The Benefits of the Shotgun for Home Defense
There is a lot of love out there for the AR-15 - and for every good reason in the world because it's a fantastic weapon - but today we return to what for some is an aging relic of a bygone era: the shotgun. I am often asked why a shotgun is my go-to weapon for personal defense. There are good reasons for asking this question. A shotgun tends to be a long and unwieldy weapon while being somewhat limited by its ability to hold as much ammunition as an AR-15 or even a handgun. The answer I give to this question is a simple one: it's all about choosing the right tool for the right job. In a home defense situation, it's hard to go wrong with a shotgun.
We will start by addressing some of the disadvantages of the shotgun. The biggest one is its capacity. Except for those interested in obtaining a tax stamp, paying a $200.00 sin tax, and waiting almost a year, the minimum legal length of a shotgun barrel is eighteen (18) inches while the minimum legal length for a rifle barrel is sixteen (16) inches. A vast majority of tactical shotguns will feature an 18.5" barrel solely because there seems to be some disagreement among the alphabet boys about where they start and stop measuring. The magazine of a typical shotguns (and I will address the exceptions below) runs underneath the barrel. While a shotgun setup for hunting will typically hold 4 - 5 shots (with a plug in the magazine to limit the capacity to 2+1), a tactical shotgun will normally hold between 7+1 and 8+1 if the length of the magazine is approximately flush with the end of the barrel. A magazine fed shotgun can increase this to 10 or more shots, although there are some drawbacks to this. So why would we use a weapon that holds about the same amount of ammunition as an M1911A1 pistol (not that there is anything wrong with the M1911A1 - I still love it)?
The answer is derived from the type of ammunition intended for use in a tactical shotgun and its realistic effective range. The "go to" home defense load for a shotgun is 00 buckshot. There are many people who do not understand what 00 buckshot will do to a person, and I will now explain it: a good 00 buckshot shell in a twelve gauge will place nine 0.33 caliber pellets (so not much smaller than a 9mm bullet) in an area the size of the palm of your hand. I particularly like the 00 buckshot made by Federal Ammunition with its patented flite-control wad for maximum devastation. The notion that a shotgun relieves you of your obligation to aim at close range is a myth. Think just for a moment about what a round like that will do. If put into a rapist's head, his brains are on the opposite end of the house. A high center chest shot on a home invader will turn the heart into gel or pulverize a lung. A gut shot will disembowel a burglar. Even a hit to the pelvic girdle will cause a would-be human trafficker to bleed out in seconds as the femoral artery is severed. What the shotgun lacks in capacity it makes up for in its ability to be an instant fight-stopper. There is nothing more lethal at close range. This is a lesson that German soldiers in WW1 learned first hand when they protested the use of the Winchester 1897 trench gun as being inhumane and a violation of treaty. American GIs who carried that weapon soon learned that capture by the Germans meant execution as a war criminal. The 1897 is still a badass shotgun, and frankly, pump actions have changed very little in the past 120 years.
The shotgun is a longer weapon than a rifle or a pistol and, for most shooters, this will not be a major concern. It is your responsibility as a homeowner to teach your family what to do in an emergency and, unless your child needs to be rescued, trying to "clear" your home as though you were a member of SEAL Team 6 is a stupid idea that is likely to get you and your family killed. The plan for personal protection inside the home is to get you and your family to a single room and make intentions known to the bad guy: you shout to them that cops are on their way, that you have a gun, and any who come through the door of that room will meet Jesus. Some may ask why I would want to limit myself to 7 - 9 shots in this situation and why I wouldn't want something capable of holding more ammunition. The answer, as set fort above, is because it should only take a single shot to be lethal. Another consideration is the children. In any house with children, firearms should always be locked up when not in use. This means the discipline to remove the gun from the safe every night and put it by your bed and then lock it back up the following morning. However, the nice thing about a shotgun is that it's far more difficult for kids to shoot themselves with one. Even tactical varieties are too long and heavy for very young children to operate at all.
Speaking of children, another reason to own a shotgun is because they are quite suitable for hunting and clay shooting. Firearms have become far more modular over the years. Most modern tactical shotguns have the option to purchase a longer barrel for hunting and sporting use. Conversely, many hunting shotguns have a shorter barrel option for tactical use. A magazine tube can have an extension added to increase capacity (along with a longer spring). Shotguns coming with a full length magazine can be fitted with a plug to prevent more than the legal number of shells from being inserted (or the extension can be removed and replaced with an endcap). For younger children, remember that a 12 gauge will likely be too heavy and generate too much recoil for many of them. There is nothing wrong with a 20 gauge! As 00 buckshot is not typically available for 20 gauge, its acceptable to substitute #1 buckshot. It still has nine pellets and each is 0.30 in diameter. That is more than sufficient to accomplish the task as hand, especially if your spouse is recoil sensitive. Remember, whether it's in your role as a parent or a spouse, it's your obligation to educate your family about firearms.
I want to address pump vs. semi-automatic shotguns. The bottomline here is that there is that a pump action is going to be the preferred option for most people. With practice, a pump action can be fired almost as quickly as a semi-automatic. A big advantage to a pump action is the fact that it will work with nearly any ammunition. While a semi-automatic may be slightly faster, they also tend to be far more prone to malfuction. This can be lethal in a gunfight and the slight speed advantage is usually not worth it. Of course, if you have the coin for a Benelli M2 or M4, you will have an extremely reliable shotgun. Still, even with these top of the line designs, several range trips will be required to break in a semi-automatic shotgun and learn what kind of shells it likes. A good pump action will be a fraction of the price and is inherently reliable. Although my friends in high school know I used to be a very big fan of the Remington 870, my personal taste has switched to the Mossberg 590 or the Benelli Nova. Finally, the magazine fed shotguns are a relatively new development for both pump and semi-automatic designs. Thusfar, the few that are commercially available for pump actions have been less than user friendly. While magazine fed semi-automatics have gotten better, they still tend to be less reliable than their tubular magazine counterparts. With practice, a shotgun can be reloaded quicker than one might expect.
The final factor I want to address for shotguns is what I call the "grand jury" factor. The truth is that, if you shoot a person with a shotgun who has broken into your home, the likelihood of that person losing their life is extremely high - far higher than if they had been shot with a handgun or even a relatively light rifle like an AR-15. The anti-gun left talks about an AR-15 ruining the meat of a game animal, but they really don't know what they are talking about. I have worked in game processing. I have seen deer hit with an AR-15 and I have seen deer hit with 12 or 20 gauge shotguns. The meat loss on those deer hit with an AR is minimal and really no different from what you would see with any other rifle. As for a deer hit with a shotgun, the hunter typically has far less salvageable meat because so much has been mangled. That having been said, whether you are justified or not, you are likely to be arrested. At the very least, the case will go before a grand jury. It is in this moment that the lawyer you hire will thank you. Why? Because those who don't understand firearms see the shotgun as a generic kind of weapon - an inherently reasonable item for someone to own - and the type of think that even Joe Biden doesn't think should be illegal (at least not yet). Even though the shotgun is far more lethal at close range, the AR-15 rifle and Glock pistol are seen as evil by leftists who may be sitting in the grand jury panel. In short, it is more likely that a person who used a shotgun to fend off a burglar will be found to have used reasonable force than the person who used an AR-15. When your freedom (and your gun rights) is on the line, you will want every advantage in your favor against what may very well be a prosecutor whose campaign was funded by George Soros.
We will start by addressing some of the disadvantages of the shotgun. The biggest one is its capacity. Except for those interested in obtaining a tax stamp, paying a $200.00 sin tax, and waiting almost a year, the minimum legal length of a shotgun barrel is eighteen (18) inches while the minimum legal length for a rifle barrel is sixteen (16) inches. A vast majority of tactical shotguns will feature an 18.5" barrel solely because there seems to be some disagreement among the alphabet boys about where they start and stop measuring. The magazine of a typical shotguns (and I will address the exceptions below) runs underneath the barrel. While a shotgun setup for hunting will typically hold 4 - 5 shots (with a plug in the magazine to limit the capacity to 2+1), a tactical shotgun will normally hold between 7+1 and 8+1 if the length of the magazine is approximately flush with the end of the barrel. A magazine fed shotgun can increase this to 10 or more shots, although there are some drawbacks to this. So why would we use a weapon that holds about the same amount of ammunition as an M1911A1 pistol (not that there is anything wrong with the M1911A1 - I still love it)?
The answer is derived from the type of ammunition intended for use in a tactical shotgun and its realistic effective range. The "go to" home defense load for a shotgun is 00 buckshot. There are many people who do not understand what 00 buckshot will do to a person, and I will now explain it: a good 00 buckshot shell in a twelve gauge will place nine 0.33 caliber pellets (so not much smaller than a 9mm bullet) in an area the size of the palm of your hand. I particularly like the 00 buckshot made by Federal Ammunition with its patented flite-control wad for maximum devastation. The notion that a shotgun relieves you of your obligation to aim at close range is a myth. Think just for a moment about what a round like that will do. If put into a rapist's head, his brains are on the opposite end of the house. A high center chest shot on a home invader will turn the heart into gel or pulverize a lung. A gut shot will disembowel a burglar. Even a hit to the pelvic girdle will cause a would-be human trafficker to bleed out in seconds as the femoral artery is severed. What the shotgun lacks in capacity it makes up for in its ability to be an instant fight-stopper. There is nothing more lethal at close range. This is a lesson that German soldiers in WW1 learned first hand when they protested the use of the Winchester 1897 trench gun as being inhumane and a violation of treaty. American GIs who carried that weapon soon learned that capture by the Germans meant execution as a war criminal. The 1897 is still a badass shotgun, and frankly, pump actions have changed very little in the past 120 years.
The shotgun is a longer weapon than a rifle or a pistol and, for most shooters, this will not be a major concern. It is your responsibility as a homeowner to teach your family what to do in an emergency and, unless your child needs to be rescued, trying to "clear" your home as though you were a member of SEAL Team 6 is a stupid idea that is likely to get you and your family killed. The plan for personal protection inside the home is to get you and your family to a single room and make intentions known to the bad guy: you shout to them that cops are on their way, that you have a gun, and any who come through the door of that room will meet Jesus. Some may ask why I would want to limit myself to 7 - 9 shots in this situation and why I wouldn't want something capable of holding more ammunition. The answer, as set fort above, is because it should only take a single shot to be lethal. Another consideration is the children. In any house with children, firearms should always be locked up when not in use. This means the discipline to remove the gun from the safe every night and put it by your bed and then lock it back up the following morning. However, the nice thing about a shotgun is that it's far more difficult for kids to shoot themselves with one. Even tactical varieties are too long and heavy for very young children to operate at all.
Speaking of children, another reason to own a shotgun is because they are quite suitable for hunting and clay shooting. Firearms have become far more modular over the years. Most modern tactical shotguns have the option to purchase a longer barrel for hunting and sporting use. Conversely, many hunting shotguns have a shorter barrel option for tactical use. A magazine tube can have an extension added to increase capacity (along with a longer spring). Shotguns coming with a full length magazine can be fitted with a plug to prevent more than the legal number of shells from being inserted (or the extension can be removed and replaced with an endcap). For younger children, remember that a 12 gauge will likely be too heavy and generate too much recoil for many of them. There is nothing wrong with a 20 gauge! As 00 buckshot is not typically available for 20 gauge, its acceptable to substitute #1 buckshot. It still has nine pellets and each is 0.30 in diameter. That is more than sufficient to accomplish the task as hand, especially if your spouse is recoil sensitive. Remember, whether it's in your role as a parent or a spouse, it's your obligation to educate your family about firearms.
I want to address pump vs. semi-automatic shotguns. The bottomline here is that there is that a pump action is going to be the preferred option for most people. With practice, a pump action can be fired almost as quickly as a semi-automatic. A big advantage to a pump action is the fact that it will work with nearly any ammunition. While a semi-automatic may be slightly faster, they also tend to be far more prone to malfuction. This can be lethal in a gunfight and the slight speed advantage is usually not worth it. Of course, if you have the coin for a Benelli M2 or M4, you will have an extremely reliable shotgun. Still, even with these top of the line designs, several range trips will be required to break in a semi-automatic shotgun and learn what kind of shells it likes. A good pump action will be a fraction of the price and is inherently reliable. Although my friends in high school know I used to be a very big fan of the Remington 870, my personal taste has switched to the Mossberg 590 or the Benelli Nova. Finally, the magazine fed shotguns are a relatively new development for both pump and semi-automatic designs. Thusfar, the few that are commercially available for pump actions have been less than user friendly. While magazine fed semi-automatics have gotten better, they still tend to be less reliable than their tubular magazine counterparts. With practice, a shotgun can be reloaded quicker than one might expect.
The final factor I want to address for shotguns is what I call the "grand jury" factor. The truth is that, if you shoot a person with a shotgun who has broken into your home, the likelihood of that person losing their life is extremely high - far higher than if they had been shot with a handgun or even a relatively light rifle like an AR-15. The anti-gun left talks about an AR-15 ruining the meat of a game animal, but they really don't know what they are talking about. I have worked in game processing. I have seen deer hit with an AR-15 and I have seen deer hit with 12 or 20 gauge shotguns. The meat loss on those deer hit with an AR is minimal and really no different from what you would see with any other rifle. As for a deer hit with a shotgun, the hunter typically has far less salvageable meat because so much has been mangled. That having been said, whether you are justified or not, you are likely to be arrested. At the very least, the case will go before a grand jury. It is in this moment that the lawyer you hire will thank you. Why? Because those who don't understand firearms see the shotgun as a generic kind of weapon - an inherently reasonable item for someone to own - and the type of think that even Joe Biden doesn't think should be illegal (at least not yet). Even though the shotgun is far more lethal at close range, the AR-15 rifle and Glock pistol are seen as evil by leftists who may be sitting in the grand jury panel. In short, it is more likely that a person who used a shotgun to fend off a burglar will be found to have used reasonable force than the person who used an AR-15. When your freedom (and your gun rights) is on the line, you will want every advantage in your favor against what may very well be a prosecutor whose campaign was funded by George Soros.
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