Guns for Home Defense: Part Two

Many members of the public suffer from widespread misconceptions about firearms; namely that owning a gun makes one a criminal, and also that banning firearms would make our society safer. This could not be further from the truth however, because a total ban on firearms would serve only to insure the fact that we would become a society of victims, since the criminals tend to ignore banning laws. Remember that the U.S. Constitution guarantees you the right to own a gun, and the founding fathers thought it was so important that they put it ahead of many of our other rights such as the right to trial by jury, or protection from arrest without warrant just to name a couple. The truth is that owning a gun for home defense does not make you a criminal, it makes you smart American!

Moving on, it might be important to point out that there are basically two types of home defense; ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’. As you might guess interior refers to defending one’s self and others inside of a building or dwelling place and exterior refers to engaging a criminal trespasser outside the business or residence but still on the property. Remember, however, that in many jurisdictions, ‘exterior’ defense may be legally questionable!

With that in mind I have been told by many that the best weapon for home defense of any kind is a shotgun. Many say there’s nothing better because a shotgun is a ‘point-and-shoot’ weapon that requires little marksmanship training or ability, and because with a shotgun you can control excessive penetration through walls and other parts of the structure by choosing the right bore and shot size. The latter is one advantage that the shotgun has over a rifle or handgun.

If a shotgun has good and accurate sights and is loaded with slugs, it would do fine for exterior defense situations up to about seventy-five yards, but a rifle may be a better option for exterior work especially at ranges beyond fifty yards. For interior defense with a shotgun you should limit shotshells to No.4 birdshot through No.71/2 birdshot to limit damage to the property. Buckshot is definitely not the proper choice for inside the house!

As for rifles, many consider .223 rifles to be ‘mouse guns’, lacking penetration power. But bear in mind that these so-called ‘varmint cartridges’ can punch through a 5/16 mild steel plate at close ranges. Another choice (and probably a better one) would be a lever action or semiautomatic carbine chambered for a pistol cartridge, such as a .357 magnum (using .38 special rounds), a .44 magnum (using .44 specials), .45 Colt, 9 millimeter parabellum, or .45ACP. Still another choice is to have a .22 semiautomatic rifle. The little .22 is marginal for defending one’s life, but it will do if the shooter makes several hits in fast order. Personally I can see a couple of reasons why someone might choose a rifle for interior defense, one being that there are many places where anti-gun laws make getting a handgun next to impossible. Another reason is because not every one can handle a shotgun’s recoil, or ‘kick’.