bill2
Member
this is from a blog (http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/200953.php) that I got to from instapundit.com. It deals with helping newbies select home defense options. Read it and comment.
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It seems that as we get closer to the holidays, we see an increase in the number of potential firearms purchasers inquiring about home defense weapons for the first time.
Most potential purchasers turn to the "gun expert" in their family or circle of friends for guidance, who often in turn glean their information from other shooters and from gun magazines. Employees of gun shops are often another resource that people know and trust. Sadly, most of the information provided by all of these experts is—in my not so humble opinion—completely wrong.
Pick up any popular gun magazine in the United States today, and you will be quickly overwhelmed at the plethora of tricked-out tactical carbines based on the M16/AR15 platform, intimidating 12-guage combat shotguns, and highly customized pistols costing thousands of dollars. Odds are that when the conversation comes around to which firearms is best suited for home defense, gun magazine authors and your neighborhoods experts will quickly zero in on a 12-guage pump-action shotgun in one flavor or another, with 00-buckshot often mentioned as the ammunition of choice.
You could make a worse choice—a long-barreled single-shot Sharps rifle in .45/70, or on the other extreme, a cheap .25 semi-automatic pistol—but the ubiquitous 12-guage pump touted by neighborhood amateurs and professional gun writers is often the wrong choice for most homeowners.
I first addressed the point when I wrote a post called Overcoming The "Viagra Theory" of Home Defense on March 15 in response to an Instapundit reader looking for advice on a home security shotgun that could be used by her and her husband.
She wrote:
I have a great little .22 Browning rifle for plinking, but my husband and I are looking to purchase a shotgun for home security. Not sure what's the best shotgun to get for this, although I'm leaning towards a pump action for the sound effects, which I'm told can be a good deterrent. Would love to hear recommendations from folks. Also wondering if we can get a shotgun that can also be used for trap or skeet, or are guns just too specialized these days? Looking for cost info too, for new and used. Thanks for your advice!
This is very similar to the questions I got from husband-and-wife customers of mine two weeks ago under a far more stressful situation. They were two young homeowners awoken the previous night when someone attempted to force open the back door of their home. When they came to me the following evening they were still visibly shaken as they explained that they’d talked to an "expert" they knew who suggested a 12-gauge pump shotgun equipped with a extended magazine and filled with 00-buckshot cartridges. They were not the first customers sent to me who had been told to make that specific choice by the "experts" they knew, and they won't be the last. They went home with something else.
Why?
As mentioned previously, gun geeks are a knowledgeable lot, but not all of what they "know" applies to all people in all situations. Most of your gun magazine writers are by definition long-term firearms users, usually with military, law enforcement, and/or hunting backgrounds. The vast majority of these writers became familiar with the idea of a 12-gauge shotgun filled with 00-buckshot because that is the most common gauge and loading issued to military and police shotgun users over the past 100 years. As a result, the conventional wisdom, based upon decades of successful use of this combination in military and police shootings, not to mention millions of successful big-game animals harvested, is that this loading works. It is almost unquestioned.
But are soldiers and police officers the same audience as home defense purchasers, and would they use their firearms in the same way, and in the same kinds of situations? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding "no."
12-gauge shotguns used by the military are primarily used for close-quarters offensive operations, like house-to-house fighting, and in guarding prisoners. Shotguns used by police are generally used to augment handguns in standoff situations or for guarding prisoners. In both instances, the person wielding the shotgun, either soldier or policeman, is likely to be a reasonably fit male with formal weapons training that is interjecting himself into a situation where he desires to control and overwhelm an opponent with superior short-range firepower.
Homeowners defending their lives against home invasion do not share the same goals, training, or in many instances, physical characteristics as those assumed by gun writers and other experts.
Unless the Census Bureau is way off, the majority of the American population is neither young nor male, nor necessarily in the best of health. Once you consider that a significant number of potential home defense customers are small-framed women, men, or youth, or may be aging, or may have other issues that prevent them from easily controlling a full-size 12-gauge shotgun, the absurdity of recommending this firearm to all home defense users becomes readily apparent.
In the example of my customers above, both were on the short and stocky side, and a full-size shotgun of any gauge was simply out of the equation. Neither could easily shoulder the weapon. All too often, gun writers and other experts overlook this basic issue.
In addition to the size of their frames, neither customer had much experience with firearms nor physically very strong, and so expecting them to reasonably control a shotgun with a pistol grip was also a dubious prospect. The fact that they lived in a community with a relatively high population density—small homes back-to-back and side to side-to-side small lots—made overpenetration also a significant issue.
What did I end up recommending?
This (the link didn't come across so here it is; http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3197/is_n3_v37/ai_12462187), specifically, even though it was not something we currently had in stock at the time.
While sniffed at by the experts, a .410-bore shotgun loaded with birdshot possesses more close-range stopping power than any popular handgun caliber, with far less danger of overpenetration. It is also much easier to operate and shoot accurately in high-stress situations than any handgun (which required well-practiced fine motor skills). The fact that this particular variant came with a laser-sight made it even more appropriate for these specific customers.
Is a .410 pump shotgun the "perfect" home defense weapon? Of course not; no weapon exists that can address the needs of all homes and homeowners. But what the HS 410 and other similar shotguns offer is a better compromise for most users, one that can be employed more successfully by a greater number of people. It is also often found at a far more reasonable price that the four-figure tactical firearms that seem to compose the bulk of the gun media's editorializing these days.
The advice I gave to the two customers I worked with was partially heeded. They were determined to leave the gun counter with something that night, and as I happened to be out of .410s at that time, they did as good as the could have under their self-imposed deadline.
They went with smaller shotgun than the full-size extended-magazine military-issue 12-gauge recommended by their friend. They selected a youth model 20-gauge with a shorter stock that both of them could handle reasonably well. They also went with light target loads instead of buckshot, which will be just as effective for the 12-15 ranges that they would expect, while being far safer in their dense suburban neighborhood.
There is no "one size fits all" solution for home defense. I simply wish more "experts" were willing to admit it.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at October 17, 2006 10:10 AM | TrackBack
________________________________________________
It seems that as we get closer to the holidays, we see an increase in the number of potential firearms purchasers inquiring about home defense weapons for the first time.
Most potential purchasers turn to the "gun expert" in their family or circle of friends for guidance, who often in turn glean their information from other shooters and from gun magazines. Employees of gun shops are often another resource that people know and trust. Sadly, most of the information provided by all of these experts is—in my not so humble opinion—completely wrong.
Pick up any popular gun magazine in the United States today, and you will be quickly overwhelmed at the plethora of tricked-out tactical carbines based on the M16/AR15 platform, intimidating 12-guage combat shotguns, and highly customized pistols costing thousands of dollars. Odds are that when the conversation comes around to which firearms is best suited for home defense, gun magazine authors and your neighborhoods experts will quickly zero in on a 12-guage pump-action shotgun in one flavor or another, with 00-buckshot often mentioned as the ammunition of choice.
You could make a worse choice—a long-barreled single-shot Sharps rifle in .45/70, or on the other extreme, a cheap .25 semi-automatic pistol—but the ubiquitous 12-guage pump touted by neighborhood amateurs and professional gun writers is often the wrong choice for most homeowners.
I first addressed the point when I wrote a post called Overcoming The "Viagra Theory" of Home Defense on March 15 in response to an Instapundit reader looking for advice on a home security shotgun that could be used by her and her husband.
She wrote:
I have a great little .22 Browning rifle for plinking, but my husband and I are looking to purchase a shotgun for home security. Not sure what's the best shotgun to get for this, although I'm leaning towards a pump action for the sound effects, which I'm told can be a good deterrent. Would love to hear recommendations from folks. Also wondering if we can get a shotgun that can also be used for trap or skeet, or are guns just too specialized these days? Looking for cost info too, for new and used. Thanks for your advice!
This is very similar to the questions I got from husband-and-wife customers of mine two weeks ago under a far more stressful situation. They were two young homeowners awoken the previous night when someone attempted to force open the back door of their home. When they came to me the following evening they were still visibly shaken as they explained that they’d talked to an "expert" they knew who suggested a 12-gauge pump shotgun equipped with a extended magazine and filled with 00-buckshot cartridges. They were not the first customers sent to me who had been told to make that specific choice by the "experts" they knew, and they won't be the last. They went home with something else.
Why?
As mentioned previously, gun geeks are a knowledgeable lot, but not all of what they "know" applies to all people in all situations. Most of your gun magazine writers are by definition long-term firearms users, usually with military, law enforcement, and/or hunting backgrounds. The vast majority of these writers became familiar with the idea of a 12-gauge shotgun filled with 00-buckshot because that is the most common gauge and loading issued to military and police shotgun users over the past 100 years. As a result, the conventional wisdom, based upon decades of successful use of this combination in military and police shootings, not to mention millions of successful big-game animals harvested, is that this loading works. It is almost unquestioned.
But are soldiers and police officers the same audience as home defense purchasers, and would they use their firearms in the same way, and in the same kinds of situations? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding "no."
12-gauge shotguns used by the military are primarily used for close-quarters offensive operations, like house-to-house fighting, and in guarding prisoners. Shotguns used by police are generally used to augment handguns in standoff situations or for guarding prisoners. In both instances, the person wielding the shotgun, either soldier or policeman, is likely to be a reasonably fit male with formal weapons training that is interjecting himself into a situation where he desires to control and overwhelm an opponent with superior short-range firepower.
Homeowners defending their lives against home invasion do not share the same goals, training, or in many instances, physical characteristics as those assumed by gun writers and other experts.
Unless the Census Bureau is way off, the majority of the American population is neither young nor male, nor necessarily in the best of health. Once you consider that a significant number of potential home defense customers are small-framed women, men, or youth, or may be aging, or may have other issues that prevent them from easily controlling a full-size 12-gauge shotgun, the absurdity of recommending this firearm to all home defense users becomes readily apparent.
In the example of my customers above, both were on the short and stocky side, and a full-size shotgun of any gauge was simply out of the equation. Neither could easily shoulder the weapon. All too often, gun writers and other experts overlook this basic issue.
In addition to the size of their frames, neither customer had much experience with firearms nor physically very strong, and so expecting them to reasonably control a shotgun with a pistol grip was also a dubious prospect. The fact that they lived in a community with a relatively high population density—small homes back-to-back and side to side-to-side small lots—made overpenetration also a significant issue.
What did I end up recommending?
This (the link didn't come across so here it is; http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3197/is_n3_v37/ai_12462187), specifically, even though it was not something we currently had in stock at the time.
While sniffed at by the experts, a .410-bore shotgun loaded with birdshot possesses more close-range stopping power than any popular handgun caliber, with far less danger of overpenetration. It is also much easier to operate and shoot accurately in high-stress situations than any handgun (which required well-practiced fine motor skills). The fact that this particular variant came with a laser-sight made it even more appropriate for these specific customers.
Is a .410 pump shotgun the "perfect" home defense weapon? Of course not; no weapon exists that can address the needs of all homes and homeowners. But what the HS 410 and other similar shotguns offer is a better compromise for most users, one that can be employed more successfully by a greater number of people. It is also often found at a far more reasonable price that the four-figure tactical firearms that seem to compose the bulk of the gun media's editorializing these days.
The advice I gave to the two customers I worked with was partially heeded. They were determined to leave the gun counter with something that night, and as I happened to be out of .410s at that time, they did as good as the could have under their self-imposed deadline.
They went with smaller shotgun than the full-size extended-magazine military-issue 12-gauge recommended by their friend. They selected a youth model 20-gauge with a shorter stock that both of them could handle reasonably well. They also went with light target loads instead of buckshot, which will be just as effective for the 12-15 ranges that they would expect, while being far safer in their dense suburban neighborhood.
There is no "one size fits all" solution for home defense. I simply wish more "experts" were willing to admit it.
Posted by Confederate Yankee at October 17, 2006 10:10 AM | TrackBack
