One gun?
One gun?
For the range and home defense?
Make it a rifle.
Make it a rifle that has easy to find spare parts.
Make it a NFA rifle to make it more versatile.
Start with an AR15 in 16 inch midlength configuration.
Too expensive? Good guns *are* expensive. Order it in the popular Bushmaster lower, Sabre defense upper flavor.
Stock up on cheap magazines and spare parts while we don't have any restrictive legislation. Get good with the rifle. A pistol can't get you hits at 700 yards... a nice rifle can. A rifle transfers more energy to the target than a pistol could ever hope too. An AR15 in 5.56x45 is capable of peircing armor. No BG is safe.
Assault rifles are the SUVs of the weapon world. They can do it all. Range work, security, hunting...
Tell your friends your going a different route.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The longer the barrel, the longer gas can accelerate the bullet down the barrel, the faster it goes. Too a point.
The longer the site radius, the more accuratly the *user* can shoot the gun.
Length of barrel has no effect on accuracy of the gun itself. A 7 inch barrel will shoot just as accuratly as a 20 inch barrel if not more because of its stiffness.
+P+ bullets are marked as high pressure. You can guess that they shoot the round at a higher velocity than your plinking ammo.
+p+ is moot when discussing rifles chambered in hot rounds such as 5.56x45. 3200 feet per second out of a 20 inch barrel. Such a rifle chambered in the round doesn't really need +p+ ammo.
"Stopping power"
In reality, it is how fast the bad guys blood pressure drops to zero, or, if you get lucky... you flick off his light switch by destroying his CNS.
Cause lots of blood loss very quickly.
.45 may be bigger than a .223 / 5.56x45, but the damage .45 does isn't even close to what the much smaller in diameter .223 can dish out. At extreme velocities, bullets can do some cool things. 5.56 fragments heavily and tears up all sorts of manflesh deep inside a bad guys chest. A good .45 might mushroom and penetrate deep... but it cannot mach a rifle with decent bad guy ammo such as TAP
A gun is a tool to transfer kinetic energy to a target. Man made this tool to transfer energy to distant targets that he or she could not otherwise reach. Same with the Bow. If you choose to own only one gun, why not make it one that is versatile enough to fulfill your roles, AND hit targets as far as your eye can see?
Rifle Rifle Rifle
Not my pic, but if you want versatility: