Hurricanespg

As is every firearm not involved in an offensive action.

Again, a handguns advantage is concealment.

Too ridiculous. A person could just as easily knock over or even drop a handgun.

The same reason a loaded handgun layed on or in a vehicle is illegal in most places?

A classic example of an attempt to denegrate a products usefulness by insulting its users. Smacks of desperation, and false bravado.
Talk to the experts, take a few classes, get a little experience, and think things thru objectively. I am confident you can do it.

Colorado Luckydog

I wouldn't be so sure. You can lead a horse to water....just saying....

warbirdlover

No comparison. .45 is better.

BCRules

Are you a armchair rambo?

This is one of the goofiest arguments I have seen on the net.

Sure, I like a 45ACP. I like a 40. I like 9mm. Any one of them will kill you if hit in the upper torso or head.

Nomercy448

My point exactly, especially that last part.

An 18" barrel shotgun is a highly effective home defense weapon, no doubt, however, for a REFLEX WEAPON, it is a very poor choice. Hearing a bump in the night and waking up to an intruder "standing in your living room" is VERY different than waking up to an intruder "standing at the foot of your bed". In a split second reflex "fight for your life", a long barreled weapon is a poor choice. If you have the luxury of time, then by all means, grab the shotgun, and go investigate. However, when there's only a split second before the attacker can close the distance to your bed and make contact, the shotgun is worthless.

It's the difference between CQB and "short range fighting". A shotgun is an EXCELLENT short range weapon. But within arms reach, a handgun is far superior.

Even with a short barrel and a pistol grip, a shotgun is 28-30" long. VERY easy to deflect. A shotgun takes 2 hands to control, and USUALLY 2 hands to operate (pump actions). If an intruder grabs your gun by the barrel, unless you have TRAINED for it, you're not likely going to have a chance to get the muzzle back on target.

Try this sometime... Take $50 down to walmart and buy an airsoft pistol grip shotgun, an airsoft pistol, and an electronic kitchen timer. Lay in bed with the shotgun staged as you typically would, loaded and ready, then close your eyes. Have a partner then stand SOMEWHERE in the room around the bed, at the same distance as the bedroom door. (This incorporates an element of surprise into the drill. You'll have to process the attackers position. In a "real world attack", the attacker would likely be at the door, but you'll still have to process "is this an attack or just my wife coming back from getting a drink".) Lay down and close your eyes, and set the kitchen timer. When the timer goes off, you both spring into action. You go for the gun, and he either goes for YOU, or goes for the gun himself.

Now try it again with the pistol.

My fiancee and I do these drills about once a month. We started a few years ago when my nephew was getting rid of his airsoft guns. She's only 125lbs, so I outweigh her by 70lbs, but even still, with the pistol gripped shotgun, she can close the distance to the bed and grab the muzzle and prevent me from landing a shot before she makes contact. Of course, because of my size and strength advantage, I can "fight her off" and eventually make a shot, but it's still a struggle for control of the weapon. When we switch roles and I play the attacker, my size advantage lets me deflect the muzzle, then take control of the weapon. We've done this drill MANY times with the shotgun, and she NEVER wins. I tried it once with my brother in law, and basically, whoever wins the struggle for control of the weapon is who wins.

With the airsoft pistol, we almost always get ONE or two shots off before contact is made. And even AFTER contact is made, one hand is used to maintain separation with the attacker, while the other hand makes kill shots with the pistol. Despite my size advantage, she is still ALWAYS

Honestly, my fiancee stands a better chance WITHOUT A WEAPON, than she does with the shotgun. She's an experienced kickboxer and brazilian jiu jitsu fighter, so when she doesn't have to worry about maintaining control of the long shotgun, she has more chance of defending herself. WE HAVE TESTED AND PROVEN THIS FACT. As an unarmed fighter, she SOMETIMES can get the best of me. With the shotgun, SHE NEVER WINS.

Like I said, your shotgun is FINE, if not IDEAL for investigating a strange sound in the night, but for a REFLEX WEAPON, I'll take a handgun every time.

Personally, I keep a 12ga Benelli M4 Tactical loaded at the ready, standing inside our closet, and I keep a Glock 19 on my nightstand. The glock is my REFLEX WEAPON, and the 12ga is the "I heard a noise downstairs weapon". But I have the luxury of having both. If I only had ONE weapon at the ready, it would be a reflex weapon, NOT an "I have the luxury of time" weapon.

Hurricanespg

In most home invasion situations you have an average of 3 seconds to identify the intruder as hostile or friendly, gather your weapon, aim, and hit your intended target.
In the "standing at the foot of the bed situation" you have approx. 1 second or less (usually less) to wake up, identify the person as hostile or friendly, gather your weapon, aim, and hit your target.
To put that into perspective, an average person usually takes 1 second to draw their weapon from a holster. As you can see in the above situation the odds (no matter the weapon) are definitely not in your favor.

Nomercy448; I believe you made a great point when you stated "unless you have trained for it". Great advice no matter the weapon of choice.

Whatever you do....Talk to the experts, take a few classes, get a little experience, and think things thru objectively. I am confident you can do it.

Bible_Man

But, you see, I sleep with my shotgun loaded, safety off and my finger on the trigger. Also, I keep one eye open at all times. Every 1.5 hours I change which eye is open......believe me?

In all seriousness, I find a lot of usefulness from NoMercy's last post. I, too, keep a shotgun (2, in fact) loaded in the bedroom. There are 4 pistols that stay loaded in the bedroom, though, and one of them would be what I would grab first. If time was an option, I'd get a shotgun, but with two fans going, they are going to have to be making some more racket in the rest of the house to wake me up. The bedroom door doesn't open without me waking, though. Sometimes I wish that wasn't the case, but that's the way it is. Hopefully I'll never have to be glad that I woke up when someone opens the bedroom door.

No matter what you choose for home protection, proficiency with what you use is the key. You are not going to "get lucky" in a real-life situation. Be prepared.

Hurricanespg

I like that, you mind if I incorporate it into my classes?

Colorado Luckydog

If a bad guy can make it into your bedroom while you are still asleep, there are a lot of other things you should worry about instead of which weapon you should have. There are a lot of things that you should or could be doing to secure your home and make "which weapon" lower on your list of priorities.

There is no way someone can break into my house without me waking up in plenty of time to greet them with my shotgun.

Nomercy448

I can't agree more (although I'd say that if you HAVE one second, then to win, you'll need to get your work done in HALF A SECOND, but now I'm just being conservative). If you wake up to someone standing over your bed, in that ONE SECOND, a person has to gather their thoughts, focus their vision, identify the threat, process the situation, reach for their weapon, ready the weapon (which is why I have a Glock on my nightstand, "no fuss, no muss, Go bang!"), re-acquire the target, and place their shot. The attacker/invader, on the only thing is already alert, has already identified the target/victim, so all they have to do is process "oh sh**, he has a gun", and either run, or dive onto the bed. I have 10 steps, he has 2.

Play with a shot timer some time. Laying on a bench outside with your weapon on or leaning against a "mock nightstand", compare how long it takes you to reach for, secure, and fire your shotgun, and then try out your handgun.

You mentioned objective thinking to help reason through these decisions. I'm a professional engineer with a case of aspergers, attention to detail and objective reasoning BASED ON FACTS is my bag (great for engineering, but I ruin movies for my fiancee a lot). The facts as I see them, based on objective testing, is why my shotgun is in the closet, and my pistol is on the nightstand.

WHEN WE TESTED THIS, the shotgun takes longer in the "time to first shot test", and it takes both hands to control and operate. If someone gets ahold of you, YES, with proper training, you can maintain control of the weapon and re-acquire the target, but it's a FIGHT FOR THE WEAPON scenario at best, and the "time to first HIT" is much longer than for a handgun...

But I'm not EVERYMAN... If you run these tests, and somehow you're faster with a bolt action Enfield than you are with a handgun and you're strong enough to control the muzzle even with a 200lb man pulling on the other end, then that's the weapon for you. For me, and dozens of other people I have trained in home based self defense, the same results have been true... Handgun = safer bet than shotgun.