Do You Keep A Shotgun Available For Home Defense

Handguns are mine. A shotgun takes 2 hands to operate. I want the flashlight in my left hand.......AWAY from my body.

a h&r 20”, 20ga, single, loaded with #5 gameshot, is upstairs under my bed. at interior townhouse distances this lighter load will be effective for my protection and safe for neighbors. my main protection is a bedside rossi 3”, 38sp, 5-shot, j-frame revolver, loaded with wadcutters. this setup is sufficient for my safe area. if either one ever ended up in police evidence-locker purgatory because i had to defend myself i wouldn’t cry, too hard.

I have not read the replies yet, but wanted to offer my two bits. I have a shot gun beside my bed and sleep very well.

I never really understood the need for range, I have a feeling that if I am shooting someone at the end of my driveway, my life and the life of my own being in danger is likely to be a little harder to prove. A shotgun pattern over living room distances is basically one big hole....not much time to open up.....we tested it a couple months ago when the kids and inlaws came out for BBQ, and shooting clays in the back yard. We setup a target at living room distance and hit them with a 12, 16 and 20, using just the shot we used for clays, the hole is interesting. I had some leftover hunks of 3/4 sheet rock.....on a side note you know how hard it is to find sheet rock that thick anymore.....and the damage to it at living room distances and the target behind is also interesting. We have all seen the videos of this stuff, but seeing it first hand does make more of an impression on you.

A S&W Governor in the night stand and a 12 gauge loaded with 9 shot 00 buck within arm's reach on the bed stand.

I like the option of a Mossberg 500 with mini-shells and mini-slugs as a back-up... .

WrongHanded said:

If you don't keep a shotgun for HD, why not? And what do you prefer instead, and why?

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primarily, I carry a PM45 so that’s first course of action, I keep a Sig 2022 handy around the house mainly because my wife likes it, lastly there will be a long gun somewhere and that just depends on what I’ve been shooting lately, sometimes that’s an AK, sometimes it’s my 1885 Marlin, during hunting season it may be a 7 mag.

It’s not so much what I prefer as just what I carry + whatever I have out of the safe, which isn’t normally a shotgun.

I have my .40 S&W in a quick open safe by my bedside, and a 12 gauge double barrel with 20" barrels loaded with #4 buck on my wife's side of the bed. She prefers the shotgun over the handgun cause she can shoot it better, especially if under stress.

Until quite recently, I had several shotguns stashed around the house - all 12 gauge, all loaded with 00. I really am not much of a believer in "handgun stopping power" and as Clint Smith says, "I don't want to be involved in a gunfight if I can be involved in a shooting instead". If I really need to discharge a gun in my home, I hope to be able do it once and not have to deal with any return fire.

My boys have turned into teenagers, though, and while they are trained and trustworthy, the friends they bring over are wildcards. I just don't want to pay for good quality shotgun-sized gun vaults, so at least for now, the long guns are back in the safe and an old friend in .44 caliber lives in the bedside "quick access" handgun vault.

I have a Remington 18-inch barrel 12 Ga 870 handy with six in the tube, but my Taurus 66 357 Mag revolver is within arms reach. I checked option 2 in the poll, but it really depends on the circumstances as to what I grab first. None of my other firearms are loaded or half-loaded. They're locked in a safe.

I have a lot of options in handguns, rifles, and shotguns, but I'm a big believer in the effectiveness of a shotgun for quickly putting devastating holes in things at short range. If I were a criminal intruder, there is nothing I'd less like to face than a semi-automatic 12 gauge loaded with buck shot, in the hands of someone who knows how to handle a shotgun.

Yes. Several. I,m in a city neighborhood where houses are close. I don't want a bullet hitting my neighbors. But I do have rifle options. Being in NY state I never got any handguns. Plus there is a little know regulation in the NY SAFE Act that if you, loose your pistol permit for any reason, you have to turn in or get rid of all firearms. So I'm not going to jeopardize my long gun collection just to own a couple handguns.

Isn't NY going to have to change its tune on that stuff, thanks to the SCOTUS ruling? Seems now they'll have to issue you a pistol permit if you apply and don't have a criminal background, putting good citizens on something closer to an even playing field with criminals who have never paid much attention to concealed carry laws...

I keep a shotgun ready to go. Same for a handgun. I don't consider either one to be my primary. I'll plan to grab the one that I think will fit the task at hand best.

e rex said:

Guess I live a sheltered life or just in a good spot because I've never been that scared.

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Nothing to do with "scared" anymore than having a smoke detector and a fire extinguisher handy is about being "scared." As a lifetime student and occasional instructor of the martial arts (since age 13), a lifetime gun owner (since age 10), and a former LEO, I'm not scared of anyone or anything, whether I'm armed or not. I don't stress about it. I'm simply prepared, which affords me the peace of mind to not stress about it.

Benelli M2 loaded with 00 Buck with a mounted light/laser next to my bed at all times. I'm in charge of my family's security so if someone decides to enter my home with bad intentions I want the most effective tool to stop the threat as quickly as possible. The way I see it, handguns are for portability and rifles are for longer distances.

I live alone. All of my friends are shooters. I am never more than ten feet away from a loaded weapon, be it rifle or pistol or shotgun. My nearest neighbor is a quarter mile away and not in line of sight. I couldn't hit him with a stray bullet if I tried. When I am in bed, the nearest weapon is a 12 gauge pump loaded with #4 buck, leaning against the wall, two feet from my head. I guess you could say IT is my primary home defense weapon.

I would like to think my model 58 41 magnum is my primary self defense gun and I'm proficient with the 41 magnum ... BUT the truth is if I'm asleep and things go to bumping in the night ...I'm grabbing the short barreled shotgun loaded with #4 buckshot ... If I start shooting 12 gauge rounds into a bad guys direction ...
getting outta Dodge is usually their first thought ...you would be a fool to stand against a homeowner pumping buckshot in your direction ...they get scared and just might blow you away .
Gary

I keep a shotgun nearby at the ready for four legged or winged critters that bother our hobby horse farm. Opossums carry diseases deadly to horses. The only good opossum is a "no"-possum. Besides, they are so ugly, we are doing them a favor doing them in.

Also, a variety of birds like to peck at our log home looking for insects.

I used to keep a Mossberg 500 in .410 for this service. Works well for the ground based critters but not very effective for the birds. I now keep a Remington 870 in 12 gauge at the ready.

cfullgraf said:

I keep a shotgun nearby at the ready for four legged or winged critters that bother our hobby horse farm. Opossums carry diseases deadly to horses. The only good opossum is a "no"-possum. Besides, they are so ugly, we are doing them a favor doing them in.

Also, a variety of birds like to peck at our log home looking for insects.

I used to keep a Mossberg 500 in .410 for this service. Works well for the ground based critters but not very effective for the birds. I now keep a Remington 870 in 12 gauge at the ready.

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I welcome opossums on my property! They eat mice, roaches, ticks, dead things, and other unwanted pests.
https://www.simplemost.com/what-are-possums-good-for/

I live in the middle of nowhere, with big predators not uncommon. Maybe a rabid animal or a rattlesnake. Chicken killing coyotes always a threat. Maybe a bad person or 2, but unlikely. The shotgun can deal with any of them. But the handgun is handy too.

WisBorn said:

I welcome opossums on my property! They eat mice, roaches, ticks, dead things, and other unwanted pests.
https://www.simplemost.com/what-are-possums-good-for/

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If you had horses and they caught equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) which is transmitted by opossums, you'd feel differently.

https://extension.umn.edu/horse-health/equine-protozoal-myeloencephalitis-epm

One of our horses caught EPM a few years ago and we were lucky and caught it early enough to save the horse. Many folks are not so lucky.

I have a KSG full of mini-shells. 11 buckshot in one tube and 11 slugs in the other. Various handguns placed where needed.

I voted the second option, which turns out to be in the lead in the poll. I'm noise-averse, so would prefer not to implement my 3-shot 870 with pistol grip and low recoil #7.5 beeswax-enhanced 'slugs.' It's loaded that way for HD, loaded with 1oz slugs for bear defence on hikes. Wax slugs hit like a 1oz slug but then quickly break up, reducing potential for harming my kid in the next room or my neighbours in the next house, while thoroughly ripping a new one for whoever it is foolish enough to break into our home.

But my first go-to is a suppressed pistol. I'd really rather not be temporarily deaf in a violent situation with the potential of multiple attackers, whose locations may require hearing to ascertain. Doubt I'd have time for fitting hearing protection during a home invasion. Just waking and getting to my primary weapon would be challenging enough in our small place, the timing between the door getting kicked in and someone being in my bedroom probably no more than 10 seconds, if that. So multiple suppressed shots seem to be a better plan, with the shotgun being brought into play on the very odd chance of a more sustained battle.

The 870 plays a similar backup role on my harness, for SHTF type nonsense, hooking to the shoulder area and clipped to my belt with fastex and webbing. A small suppressed 9mm carbine is my primary there.