“Nothing causes criminals to back off more hurriedly than does the presence of a shotgun,” gun guru John S. Farnham pronounced. “Shotguns scare people as do no other weapon.” And no wonder. When loaded with 00 buck or the new breed of self-defense shell, a shotgun is about as close to a “instant man stopper” as you can get. Even before all that sturm und drang, the sound of loading a pump action shotgun with that first shell should give pause to the most determined attacker. And yet cops are all swapping the scattergun’s combat distance devastation for “reach out and touch someone with a .22 (or ten)” AR. Millions of civilians have made the AR their “go-to” home defense gun. At the other end of the scale, a lot of fresh entrants into the world of concealed carry put their piece on the bedside table at night and call it good. Given their reliability and fearsome firepower, why have shotguns become the red-haired stepchild of armed home defense?
As a child and young man, I had the great fortune of having a neighbor who had driven a stagecoach in the area of Hangtown (now Placerville) California along what is now called Highway 49. He is my source for this comment.
Use of the shotgun at close range is nothing new. Contrary to Hollywood movies, the favorite weapon of western lawmen and stage coach guards were 8 and 10 gauge shotguns. The barrels were usually short for lawmen to make them fit for close quarter fighting. Guards would use longer barrels. Even with the shorter barrels, those gauges could reach out and touch someone in a very uncomfortable way.
Why? Pistols, rifles, and their respective ammunition were not always reliable in the 1800′s. The simple technology of the shotgun and its ammunition made it more dependable, made it easier to hit a moving target*, and a single shotgun hit would inflict a wound that was incapacitating if not fatal.
Just as it does today, the shotgun instilled fear in the bad guys. They knew that being shot with one had a high potential for death. Considering the lack of today’s advanced medical procedures, the lack of anti-biotics, and the physical destruction a heavy gauge shotgun can do, can you blame them?
*How many people do you know who can ride on a bouncing stagecoach, fire a rifle or pistol, and hit a moving target?
Ah, the tactical 12 ga. – there is no substitute…unless it’s a 10 ga.The only thing I would consider changing is making it a pump. First, trying to load an auto in a state of startled, adrenalin-drenched terror might lead to a shell not being fully inserted up the mag tube and thus having the spring kick it back where it jams under the mag-plate…at least that’s happened to me several times in a dove field with my old Remington 1100.
And second, there’s that unmistakable goose-pimple-making sound of a pump shotgun being racked that tells an intruder advancing down a darkened hallway that he’s made the fatal mistake of breaking into the wrong home.
I once visited Chris Gilman at Global Effects, the special effects company he runs in Burbank, and got a grand tour including the spacesuits he built for Apollo 13, From the Earth to the Moon, Astronaut Farmer, and many other costumes. While chatting with him, an employee came in with a medieval flail that he wanted to borrow for his kid’s show and tell (how he did that without provoking a school-wide lockdown and sheriff’s raid in a LAUSD school escapes me). The flail had an axe-sized wooden handle, a short length of chain, and a roughly 8″ baton with metal spikes sticking out of it. It was NOT a mockup. It also had an iron ring a few inches down from the chain, into which the flail could be inserted to keep it from swinging. Chris said, “Yeah, sure, have fun,” and then demonstrated how the flail could be shaken loose from the ring with a quick movement, to swing loose and ready. That movement made a shick-schick noise _just_ like that of a pump action shotgun being cycled. Chris grinned and added, “That’s the noise that’s been turning burglar’s bowels to water for a thousand years!”
Bedside…….
Cell phone and Surefire 6P LED Defender – Check
.38 snubby loaded with Hornady Critical Defense and two speedloaders – Check
12 gauge FNH SLP Mk1 / nine rounds 00 buckshot at the ready – Check
No Fear of what goes bump in the night – Check
JRr
Not really quibbling your list, especially the last, but my list:
1. 12 gauge handy, stored with 18″ barrel, check
2. loyal Labrador, check
3. no worries about what goes “bump in the night”, check
BTW the Labrador is “dual use”, like my trusty 12 gauge. A quick barrel/shell swap and I am good for upland birds, water fowl and even whitetail. In the field the dog is great for hunting; at home he is part of the home defense. Imagine the ramping of the first shell into my pump coupled with the low growl of my 80 lb Lab. I might miss, he won’t.
THe following is for your amusement;
A burglar broke into a home and was looking around. He heard a soft voice say, “Jesus is watching you”. Thinking it was just his imagination, he continued his search. Again the voice said “Jesus is watching you”. He turned his flashlight around and saw a parrot in a cage.
He asked the parrot if he was the one talking and the parrot said, “yes.”
He asked the parrot what his name was and the parrot said, “Moses.”
The burglar asked, “what kind of people would name a parrot Moses?”
The parrot said, “the same kind of people who would name their pit bull Jesus”.
The reason law enforcement has gone over to the AR-15 patrol rifle in droves? The North Hollywood shootout. Seeing slugs and buckshot bounce off armored bad guys is a real eye-opener.
For the average homeowner, the handgun is a better choice… easier to store, handle, and shoot… and at household distances a pattern from a scattergun is not much bigger than the bore size anyway.
Yes, shotguns are devastating, but so is an AR… and the AR holds 30 rounds, doesn’t kick, won’t overpenetrate, and can reach out and touch someone if necessary. To be honest if the whole intimidation by racking the slide thing works, then cycling the slide on a handgun should work, too. However the best strategy for defending oneself with a firearm doesn’t include cycling the action.
“… and the AR holds 30 rounds, doesn’t kick, won’t overpenetrate…”
Oooh, I have to differ with you about your statement that 5.56 mm rounds do not over-penetrate. Now, perhaps when that projectile gets going like a crazed hornet it won’t have enough juice to punch through both your own brick wall and that of your neighbor too; but rounds fired from an AR-15 inside your house will almost certainly be exiting the premises in search of something outside upon which to expend their kinetic energy. On the other hand buckshot, and maybe some slugs, are almost certainly going to stay inside your own house.
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Why are law enforcement and civilian home defenders swapping their shotguns for AR’s & such? I’d guess (and it’s only a guess) that relative recoil is a big factor. While I agree that a 12 guage-full of 00 buck is the gun for close range combat it’s just not for everyone. The more recoil the more training and practice required to effectively handle the weapon. For those minimally trained and minimally interested, law enforcement and civilian alike, the recoil of a 12 guage is going to be intimidating at best and uncontrollable for many.
In a perfect world everyone would practice with their weapons constantly and law enforcement officers would all be highly trained, but in the real world training and practice takes time and costs money, something always in short supply for local law enforcement. Likewise, a lot of civilians buy a weapon for home defense, take it to the range once — if at all — and then put it away to collect rust. Those minimally trained folks are probably much better off not having a weapon they’re afraid of.
Shotgun against body armor? Deny if you wish but Hollywood is voll mit scheist. Testing 1 oz slugs against our new “Hernia 2000″ TQ-15 (man silhouette) targets made of 1/2″ AMS514 steel (near equivalent to RHA rolled homogenius armor). At a distance of thirty-five yards from a stock Rem870 20″. Resulted in a full caliber DENT of about 1/8 inch. Body armor or no you’re going DOWN. And if you get up you will do so with two or three shattered ribs. People who claim that police were ‘outgunned’ when they were issued shotguns were (how shall I put this?) … full of crap.
I use both the Remington Tactical 870 12GA, and a Glock 21SF with 13 rounds of .45ACP. The chances of a bad guy entering your home wearing body armor are pretty slim. But if he did then a couple hits with 00 buck or slugs at 5 Yds would knock him down even with body armor. Not penetrate but knock down with 1500 to 2000 Ft/Lbs of force depending on load. The 5.56 is in the 900 Ft/Lbs range, still not bad but that round can travel a long way and still be lethal. As a comparison the .45ACP has about 300 to 400 Ft/Lbs of energy and that is a prime self defense weapon.
The only disadvantage to a shotgun is that it is long to maneuver inside a house. I grab my Glock 21SF first, then depending on the situation I have the Shotgun, then AR15, and FNAR .308 available depending on the threat situation.
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