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The best weapon for home defense is one that you practice with and use, clean, and/or sharpen often. I used to throw shuriken with deadly accuracy - after much practice. But I don't have them any more, haven't practiced in years, and would be more likely to cut my own dam' thumb off if I tried. I was also trained in close knife-fighting - the guys on TV still crack me up, with the blades extended beyond their hands instead of aligned with their forearms.
Now I am older, slower, and blinder, don't like to be bruised, broken, or cut if I can help it, and am quite fond of my handguns, my rifles, and shotguns. My dogs are my early-warning system, I can hear vehicles pull into our very rural road and driveway, and can still hear footfalls of a cat, deer, or raccoon in the night - and tell them apart. The right tool for the right job, is my attitude - if they are still outside, the rifles and shotguns are comfortable and accurate; if inside, the pistols - or even a thrown lamp, geegaw, or trinket for distraction right before I fire - are optimal. The dogs will be a great distraction as well; both are 'rippers' as opposed to 'grippers' and can keep someone busy.
If you need tanks, moats, tigers, or other foolishness, you either live too close to too many people, are as foolishly arrogant and obvious as David Koresh, or are a lousy shot. Or you have a small... ooops, never mind. Compensate much?
About twenty-five years ago the Chief of Police of Rock Springs, Wyoming was charged with the murder of a police informer. The chief's explanation was that the informer was holding a gun on him. He said that he drew and fired. The County Attorney didn't believe that a man could draw on someone with a drawn gun and win. He filed murder charges.
The defense attorney at the trial, Gerry Spence, called the legendary Bill Jordan as an expert wintness. They set up a demonstration in the court room. A bailiff held a gun on Jordan who drew and fired (blanks or just primed cases). Jordan could repeatedly draw and fire before the bailiff could pull the trigger. There's no question that Jordan was fast. But there's more to it than that. An individual initiating an action can do it faster than an individual who is reacting. Certainly there are limits, but it is possible to outdraw a man with a drawn gun.
The jury returned a verdict of Not guilty.
I like the one where Bill Jordan beat a cocked and leveled SAA...
If I have a bit of cover, or surprise while the shooter is engaging others, and I am within 15 ft, I have about a 50-50 chance of taking him with my bare hands, if I have my shoes in my hands, to throw at him as I charge him. If 2 other men do the same, he has no chance of being able to stop all 3 of us, given that we are large, strong, agile men, and know realistic H2H fighting. A thown shoe to 'the head HURTS, dude, and while you are ducking such "missles', you can't be shooting very effectively. A man can tackle you from 15 ft in 1.5 seconds, from a standing start.
That's what the bad guy I shot thought too. My fingers on the triggers of a LC Smith side by side in 12 Ga are far faster than a man can move from any 15 feet. I totally disagree a shot is a waste of time.
Different time and place:
My Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 mag (older 3 screw) loaded with 5 rnds stopped 8 bad guys from murdering me and my infant son. No bad guys want to be shot at with a cannon like that. Not a shot fired.
If you’re not willing to learn how to shoot a pistol and then shoot at least 50 rounds a week or at least once a month, do not get a pistol. I scored rifle and pistol expert several times in the Marine Corps, and I’m here to tell you that despite my having slightly above average ability, I had to be taught how to shoot a rifle and a pistol. Experts taught me. I went through a two week intensive coarse that’s one of the best in the word in order to learn how to shoot.
Do I feel that everybody has to go through that? No, I don’t. I’ve taught countless people how to shoot in my lifetime, and it’s been my personal experience that pistols are very hard to learn. It’s no impossible, but it’s difficult. If I could only have one firearm, I would never make it a pistol. Pistols are too niche specific. I’d take a pump action 12-gauge shotgun.
If I had to advise somebody on what gun they should purchase for home defense, and they didn’t already know how to shoot a pistol accurately, I’d tell them to get a 12 gauge pump action shotgun with an 18 inch barrel. The average person can master a shotgun with a minimal amount of training.
When it comes to handguns, Hollywood has glorified semi-autos. These require too much skill to master. The average person lacks the training and ambition to master it. A revolver is the best gun to get if you’re going to get a handgun. It’s the simplest action and it rarely jams. I’ve seen too many people that I’ve trained how to shoot suffer smokestack jams in semi autos because they’re breaking their wrist or improperly gripping the gun. Stay clear of handguns unless you’re willing to learn how to use it and maintain your ability with regular trips to the range.
Do yourself a favor, and buy a 12-gauge shotgun that’s a pump action. Stay clear of trendy gadgets that Hollywood has made popular. Things like pistol grip stocks, folding stocks, and all that other garbage makes the gun impractical and too nich specific. Get a regular old shotgun. The shotgun that I’ve described can be had for 220 dollars new, about 150 used, and all you really would need, if money’s an object, is a single shot shotgun. An old single shot can be had for just over 100 dollars new, and 50 bucks through an ad in the classifieds or at a yard/garage sale. Do not discount the singleshot, it can be reloaded very quickly, moreover, if you can’t hit them with one shot from a shotgun, 5 – 8 follow up shots are probably going to miss as well because you’re either incompetent or haven’t even learned enough basics to use the simplest of firearms, so a large magazine capacity isn’t going to help you. If a single shot isn’t enough because you’re dealing with multiple threats, you’re going to be over powered and no gun is going to help you regardless of it’s capacity and rate of fire. If you’re faced with that many threats, it’s time to yield your ground and think about avenues of escape.
Don’t buy a pistol. Buy a shotgun. I have pretty fair ability with pistols. I shoot a ragged hole at 25 yards, about a 3 – 4 inch group at 50 yards, and at 100 yards I can keep all my shots on a dinner plate with a semi auto 1911 .45ACP firing in the off hand position. Despite that ability, I would take a 12-gauge pump action shotgun with an 18 inch barrel loaded with 2 ¾ inch 00 buckshot over a pistol any day.
the man DID say 3 of them, and throwing things as they charged. So your reply with the shotgun was of no validity at all. Who says that you will only be attacked by a single person? The single shot gun is a joke, put forward by people who are way too cheap to be skilled at anything, basically. At 10 ft, that shot pattern will be only 2-3" wide, so you can easily miss a man with it, and have you ever fired a shotgun inside of a small room, at night, with no ear protection? try it sometime and you will forthwith never want a shotgun as a home protection arm. :-)
Using the icepick grip on a knife forces you to get very, very close to your enemy. A good man can use the underhand-stab grip quite well, if he has had training with it. he can slash your arms a dozen times in 3 seconds, for instance, while staying out of reach of your backhanded attempts.
the man DID say 3 of them, and throwing things as they charged. So your reply with the shotgun was of no validity at all. Who says that you will only be attacked by a single person? The single shot gun is a joke, put forward by people who are way too cheap to be skilled at anything, basically. At 10 ft, that shot pattern will be only 2-3" wide, so you can easily miss a man with it, and have you ever fired a shotgun inside of a small room, at night, with no ear protection? try it sometime and you will forthwith never want a shotgun as a home protection arm. :-)
IF you need to fire any weapon in a room the adrenaline will be running and you'll never even hear the shot AND the spread wil be wider then what you claim.
ALSO the very first shot anyone still standing will be running the opposite direction.
The obvious conclusion after absorbing the wisdom of the last few posts on this thread is that no firearm is effective--handguns... shotguns... rifles... all worthless. Buy a bag of brick dust and learn voodoo.
The obvious conclusion after absorbing the wisdom of the last few posts on this thread is that no firearm is effective--handguns... shotguns... rifles... all worthless. Buy a bag of brick dust and learn voodoo.
Great Chris, now they'll be arguing over the POU for various hexes and the MOA for different styles of voodoo dolls...
the man DID say 3 of them, and throwing things as they charged. So your reply with the shotgun was of no validity at all. Who says that you will only be attacked by a single person? The single shot gun is a joke, put forward by people who are way too cheap to be skilled at anything, basically. At 10 ft, that shot pattern will be only 2-3" wide, so you can easily miss a man with it, and have you ever fired a shotgun inside of a small room, at night, with no ear protection? try it sometime and you will forthwith never want a shotgun as a home protection arm. :-)
Is this giney12 in disguise...?
OK firstly lets talk shotguns, I don't think anyone proposes using a single shot, most propose using pumps. Personally I like extended Mag tubes too, and a Magnum chamber.
Patterning of 00 buck at 12' cylinder bore (no choke) and 18.5" barrel will depend on the loading; but home defense (tactical loads) pattern tighter than regular, at 12' between an inch and a half, and 4 inches. Regular 00 Buck have larger patterns but still need aiming. As do handguns, but I'd take a 4" variance at 12".
However, each pellet is the same as a .33 caliber soft nose round traveling at about 1200fps. By comparison a 8mm Roth-Steyr fired at 1,088 FPS from a handgun generates about 302ft-lbf. But you have 8 or 9 in a 4" circle. So that area is subjected to a total of 2416ft-lbf for 8 pellets, and that's a minimum since I can't be bothered to figure out the weight of a .33 caliber lead ball, to calculate the ft-lbsf of a 00 gauge shot.
Ok so lets compare and contrast with some other calibers (peaking is the peak muzzle energy you can get from a commercially available loading, it's velocity and bullet mass independent, you can push a lighter round faster than a heavier round, but peak pressure is the limitation, regardless of commercial or custom loads, for example it's not physically possible to fire from any commercial handgun currently manufactured a 45 ACP with any weight of round to a speed where it could achieve 1200 ft-lbsf).
45ACP peaks about 550 ft-lbsf
40S&W peaks about 530 ft-lbsf
10mm peaks about 575 ft-lbsf
357 magnum peaks about 545 ft-lbsf
9mm peaks about 440 ft-lbsf
44 magnum peaks about 620 ft-lbsf
Ok so none of them have the energy of combined shotgun pattern (and also note I'm using lower values for pellets, ignoring magnum and super magnum chambers and shells with higher velocities and/or pellet counts, and lower 2 3/4" muzzle velocities to be more than fair to a handgun).
There's potentially the argument that a hit "in the right spot" with a handgun is more effective than using a shotgun. How so, if a hit causes instant death regardless of the means, it's moot to say its better for a 22LR "in the right place" to stop a target, than a 50BMG, they both achieved the same result. It's not a perfect shot that we need to be concerned of, its a less than perfect shot. Indeed, to test this take a tape measure, and draw a 4" diameter circle on any part of your body, now take a thick sharpy (with the angled/square tip), and dot 8 (or 9) points within that area (they're the buck shot pellets, the longer length is the actual diameter of the shot). Now consider that even if they all penetrate just 4" into your body the damage it will cause.
The difference is that a shotgun provides a bigger margin of error, and much more physical shock than a handgun. Lets say you miss a CNS shot with a handgun, you could easily result with a miss, or a non-critical wound, with just a 2" variance, compare to the shotgun, a 2" variance will result in at least one shot hitting the bad guy in the brain pan, and even if that isn't an instant kill, they're not going on any dates from now on. Since a target is often not standing exactly still like a target on the range this margin is of huge benefit. What may have been a torso hit from a handgun could easily wind up being a winging shot if the target is moving laterally.
That does not mean that the user of a shotgun for home defense should not practice, any user of any item used for defensive purposes should regularly practice to a point where they are comfortable in the use of their chosen weapon, for their scenario's of concern.
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IF you need to fire any weapon in a room the adrenaline will be running and you'll never even hear the shot AND the spread wil be wider then what you claim. 
