TX CHL Instructor
December 17 2008 / 4:58 pm
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As illustrated in the linked story, a handgun is not the most effective home defense weapon, a shotgun is. It’s too bad sawed-off shotguns are illegal in the US, because the shorter the barrel, the better.

I had an elderly lady in one of my CHL classes who was there because some lowlife had assaulted and attempted to rape her.

Since she had a bad case of arthritis, I advised her to get a 410, and load it with blanks. Blanks have several have several advantages over standard buckshot, to wit:

1) They don’t kick as much. If you have ever fired a buckshot round with a pump 12ga, you know that it can punish you, and if you are not holding it correctly, it may hurt you bad enough to prevent you from getting off a second shot. In a home-defense situation, you are in a hurry, which increases the likelihood that you will not hold it correctly.
2) They don’t over-penetrate. While a blank can be nearly as deadly as buckshot at close (home defense) range, they won’t injure the neighbor’s kids next door (innocent 3rd party rule).
3) They are MUCH louder than a standard buckshot round, because the energy goes into noise, and not to pushing buckshot downrange. If you use a shotgun in a home defense situation, you want everybody in the neighborhood to know it.

A good alternative to a pump-action is a recoil-less shotgun like the Baretta Xtrema II, but that’s a bit pricey.

A good alternative to a shotgun is the Taurus Judge, a 5-shot revolver designed to chamber a 410 short, although it will also shoot a .45 revolver round, which makes it a technically legal sawed-off shotgun. However, the Judge has a LOT of recoil.

As for the Brits and their insanity over gun control: A citizen is armed. A subject is unarmed. I am a citizen.