That "wide area of impact" is only about an inch or two at 12 feet. At about 20 yards, it is about 20 inches. I'm not saying a shotgun is bad for home defense, but it's not like you can just aim in the general direction of the intruder and fire, especially if you have to worry about the rest of your family in other rooms. IMHO, it's all a matter of your training and your situation. An AR, a 12-gauge, or a major caliber pistol are all good for home defense. Right now, a pistol is my primary (shotgun secondary) home defense weapon. When I get too old to handle the pistol well, I'm buying an AR with some kind of red dot sight (not laser).
Anywhere in this country, you are a power outage away from needing a home defense weapon. I live in hurricane country, and it has happened to me--living in a house without power, phone or even cell service. If you don't like your family. An AR with appropriate ammo will go through maybe 2 sheet rock walls (4 layers of sheet rock). A 12-gauge with buckshot will go through 4 walls.
The 12-gauge pump you talk about has been used by the military since it's invention at the end of the 19th century. The majority of weapons in civilian hands today are direct derivatives of military weapons.
Not if you load it with the right ammo. An AR with softpoint bullets actually tends to blow itself up on hitting sheet rock. They penetrate about half the sheetrock a 12-gauge with buckshot does (4 sheets (2 walls) for the AR with soft points, vs. about 8 sheets (4 walls) for the 12-gauge with buckshot).
It is, but it can be in other shapes. Saying an acre is a distance just sounds silly to anybody who knows what an acre is. Acres can be all different shapes, not just rectangles. As I said, an acre can technically be 1 ft x 43,560 feet, 2 ft x 21,780 feet, etc. An acre is a measure of area, not a measure of length. If you mean 5 football fields in length say that, not acres.
You have got to reasonably approximate all measurements or else you are just going to confuse yourself with too much detail. Too much detail is an OCD thing. It looks like you are endowed with OCD @perdidochas . Shows in your other posts too.
It depends on how hot it's loaded. Remington sells a reduced recoil buckshot, for example. There is a difference in recoil between different types of birdshot. Dove loads are light loaded with low recoil. Pheasant loads are heavily loaded with high recoil. In general, you are right. Most birdshot is lower recoil than most buckshot loads.
It's called accuracy. I don't like bullshit being promulgates as the truth. Saying that a gun can shoot 5 acres is just silly. It shows basic ignorance. I'd rather be OCD than ignorant.
Modelling is the best way to comprehend macro topics. Goodbye @perdidochas . You were born for the iggy lists.
A claim that you cannot actually demonstrate proof of. The above assumes a designated enemy combatant will actually hold a human life with regard, and value comrades, rather than simply leaving them to die wherever they may fall. The current designated enemy combatant utilizes suicide bombers, demonstrating a complete absence of regard for human life. The AR-15 is not, and ever has been, a military rifle. There is not a single military on the entire planet that uses it. Perhaps four on one is not an example of war. But it is not an example that anyone should have to find themselves in. There is so much false nonsense present in the above paragraph, it is simply not worth the effort of picking it apart sentence by sentence. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle. It never has been. Stop making false statements. That is correct. In war there are ruling guiding both sets of combatants. In home defense situations there are no rules of engagement that are followed or observed. It is strictly kill or be killed. Then do not use full metal jacketed ammunition. Use the expanding, fragmented soft point ammunition that is readily available on the commercial market. You may have loved ones in the line of fire but unseen and don't want to harm them. Cutting loose with an AR has almost as much potential in the hands of an untrained marksman to harm innocents as it does an attacker. Off topic and irrelevant. Then actually demonstrate what their specific purpose is. Tell that to anyone who legally carries a concealed firearm in the united states. Relying on presentation rather than substance is known as bluffing, a common poker strategy. Eventually your bluff will be called, and you will be killed.
To some extent I misspoke. I live in Texas. I have honestly never known ANYONE that didn't know what a pump action shotgun looks like and sounds like when it is racked and heard. I also live on several acres and so said that buck shot was the best for home defense. When I lived in town in a frame house I actually kept my shotgun loaded with #6 or #4 bird shot. A shot load inside a house usually doesn't even have time to part from the wad so it is almost like shooting a slug at distances of 20 feet or less. That limits the distance that misses go. Even #6 will go right through a wooden door from 10'. Been there, done it! My best friend was 5' 4" and weighed 135 lbs and he never had the least problem cutting loose with any weapon in either semi or full auto mode. My daughter was firing an M-14 and AK-47 by the time she was 9. I never in my life heard a marine whine about recoil. I never knew anyone that was aware of recoil when they were returning fire in a fire fight no matter what they were firing. The M-16 was introduced as an ASSAULT weapon and was never called or referred to as a battle rifle. When they were first issued most guys grabbed an AK the first chance they got and carried that or switched to a Winchester model 12 in 12 ga. I have been told that this is still a pretty common practice in Iraq and Afghanistan. The AK is just a better stopper. The A-2 series solved a lot of the early jamamatic issues but it never was much good as a stopper. The 5.56 is a .22 bullet. We were trained to fire in three round bursts for three reasons. It saved on ammo. It lessened the issue of barrel burn out. (It was common in the early series for the barrel to burn out real fast and the bullets would start tumbling. LOL the spin doctors tried to make it out like this was a good thing because the bullet hitting sideways made a bigger hole. They also talked about how the "deadly" 5.56 would hits a man in the shin and sometimes go out the top of his head. This was partially true. The bullet would not dependably break any of the major bones in the human body and some times would glace off and go up the leg...more often they bounced out and just left a flesh wound and an enemy still able to fight and move. It takes three bullets from this weapon to equal the energy transfer of a 7.62 round from an M-14. If you are going to go with an AR for home defense and don't already have one try to go with the 30 cal ones that they are coming out with these days. Just my humble opinion.
Turtledude confirmed my view on home defense weapons. he is a firearms expert and former Federal Prosecutor.
