Shotgun for SD Questions

[Guy B. Meredith]

I just recently became aware that California laws DON'T require me to hide in my home and hope BGs go away. It is legal to begin defense outside the home if harm is to be done to you or your neighbors. This means Californians are allowed to respond to drive by attacks as long as the perp is not leaving the scene--if you see them coming you can defend yourself and neighbors from the danger.

Sooooo... What is the effective range on 00 buckshot in taking out BGs in cars? Would I need to use slugs? Bullets are often not effective when going through front windows of cars, what is the effect of buckshot?

[pauli]

personally, i would be extremely leery of shooting at someone in the street, defending my house - where i live, every pellet that misses will intersect with a neighbor's house before they run out of range. god forbid i start launching slugs at the kid across the street by accident. i mean he's really not too bright.

[Guy B. Meredith]

I agree. The reason for the question came about from a question about defense against firebombers as recently happened in this area. Turns out that even California allows you to prevent your house being burned down if you are in it.

Next step is to wonder what options are if one of the people from a very famous nearby city decides to do their practice shooting in the neighborhood. If someone is shooting at the neighbor across the street California allows you to assist. In this case I would not want to come out with my only rifle--a .30-06--for the above reasons, but the range would be about 25 yards.

The question is whether 12 GA 00 Buckshot would be effective (and hopefully safe for the neighbor) under these circumstances.

[Preacherman]

Guy, no rifle or shotgun round - even birdshot - can be relied upon to be both effective in your defence, and safe in the context of neighbors or bystanders. I'd suggest that buckshot and birdshot are of minimal use against a target in a vehicle, and that slugs would be the way to go - but these also pose a greatly increased risk of ricochet and over-penetration. For that reason, I'd suggest that your best approach is to wait until the threat is on your property, posing a direct and immediate danger, and then use something appropriate like buckshot to take him/her/it out. If you're shooting at longer ranges, into the street, there is simply too great a risk to others in a dense urban environment.

[beerslurpy]

Use buckshot and only shoot when you have a clear shot. Randomly lobbing rounds about is dangerous regardless of caliber.

That being said, drivebys call for rifle power. Lots of cyclic rate, lots of penetration. MG42 if you could swing it. But since you live in CA, mini-14, SU-16, CA legal AR or AK/saiga would all work. You want something that will slice through a car door and kill whoever is on the other side. Buckshot is iffy at 50 yards. Add light cover and all bets are off.

[The-Fly]

i'd be REAL careful chucking rounds at a moving car, its not as easy as the movies make it out to be, and more then likely some socialist DA will charge your ass. On a technical level, for shooting through cars, i wouldnt use 223, too light of a round IMHO. I'd go with 7.62 x 39. Since AK's arent legal there, maybe a mini-30 ?

[beerslurpy]

Kalashnikov USA Saigas are illegal, but not the EAA Saigas or the RAAC Saigas.

So technically AKs are sort of legal in CA.

In any case, there are plenty of other guns that take 7.62x39. SKS, Mini-30.

Other semiautos in car chewing calibers are the Garand, the M1 carbine, the BAR (tho IMO the hunting guns are overpriced and jammy), M1A.

A mauser in 8mm would also be quite a hammer dropper in terms of knockdown and also penetration of sheet metal.

edit: and you would so get charged in CA, even if you had an airtight reason

[Nematocyst]

Guy,

I'd read P'man's post again.

Now, one more time,
just to make sure
that you understand it.

Then, move.

Nem

[Lee Lapin]

Guy,

Buckshot isn't going to do a lot of good against bad guys in cars, relatively speaking. And 25 yards is getting on out there to the max range that I personally would care to use buckshot even against a soft target. Overpenetration wouldn't likely be a problem, but missed or stray pellets certainly would. Every pellet is going to wind up somewhere... and it's the shooter's responsibility wherever it goes.

Slugs are far more likely to be effective against people in cars. But you may have problems with overpenetration, and once again misses are an issue- moreso than buckshot, given the power of slugs at short range. In urban areas there are no simple solutions to these problems. And it's in urban areas that drivebys and firebombings are most likely to happen.

Wish I could offer more...

lpl/nc (that's why I live in the country)

[Guy B. Meredith]

This whole question is theoretical. At least I sincerely hope so.

So far the only crimes being committed by the residents of those other cities in our otherwise pristine, crime free neighborhood (check the crime stats on relocation websites) is the theft of two of my cars and about a dozen others in a three mile radius.

The firebombing was a little further away. The home invasion robbery with homicide was in the more upscale neighborhood ten miles away as were the series of unrelated murders of women in their homes, including lawyer Horowitz's wife.

I don't believe any action can be, let alone should be, taken in drive by shootings. They would be fair game only if they paused to take shots and long enough to be a continued threat.

Obviously this sort of situation would be a very exceptional one, each round must be accounted for and have some reasonable guarantee of landing where it is effective. To do otherwise would endanger rather than assist victims and bystanders.