the best chance for a one shot stop if you aim for the face and neck
Rifles aren't going to penetrate plates, either. There aren't really any small arms loads that will pen even level 3 plates.
Ah, I misremembered the effectiveness at close range. Although i checked and it looks only level 4 is rated for rifle fire. On the plus side, at home defense range a decently big round with good muzzle velocity like 7.62×39 can absolutely beat a man to death through his level 4 plates even without penetrating them. All that force has to go somewhere
Afaik actual NIJ rated IIIA hard plates will reliably stop at least a couple of rounds of any small arms load up to the weird specialized sniper loads.
Well yeah. It gets spread out across the entire surface of the plate, which means it's not going to do anything. Every round you fire, you're getting hit in the shoulder by the butt stock with the same amount of energy that bullet has. The bullet kills people because that energy is all concentrated in a tiny little bullet instead of spread across, idk, 6-8 square inches of the rifle stock? The idea you can somehow batter someone to death through their armor doesn't pass the most basic physics test - For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Until the plate actually fails he's feeling less pressure per square inch from the round impacting than you are firing it.
idk if this video is legit, but that's about what you should expect - Guy didn't even flinch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMDPFugXllo&t=22s
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
If you're swatted, your best and only chance of survival is to comply with the police instructions and pray/get lucky that none of them have an itchy trigger finger. And God help you if you're deaf, blind, asleep, non-white, or you can't hear or understand the instructions.
Btw even if you somehow are IRL Solid Snake and kill an entire swat team, you will be killed or disappeared by the justice system.
The caveat with pump vs. semi auto is you need a pretty decent semi auto shotgun for it to be very very reliable. so if you have a small budget get a pump otherwise it might go click click
One reason is that you can use (preferably heavier) bird shot and it won't go through 2 neighbors entire houses or apartments
Look I can't engage in this conversation anymore. The concept of penetration is going to be inherently tied to your particular home and your ability to tolerate risk.