I hear you, Doc.

I recently got a couple more, but the collection makes it harder to justify each new purchase.

I hear that some people outgrow their gun safes, and have to get additional ones to hold the family heirlooms, or overflow guns.:D

The shotgun is a good choice, due to its intimidating appearance, severe damage, and slightly lesser aiming problems due to shot spread. Shorter versions are better for home, boat, or car use, and are more secure from being taken away. Pellets penetrate less than bullets, an important consideration if you have neighbors nearby or other occupants in your house. Damage from a shotgun blast, especially with buckshot, is as noted, akin to an SMG burst. It also looks better in court after a shooting, than a tricked out M-4. I know that were I to approach a home and hear the slide racking, unless I had serious business there, I would be moving out smartly.

Downside is recoil, heavy ammo, and slow reloading.

Pump design is among the fastest, provides for quick follow-up shots, and is relatively economical. There are people who can empty a pump gun accurately before the first hull hits the ground. A Remington 870 Express, with the short 18" or 20" barrel, can be had from the local gun store or Wally-Mart for well less than $300. Used 870s can frequently be found at local gun stores as police trade-ins for similar prices. Add a mag extension and you up the ante from five rounds to seven to ten (depending on barrel length).

The 12 gauge is good for us, but I believe that those who are smaller or recoil sensitive might be better off with a 20 gauge. We can also, as you noted, use lighter loads to minimize recoil. I would not go below 20 gauge as the loads are too light. A .410 is nearly useless for home defense, a pistol would probably be more effective.

Hard to beat 00 Buckshot or slugs, if you want to take the target down hard and do it out beyond 10 yards. Lesser pellets may have a fuller pattern, but bleed off velocity rapidly and may not have the penetration to reach vitals beyond a few yards. At indoor household ranges, all 12 gauge rounds would be lethal with a solid hit.

Good choice. Anyone else have an opinion for an initial purpose?

TR

For a Pure survival Handgun I would Vote 4''in to 5''in dbl action Wheel gun in .357 mag

pro's: can use .357 or .38 ammo
simple to use even under stress even for untrained people.
powerful enuff to be used as a secondary hunting gun on animals
up to deer size.
wont break or jam. and you cant lose the magazine for it.
accurate you can mount scopes on wheel guns.


con's slow to reload unless you practice alot.
large muzzle blast
higher muzzle rise unless ported but if ported you get more muzzle
blast.
heavy and bulky not great for concealment but if its survival
who cares about it being hidden.



rifles: I would go with the M1A1 with 18'inch barrel


shotgun would be sawed off and inside my trasportation as a last ditch gun.

If i can only have 1 it would be the rifle.


another thing i would have in my kit i havent seen posted yet is fishing line and hooks
it would piss me off without end if i was hungry and can see fish swimming around in the lake or river and dident have a line and hook to put a worm on.
making a net out of 550 cord aint my idea of a good fishing practice.

Lawless situation is broad Sir. Its difficult for me to consider the capabilities or likely courses of action of an undetermined threat. The likelyhood of a large lawless situation in my town is very small. But home invasion has increased by 200% within our community in the past year though. I have to consider what the lawless mind would want to enter my house for.

My house is within 1 mile of an interstate, on a large road, there are several houses nearby. Three entrance points. Single story wood frame, lath and plaster home, with aluminum siding, an open floor plan, with one main choke point. A significant amount of high end home electronics, and furnishings. A very stout front door and frame, good exterior lighting (landscape lighting and motion lights), good locks.

My wife is no joke, while I was in Iraq she once upon a time had her purse snatched, she promptly ran the f*****r down and kicked his ass, at the time she was pregnant with our first child. I have superior children due to her genetics. She has an option of pepper spray, 9mm or .45, or 12 ga. I think she'd probably grab a flashlight, if she heard an obvious strange noise. I suppose we could write and conduct a 'battle drill' for home invasion, sort of like a fire drill.

As far as creating a more defensible space, some things you could do to your home on the outside, involve plants - roses and pyracanthus, they can discourage people from wanting to get a peak inside your windows, obviously we could consider barrier material built into the landscape to provide COVER from direct fire projectiles, some barrier options include raised planter beds, in the yards around the house - like decorative parapets, which can also serve to make approaches to entrance points into channels or 'fatal funnels' if you will.

You would want to make sure your floors or at least the beds are at a lower level than your parapets outside the house. If someone goes driving by, firing into your house, you wouldn't want a bullet zipping through you while you lie in bed. Cinder block, isn't very good cover, unless its doubled up and filled with sand or cement. 115gr FMJ 9mm will go right through it. If you use landscaping to create fatal funnels outside, you can also use low voltage landscape lighting to silhouette persons travelling the funnels. You can alter the walkways to make them from noisy gravel, or cinders, instead of paved cement, its difficult to cross that stuff without making a sound. Certainly a good family dog discourages baddies too.

A large lawless situation, in my area would have to result in utter chaos in the San Francisco/Sacramento urban area - with a population approaching the the size of a small country, if something were to happen there which would cause the population to flee, they would either go east to Reno, but in the winter this is very difficult at times, or they could flee south to the Valley, or north to Redding - where we're at. There are a limited number of vacant houses, apartments, etc. A sudden 1% shift in population (1% of theirs) would be a very bad thing here. IF the immigrants remained civil, there would be long lines at the 15 or so odd grocery stores, and the Fairgrounds, Schools, and Campuses would be full, traffic would be at a stand still, Police and Fire services would be augmented from the evacuated areas, people would be under a great deal of stress trying to find loved ones, and comfortable shelter, I don't think food would be a problem (due to a huge walmart distribution center) , but water, trash and sewage would be of immediate concern.

I am fortunate to have a relatives with larger more rural properties. I suppose I would sell the house to anyone with the money immediately and move the family to my folks. Otherwise we'd be too close to traffic, and the chaos of town. A family contact plan might be useful too.

I think its a good idea to map out secondary routes around town in order to avoid the roads which will likely be clogged with traffic. Consider also, how much time its going to take you to get from point a to point b under different traffic conditions.

How's that?

A long term lawless situation, months or more, you would have to consider defendable terrain and all that goes with it. Put on your platoon leader hat and plan your defense.

7624U I think wheel guns are very reliable. But when you're not a Pro or heck even when you are and you're scared, people miss. Plenty of cops and others have been in shoot outs and missed at very short range. Hard to miss with 12ga. bird. Think of the most untrained person in your house having to operate that weapon.

Very nice choice 7624U. I agree with your reasons.

My wife uses a .38/.357 magnum wheel gun and she is very good at shooting it.

I bought it for her for the same reasons you pointed out.

I am fortunate i dont have untrained people in my house it's just myself...
as for missing you will miss at close range with a 12ga if you dont aim..
cops miss lots of times even with 15rd magazines cause they dident aim.
heck ive had guys miss the lock on a door 2 times with a 12ga and that was only 2'' inches away.
im not arguing that the 12ga aint a great gun for defence it is...
but pellets wont hit the target no matter how much you wish they do with your eyes closed.. you have to aim center mass or you will miss inside a house the shot does not spread into a large area inside 5 meters its still very compact go test it.. ive messed with loading 12ga rounds with dimes also. they are totaly unpredictable. but they do have a larger spread then normal shot does.

As far as the wheel gun the only reason i talked about it is because of its durablility and it will fire every time if the ammo is good.. and if it's not you dont have to take a extra action of clearing that bad round out of the chammber before you shoot again you just pull the trigger and hope that next round is going to fire. more then 2 bad guys in the fight the wheel gun wouldent be the best your right, Thats where The Rifle is KING you can hold off gangs with a good semiauto rifle.

OK, I'll pipe in on the "initial purchase/first firearm" part because I just carried out this exercise with my never-even-shot-a-BB-gun brother. I actually tried to talk him out of a firearm until he'd taken care of water, food and basic meds but he didn't bite. Weird how people react, he's a total hoplophobe.

I'll have to describe the selection criteria. First, his decision (actually my sis-in-law's decision) to get a firearm was initiated by Katrina and a realization that a breakdown in civil order is possible. The firearm will be locked away, unloaded, and there will be no chance of it being employed for self-defense in a break-in; this is strictly an anti-zombie piece. Add in "cheap to acquire and shoot" because that was a major factor in his decision.

He shot a selected sample from my finger and toes collection: Remington 870, M1 Carbine, SKS, and a 16" Bushmaster flattop w/ EoTech. My thinking, which turned out to be correct, was that he would be recoil-shy, hence no FN-FAL or M1A.

Even though I always thought it was something you did once and then learned your lesson, he kept short-stroking the 870 -- a no go. Moving on, his favorite was the AR w/ the EoTech, because he could hit something with it. Its cost knocked it out of the running. His next favorite was the M1 carbine, which I had him shoot as an example of the "camp carbine" class. I think for his purposes that might have been the best choice - a pistol-caliber Marlin or Kel-tec. What he ended up with was the SKS, primarily because he's cheap and I offered to give it to him.

All in all I think the SKS is not a bad choice for a one-gun house. Cheap, rugged, moderate recoil, relatively inexpensive ammo, and hopefully it will keep running when dirty and dry (I'm certain that the cleaning demo I gave was the last time that rifle will ever see a patch). Surprisingly, stripper clips weren't a stumbling block.

Bonus: If he does forget how to load it, it makes a decent club and it has an integral bayonet.

You're outing your own brother! Shame on you. :D

Pat

Good gun and you can convert it to a 30 rd magazine later on instead of 10rds
and can still load it with striper clips, bayonet is always plus also if you can take it off the rifle there is a extra knife for your kit that wont get lost.

That's nothing, it's worse than that: he's a Democrat!

Easy step up from the SKS to an AK, and not that much more money.

Intermediate cartridge, adequate penetration and power, inexpensive with cheap accessories and ammo, relatively lightweight and portable, easy to control. Great self-defense weapon if the zombies attack.

Downside-excessive penetration in urban settings, slower reloading than a mag loaded gun, but much faster than a shotgun, not a real accuracy piece.

A good choice, but I would still favor obtaining the shotgun first. Of course, any time you can get a hoplophobe shooting, whatever they will take and use is better than the finest Sturmgewehr ever made and locked away forever. Besides, for those who have bought into the MSM version of easy access to guns, I always like to introduce them to the mountain of paperwork required to obtain a $99 rifle.

TR

...and if my 17 year-old daughter and two of her girlfriends couldn't take him out -- using only tactical bricks -- it would be off to bed without supper.

no firearm?
 

if I may stretch this topic, how about in places where the 2nd amendment is not too popular. Since I'd assume one does not want to intentionally turn his/her living room to a warzone, what can provide the same deterrent effect as a racked shotgun?
Sound of a pair of rott scratching and growling behind the door? This will require the dogs be properly trained. How about a poster that says: this house is under divine protection of Chuck Norris?

No guns, No dogs?
 

No guns or dogs? Is your plan to defend or to escape?

You need to step out to the street and look at your home, both in the daytime and at night.

Single family home, condo unit, first floor or second floor? Urban, Suburban or Rural? Close to an area of the city where large crowds could gather and riot? Neighbors that would help or are you on your own?

Dark areas, shadows around your house? Low large windows or high small ones?

One easy fix for the front door is to have a solid metal or wood door (with a good peep hole) and replace all the hing/lock plate srews with longer screws that go into the 2x4s that surround the door frame. Then use a door guard bar with a non-skid pad that slips under the door knob and goes down to the floor. A setup like that is hard to kick through.

Sliding patio doors - look nice and let the sun in but they don't hold up well to a grill being thrown through them.

Bad guys like to come into a house quick through a doorway or quiet crawling through a window. Make it hard for them to get through a window quickly and you only have to worry about the first guy coming in. You can take your baseball bat and have some batting pratice with his head. Drop him in the window and you make it just that much harder for the next one.

Blades and bats are a bit harder than firearms. If thats all you've got you can't be saying "One more step and I'll hit you." as you're backing up. They will get in and then their friends. Then they will overpower you.

Somebody sticks their head in you nail them just as hard and as fast as you can. Stop the first one at the door/window and the rest may back up.

"Man, there is one crazy ninja chick living in that house."

No guns, no dogs
 

As Pete said, get a baseball bat. Even if you don't play ball, it's easy to say, "Hey, I was at home, watching TV, when Joe Schmoe here came in through the window and I cracked him in the head with the bat."

And the aluminum ones make a real nice "ting" sound when you hit 'em just right! And if someone is behind that guy, they will have second thoughts about entering your home.

This is an area I was waiting for someone to breach.

There is more to defense than buying a gun and some ammo. OTOH, there are very few places in this country where you cannot have a firearm in your residence. NYC and DC are the only two I am familiar with. Get the pump gun and go shoot some skeet or sporting clays. Now you have a reason to own a gun.

What is the threat? What are you preparing to defend yourself against? Be realistic. As mentioned, look at your residence (or wherever you plan to go) from a criminal's view. Eliminate blind spots, establish a perimeter, get some early warning, and harden your position as necessary. You don't necessarily need an alarm, in most cases, you just need the sign. Especially if the neighbors don't have one. Note: Do not steal the neighbors' alarm sign. They may have cameras, too. Pete is on target with his assessment. BTW, the cops will usually help you do this analysis through the crime prevention office.

I have friends ask me about buying a 1000 yard sniper rifle. I tell them to get their laser rangefinder, step outside their house and let me know how far they can see, much less shoot. Okay, maybe they can see a water tower 1000 yards in a specific direction. Why are they shooting someone at that range? Is someone at that range a threat? What do they have up there, a mortar? An M-2 HMG? Get real, this isn't Stalingrad. Try to keep all projectiles and impacts on your property.

What do you do when you are confronted by someone, but they are a Non-Lethal Threat (NLT)? Will you shoot someone for stealing from your garden? What if it is a hungry kid? Do what the cops do and have a range of force options. Get some OC spray and a baton (or an ASP, or the aforementioned bat). Bear in mind that if you are out of your home, it looks much better if you have a glove and ball in the same general area as the bat.;)

Are you really to kill another human being to protect yourself and your property? Think long and hard on this. If the answer is no, do us all a favor and do not get the gun. You will probably lose it.

BTW, dogs are great, but it is increasingly difficult to get liability insurance if you own a larger breed like a Rottie. Smaller (not tiny) ones can be nearly as effective. I see the dog as a deterrent when no one is home, a guard when the family is home without me, and as a warning device when I am. Just let me know they are outside, I'll take it from there.

I would start with the non-lethal, get some training, then get a shotgun, buy a pistol, and consider getting a rifle, if you have the range and inclination to get it. In an urban apartment, probably not a good idea. Many ranges rent firearms to shooters. Better to find out that the Dirty Harry hogleg is too much for you before you plunk down $600 and later find out how little trade they will give you back for it. Got kids? Teach them about guns (Eddie Eagle), take them shooting, and keep the guns and ammo not under your immediate control locked up.

Good discussion, keep it up.

TR