Monday, March 23, 2015
Shotguns and Rifles
The shotgun is considered by many to be the ultimate home defense weapon. While there is no disputing the effectiveness of a shotgun, there are certainly drawbacks to using a shotgun inside the home.
The shotgun’s extended sight radius—along with the fact that it enables you to have both hands on the weapon while achieving a cheek weld and shoulder mount—makes it easier to aim than a handgun. It’s important to realize when hunting fowl with a shotgun, it’s often said the shotgun should be “pointed” rather than aimed. However, when you are confronting a criminal inside your residence, you need to aim; contrary to popular opinion, you can miss with a shotgun.
Since the shotgun is designed to be operated with two hands, opening doors, turning on lights and other seemingly routine tasks associated with searching your home for a bad guy can be a bit of a challenge. Another concern is the shotgun’s barrel length, which can make it difficult to maneuver around corners without telegraphing your intent.
If you load your shotgun with 00 buckshot, it may be difficult to ensure that all eight or nine pellets (depending on the brand) hit your intended target. While it may not take all of the pellets to incapacitate your adversary, stray pellets could injure or kill the very people you intend to protect.
Rifled slugs can be very accurate, but there are tremendous over-penetration issues associated with these projectiles. With slugs you need to worry about your neighbors as well as the occupants of your own home.
The use of birdshot in a home defense shotgun is somewhat controversial. While over-penetration is certainly mitigated, many speculate as to whether birdshot would incapacitate a determined assailant.
There’s no doubt that a rifle is easier to shoot accurately that handgun. Rifles like the immensely popular AR-15 platform afford you increased ballistic performance and higher ammunition capacity than most other firearms. However, they share many of the limitations of a shotgun when it comes to clearing your residence in search of an intruder. Rifles and other shoulder-fired weapons also tend to be less accessible than handguns during a home defense situation.