Why a shotgun for home defense?

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Mike128

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I already have a Benelli M1 with 26 inch barrel for birdhunting. Recently I passed on a good deal on a 18 inch barrel M1 that was set up for home defense. The reason was because I'm not sure what advantage a shotgun offers over other weapon systems.

It's longer, heavier, and holds fewer shells/cartridges. I know it's more powerful but what else?
 
Other than multiple rounds of buck shot going down range at the same time the psychological advantage is fantastic. Nothing like a perp hearing you chamber a round in your pump action shotgun to let him know you mean business.
 
Man stopper

The shotgun will stop an attacker like nothing else, especially when loaded with buckshot. A rifle can do the job too but the shotgun is more decisive with less external and overpenetration in the home.
 
Shotguns often can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of a new a new rifle and do the job very well with in their limitations.
 
At home defense ranges the shotgun will cause tremendous tissue damage, and shock to the nervous system of any attacker. It will defenitely end any threat to your person.
 
The shotgun is an excellent, and versatile home defense weapon.
For me, it is a tertiary weapon. My main SD weapons are a pistol, and an M1 carbine. But, the shotgun plays a role as well.
I certainly would not count on the oft-repeated "pumping the shotgun makes bad guys run" story. I would prefer my pump shotgun to be fully loaded when confronting a threat.
 
Nothing like a perp hearing you chamber a round in your pump action shotgun to let him know you mean business.
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Please, no - we're not going to get into another argument in this thread about whether it's good ("it makes the Bad Boyz wet their pants!") or bad ("it telegraphs your position and readiness to the Bad Boyz and makes you an easier target!") to rack the slide of a pump shotgun when dealing with a potential SD/HD situation.

Please.

For having a discussion about the role of a shotgun in HD/SD, I suggest reading this thread for ideas: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=29131
 
The shotgun will stop an attacker like nothing else, especially when loaded with buckshot.
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Only when loaded with buckshot.

That's not to say that I would want to be blasted with a quail gun at close range, but it's not the end-all of manstoppers.
 
If you don't 1) already have a shotgun, and 2) know how to use it well... there's no particular reason to choose a shotgun for HD, IF you have something else that you can handle/shoot better and have more confidence with. Heresy, you say? Well, charge on, scattergun brethren, with your charge of heresy. But hear me out, and think about this a bit.

My sig line says- mindset, skillset, toolset. What comes LAST in the equation?

Hardware.

THE SHOOTER is the most important element in the equation. The shooter's mindset, and the shooter's skillset, are FAR more important than the mere tool chosen for the job. How often have you heard said here- "Most any gun will do, if YOU will do?"

A better question IMHO to ask is this one: "Is a shotgun enough of a better choice for HD to make it worth while to buy one, and learn to use it effectively?" And the answer to that one is IMHO a resounding YES! It is a better defensive weapon for several reasons.

1) Long guns are easier to hit with under pressure than handguns. Four points of contact with the long gun (shoulder, cheek, shooting hand, support hand) make it more manageable than two points of contact with the handgun (shooting hand, support hand).

2) Long guns in useful defensive calibers are sufficiently more powerful than most handguns to give them an overwhelming advantage for defensive purposes.

3) The argument of superior maneuverability with a handgun is completely offset by proper training in the defensive use of a long gun. Likewise the retainability of a properly employed long gun in trained hands is at least equal to that of a handgun. And no one who has any options is going to be out searching their house alone if there really are indications an intrusion has taken place.

THE ONLY reasons for moving out of a secure location in that event are to secure children or other family members who are sleeping in other rooms, and a well planned floor plan and a good home defense plan will minimize even that. See the class information for Personal Protection In The Home at http://www.nrainstructors.org/CourseCatalog.aspx . Look into taking that class, or at least seeing the DVD of the classroom portion of it at http://materials.nrahq.org/go/product.aspx?productid=ES 26840 . Louis Awerbuck's video Safe At Home is also very good IMHO- http://www.paladin-press.com/product/129/73 . But hands-on training with a good instructor is the best possible approach IMHO.

I personally believe a good reliable shotgun in trained hands is the best possible weapon for home defense, or personal defense at close range. With its larger bore size and heavier projectile weight, it is a devastating antipersonnel weapon. It does have disadvantages- everything does, after all. Shotguns can be heavy, recoil unpleasantly, have limited magazine capacity. All those can be overcome with careful, open minded selection of the best gun for the individual shooter, with good fitting of gun to shooter and with good training.

Of course, YMMV.

lpl
 
The real disadvantage of a defensive shotgun, for a person without physical limitations, is that it doesn't fit well with the first rule of armed self-defense: have a gun.

That's likely the reason that 80% of defensive firearms uses in the US are with handguns.

However, if you want a "stopper" in your home, where presumably you can store and secure a shotgun much more easily than on your person, the shotgun is the objectively more powerful weapon, by a good margin.
 
The advantages Lee Lapin listed for the shotgun apply, really, to any longarm suitable for a self defense weapon.
My M1 carbine is short, light, holds 15 or 30 rounds of SP or FMJ ammo, and points like a finger. It can put rounds on target at 100yds as easily as at point blank. It can be kept fully unloaded, and put into action very quickly by slapping in a mag and working the op slide.
I like the shotgun just fine...been shooting them for decades. I just prefer the semi-auto carbine for an all around weapon.
 
Shotguns often can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of a new a new rifle and do the job very well with in their limitations.
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You forgot to include cheaper than a typical handgun as well; ammunition is cheaper and more readily available, it DOES take skill, albeit not as much to be as good as a handgun; it is typically easier, (assuming proper stock fit), for more folks to shoot well

Did I mention it is cheaper than a handgun or rifle?

They have NO limitations compared to a rifle for home defense. HD stops at the distance that the BG is no longer a threat to your safety
 
The shotgun will stop an attacker like nothing else, especially when loaded with buckshot.
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Ditto. One load of 00 Buck center of mass will end the situation... now.

Plus, a long gun is easier to aim than a pistol, yet the buckshot will not suffer the same over-penetration of a rifle. You also get a little bit of spread, increasing your likelihood of making a hit... instead of say a 0.30" hit radius, you have a fist sized hit radius.
 
Handguns require a lot more practice to be proficient with them. A friend of mine who is new to shooting was making 12" groups at 7 yards with his .357 on his 3rd time shooting but was dead on with his 870. With sufficient training though I think handguns are fine personal defense weapons. A lot is made about the amazing power of shotguns but handguns get the job done in most cases.

I like shotguns because of the wide variety of ammo you can use in them, from slugs that will punch thru a solid wood door to birdshot that will barely make it thru a wall. But if I had no penetration concerns I'd rather have a small carbine.
 
It's longer, heavier, and holds fewer shells/cartridges. I know it's more powerful but what else?
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SO, are you saying you prefer "spray and pray" over accurate shot placement? perhaps you should use a single shot - learn to make your one shot count....
 
To me the shotgun's biggest strengths are the hit probability under stress and the speed at which you make those hits. Basically very few other types of guns are going to be as fast getting the lead on target, and of those that can, none are going to as brutally effective.

I would actually feel handicapped using a carbine over a shotgun at any kind of socially likely distance.
 
Three words.

Cheap. Powerful. Quick.


In home defense, you won't need the long range of a rifle. You won't need to conceal it like a pistol. The shotgun's less expensive than either, and is in my opinion, a lot quicker to get into action, just from a standpoint of pointing and shooting. It'll also stop a bad guy in less shots than any other weapon.

Of course once you're into the price ranges of Benelli semi autos, in my opinion you can pretty much go with whatever feels right for you, rifle or shotgun.
 
When you are fighting for your life, you must use the most devastating weapon you can get. No weapon is more devastating in close quarters than a shotgun. In thinking it is limited in firepower because of the number of shots it fires without reloading, you must also consider how much lead it can move in a very short period of time. If you have a 7 round magazine, that's 56 pellets of 00 buck, or 189 pellets of #4 buck. It's a matter of training to make sure you put as many of them as possible on target. You need to practice and pattern your gun.

I do not rely on the sound of the slide racking to scare an intruder. Ideally, the only thing an intruder will hear is whatever amount of the bang that gets processed through his brain before it shuts down. I don't want to warn the bad guy or give away my position with the sound of the slide. A this time, I do leave the chamber empty with the slide locked, but it's because I have kids in the house, not because I like to make the noise before I fire.
 
There's that recent example of a store owner in NYC who used a shotgun to take out some robbers as they were running out. He says he didn't aim, but rather pointed in their direction as they were running out. I don't know about you, but that seems like something I could do with a shotgun. My confidence comes mostly from shooting flying clays at the range. I don't have the same confidence with a rifle.
 
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