Myths about home defense shotguns

The shotgun has long been seen as the traditional home defense weapon. It's cost effective enough to allow just about anyone to own one and its stopping power is almost legendary. While some will stick to the line that a handgun is better, it is difficult to argue that a shotgun can't get the job done; often better.

That being said, there is no tool for any job that will be of any use if it isn't employed correctly. Because of this, there are a few notions that have to be gotten rid of before you can begin properly planning to use a shotgun to defend your home.

You don't need to aim

Yes, you do. At across-the-room distances, even a wide-open cylinder bore will allow buckshot to spread only about 4", at most. The margin of error is a lot better than you're going to find in a pistol but the gun still needs to be aimed properly to hit something vital enough to take effect.

Remember: if you find yourself in a situation where you are forced to fire on an intruder in your home, you do not want to just wound him — you want to put him down and you want him to stay down.

Birdshot

There's a longstanding bit of bunk about using birdshot for home defense and this is the idea that it "won't go through walls and hurt your kids."

Wrong!

Anything that will penetrate deep enough into an intruder to stop him will go through drywall or lath walls. The one advantage to birdshot is that it is less likely to penetrate the outer walls of your home and possibly harm someone outside. You can still use birdshot and have little reduction of stopping power against an unarmored opponent.

Either way, it's infinitely better to plan things out so that when you confront the intruder, he'll have something solid behind him. Above all else, this means that
you do not go looking for him!
You hunker with the family in the safe room, get the police on the phone, and make the intruder come looking for you.

Has to be 12 gauge

The Remington 1100, in 20 gauge, is a popular and often recommended home defense solution

No, it doesn't. The 20 gauge shotgun is actually one of the best-kept home defense secrets. Its light recoil is less likely to make a petite or inexperienced shooter flinch and miss, but 5/8oz of lead per shot will get the job done. The standard 20 gauge buckshot load is #3, which means the bad guy's got 20 quarter-inch lead balls hauling ass his way every time your boomstick makes the Big Noise.

To give some comparison ideas, the 12 gauge equivalent of this would be the "urban load," (#4 buckshot) — 27 .23 caliber pellets at about the same velocity. The only person who's likely to be able to tell the difference between the work of the two would be the coroner who performs the autopsy.

As John "the Shotgun Wizard" Satterwhite once put it:

	The 20 gauge gas-operated guns are ideal for most women, since they require no pumping and recoil is modest enough for women to handle. People pooh-pooh the 20 gauge, but at close range it throws as much lead in one shot as you'll probably need to do the job.
— John Satterwhite

The Remington LT-20 autoloader in 20 gauge is a perfect example of this - it weights less than 6 lbs. but still handles like an M-1 carbine. If anyone who may find themselves in need of using the gun is likely to be 5'6" or less, get the Youth Model with short stock: it's no big woop for a taller shooter, but can make all the difference in the world for the smaller person.

The semi-auto road also makes sense for use under stress by anyone who hasn't pumped a slide action thousands of times and learned to do it on auto pilot (you'd be amazed at both the things you will forget and the things you will remember in high-stress situations). Some people also say it works vastly better if one arm is injured (see next).

Semi-auto

There is a school of thought which says that the best way to go with a home defense shotgun is always to stick to a semi-automatic. While this may be true in some cases, it is not true in all cases. One thing that must be considered is the experience level of the shooter, another is the potential for injury.

The one problem with semi-autos is that a one-handed grip is often not stable enough to provide the necessary resistance to allow the action to fully cycle. This means that a semi- can jam up on you, right when you need it the most — when things have gone so wrong that you've lost the effective use of one arm! An experienced shooter, intimately familiar with his gun and able to keep his head, may still be able to work a pump-action with only one good hand.

An inexperienced shooter, on the other hand, is unlikely to be able to work a pump with only one hand. It is also rather likely that he or she will also benefit from the greater rate of fire and slightly lower recoil of a semi-automatic.

Like all other things, the tool should be chosen based not only on the job at hand, but also on the person who will use it.