Lookit, you can listen to whoever you want to from whatever source you think you're getting the best information from. It's your choice, your decision, if you buy a shotgun you'll be spending your money, it'll be yours to train with, practice with and shoot as you see fit. No one here will be making a penny off of what you do, and I don't really think anyone here really has an emotional investment in what you decide to do.
You ask a question, most folks on THR will offer the best answer they can give. There's occasionally some static, some snark, some oddball different or individual answers that are different from the mainstream. But most folks here will straight up try to help.
And people who are trolls, abusive, deliberately misleading or who offer wrong or downright dangerous advice or answers get called on it pretty quickly by the membership and the staff here. I haven't seen any of that on your thread. I don't know where your "vexedness" is coming from. In Strategies, Tactics and Training, where I'm assigned to moderate, I occasionally have to remind people that "this isn't your little brother's internet." THR isn't some kind of exclusive club, but we work hard to operate at a higher standard than most of the places on the web, especially the gun boards. Most people here know whereof they speak. We're not real heavy on keyboard commandos, even though this is an open board and anyone can join.
As a result my BS meter is entirely out of calibration here.
Well - recalibrate it then.
Simple fact is that the vast majority of shotguns out there have conventional shotgun type stocks. That includes most LE and military shotguns as well. It's definitely true that more LE and military shotguns nowadays have pistol grip shoulder stocks than even just a few years ago. That's because (in my studied opinion) America is not the gun culture nation it once was, and a larger percentage of folks first get their hands on a firearm in the military in recent years. Since the M-16 became the issue service rifle in the USA several decades ago, all of those folks have learned to shoot with a pistol gripped long gun. A certain percentage of ex-GIs go into LE when they get out. And they take their training with them, which includes a certain affinity for pistol grip long guns.
Others may well disagree with my conclusions above. I've never seen any formal studies done on pistol gip versus conventional stock shotguns and who likes what and why. Like a lot of things in human life, people tend to like best what they first learn how to use.
As to all the other barechested katana fantasy crap out there, while I've never shot another human with a shotgun or anything else, in my previous years working as an EMT I have zipped up body bags on people who have been shot, beaten, cut, slashed and stabbed with various things, and have done my best to keep those who weren't ready for a body bag from needing one. And I can tell you from seeing it done that shotguns can and do remove meat and bone in quantity, and shotguns are the only firearm that does that level of damage regularly with a single solid hit.
For defense of myself, my family, and my home, I'll take a shotgun any time for up close problems of limited scope. Shotguns aren't perfect for every situation - no firearm is - and shotguns definitely have their limitations. But I know those limitations after more than 40 years of shooting shotguns. And I know their advantages too. I'm nothing but an old redneck, and I love me some shotgun.
If you'd rather have a katana, go ahead... we have a Non-Firearm Weapons Forum here too.
