Home invasion defense: hand gun, sawed-off shotgun, Uzi, etc.?

If you home were to be invaded, which single weapon (below) would be your first choice?

A big dog.

What, no hot doorknobs or swinging paint cans? Not very thorough if you ask me.

My go-to is a shotgun. I have a nice AR-15 on standby, should I need it, and the house is lousy with handguns. All with lights, so’s ya don’t shoot kids sneaking in late.

Hot doorknobs and swinging paint cans are excellent choices. I would think these might fall under the category of “booby traps,” but I could be wrong. :slight_smile:

Yes, I have never understood why anyone would chose a hand gun over a shotgun for defense against home invasion, but I hope the responses to this thread will enlighten me.

m1 carbine or bullpup rifle. Light, short barrels, accesorizable (lasers, scopes), easy to swing around.

What I have right now for home protection is a baseball bat by my bed and a couple of well-sharpened chef’s knives in the kitchen. I also have bars on my window and a solid metal door.

If I wanted to buy a firearm for home defense, I’d probably get a large caliber revolver. Shotguns aren’t available here, and barring those, you can’t beat a 0.44" in terms of intimidation value.

Shorter (less likely to be grabbed), easier to use one-handed, typically a lot more capacity, easier & faster to reload. That’s not to say a handgun is superior in all aspects to a shotgun but it does have advantages.
Legal questions aside, I’d take a small SMG in semi-auto. High capacity, short & light, stable & can be shouldered, sufficient range. It could be used in instinctive spray & pray or for well-aimed shots. This is presuming that by “home invasion” you don’t mean defending a ranch and shooting across open fields or something similar.

I chose “other”, as in “run”. Trying to stand up to a bunch of armed criminals bursting into your home is almost certainly going to get you killed regardless of what you are armed with or how badass you think you are, unless you have a tank in your living room you can climb into.

Shotgun. You dont have to have a good & steady aim. However i do sleep with and ccw permit carry in my pocket a Keltec .380… You cant always have a 12 gauge shotgun within arms length.

Never understood any legit reason for owning an AR15. Those are great for keeping a small nations army at bay…or an entire group of Hells Angels from raping your daughters. i was at an indoor gun range with my Keltec, and the guy next to me had a fully automatic AR15 machine gun. Jesus Tap Dancing Christ, in addition to spitting out a lot of bullets per second, that thing was also a flame thrower…the muzzle flash went about 1/3rd the distance to the target, as well as going about 2 feet left and right.
I am looking at buying a few of them…for investment…its seems certain Obama will try to ban them. I heard one of his staff on XM radio, say they plan to buy back AR15s by offering a buy back price 1/3rd more than one costs new.
I have no issues with citizens owning AR15s…nothing in the constitution says one may only own guns used for hunting…completely baffled that Obama thinks otherwise.

Added dog at the request of the OP.

I am amazed by those survivalists in Montana that say they own AR-15s to take on the US D of D…no AR15 will ever stop an F15 Eagle, Apache AH64 helicopter with its computerized night vision 30mm cannon with 2 mile range & Hellfire guided missiles, or A10 tank killer. You have the same odds of taking one these down with a Keltec or shotgun: zero

Defence would be the absolutely last resort for me. First priority, flight while making as much noise as possible; second priority, compliance; third priority, striking with any heavy object that might be at hand. Not only my own life but also the life of the intruder are worth more than any possessions of mine.

I’ve spent more time practicing with a handgun and think I’d be better with it in a bad situation. A cop friend has taken me to an indoor range for “realistic” practice; low lights, target advancing, etc.

That said, I have a handgun in the nightstand drawer and 16 gauge pump under the bed. Very little chance I’ll ever need either, but hey.

I think you’re best off installing a very loud alarm horn that you can activate manually at one or more locations in your home. Most thieves are grab-and-go, not interested in a confrontation or any attention. Mash the button and get the fuck out of the house while the intruder is disoriented by the racket.

The only home invasions that I know of in my area have been by the police, looking for drugs. My neighbor’s house was invaded, complete with battering ram and the whole family held at gun point, because someone told them the son was a dealer. A gun would be the worst possible thing to use in those situations. I can’t imagine what would have happened if my neighbor had tried to defend his home - certainly nothing good.

When I lived in the country we had a shotgun and I was glad to have it a couple of times when a car load of strangers pulled up to the house. In those cases I had time to assess the potential danger and warn off the bible thumpers.

In a real home invasion I don’t think I could assess the situation quickly and accurately enough to make the decision to fire until it was too late, so I don’t believe a gun would work for me. I just couldn’t pull the trigger. So my security team is my big dog who does not like strangers in the house. He keeps lookout, and will act as a non-lethal first line of defense against both criminals and police mistakes. In the extremely unlikely situation where he and I can’t handle the problem I guess we are screwed but the wife knows the escape route.

Uh, where is the ‘home alarm system’ option?

Last time I checked, no one has ever been killed accidentally by a home alarm system, no one has been killed while cleaning a home alarm system, and no kid was ever killed by stumbling across a home alarm system.

The threat of being gang raped.

Are you expecting to be home-invaded by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern ?

Handgun with Glaser safety bullets that won’t penetrate walls. I don’t want to kill a family member in another room. Safety bullets are still lethal to flesh. They are designed to break up if they hit sheetrock or wood.

We were taught in my carry class to never look for a intruder in the home. Find a place in the room to take a stand. Have the gun ready to fire. Let the bad guy come to you. You’ll have the advantage because you’re already in a kneeling position and ready to fire.

The only one I’m familiar with was a guy crawling into the car window and declaring, “I have a gun and I’m going to kill you.”

I’d shoot him and live to feel guilty about it. :slight_smile:

For a home invasion, a shotgun. I don’t believe there would be much spread across a room, but at 25’ number three goes through both sides of a steel trash can in a pattern about the size of a dinner plate.
I wouldn’t be at my best in those circumstances, and would want every advantage possible.