[QUOTE=lisacurl]
I fail to see how reinforcing my roof and/or fence would protect me from a breakdown of civil order.QUOTE]
That’s not the point I was making- the point I was making is that people in Australia don’t immediately start looting and shooting people as soon as natural disaster strikes- they get together and help each other rebuild, then have a few cold drinks and a barbie when the Red Cross, State Emergency Service, and other Disaster Relief agencies show up a few hours later…
Perhaps you’re not tracking the discussion. The OP contemplates the acquisition of a personal firearm for home defense. Carbines and rifles are not well-suited to Indoor/CQB use, especially when using high-powered, high-penetration rounds. The .44Magnum doesn’t distinguish between being fired out of a pistol or out of a carbine. The overpower/overpenetration issues remains.
I guess that one of the reasons that “Australians don’t buy guns after natural disasters” would include a few facts:
personal firearms, at least the sort that are useful in self-defense, are essentially illegal in Australia;
legal doctrine in Australia does not embrace the right of self-defense;
Australia doesn’t have the sort of cored-out quasi-cities with large, crime-enhanced urban cores (such as Detroit or New Orleans) that break down into mass-violence centers on the occasional flood or acquital of OJ Simpson’s latest dead ex-wife.
If you want a political gun-control thread, you might want to start one, as opposed to flailing away with your alleged Cultural Superiority of Australia baton.
It’s not a ‘cultural superiority’ thing, at least not from my perspective. I just find it incredibly sad that, no matter how far we first-world citizens have come in our lives (socially, economically, politically and interpersonally), we still resort to potentially violent means to protect our wellbeing.
My post was not meant to be an indictment of the OP, nor the USA in general. I’m sorry if it came across that way. In fact, I wonder when (not if) Australia will become as fearful and distrusting as US citizens seem to be. I hope it is not in my lifetime.
Your reply seems extremely forced and disingenuous, kambuckta, given that in your original post, you went out of your way to underline the difference between Australian and American reactions to a disaster.
I wonder why you worry. In an area slightly smaller than the US contiguous 48 states, Australia has a population of about 20 million. The United States population is approaching 300 million. And that’s only the most obvious way in which Australia and the United States are nothing alike. I never understand why the two countries are even compared. Besides a shared language and history of past centuries as colonies of England, we’re not all that alike.
This is why I want a shotgun. I don’t want to shoot someone. I think racking that thing from the top of the stairs (and that is an unmistakable noise) will send anyone not much better armed or outright suicidal right back out the window they crawled through.
Lisacurl, if you are willing to take the time to learn to use a firearm, by all means do it. We have a right as Americans to own a firearm, and it is a shame that so few of us seem to take advantage of it. Society certainly does have the potential to break down, and I wouldn’t count on it not happening again in your lifetime.
However, a firearm should make one more secure in her own home, not less so; given your history, I wonder if this may not be possible for you. However, with training and experience, I can assure you that firearms will lose that mythically lethal image bestowed on them by Hollywood. My only remaining disclaimer is that this is advice coming from a member of the “heavily armed” gun culture that you say you dislike (although I’m not the violent sort in civilian life).
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This “racking the slide” thing to scare someone off is not a good idea. If you have a gun for self-defense, keep a round (or shell) in the chamber and, if possible (ie, no potential for unauthorized access), leave your safety off. When you’re in the dark and you have adrenaline rushing through your system, you don’t want to fumble more than necessary with anything mechanical. Beyond that, if you have a gun, accept that fact that you may have to shoot an intruder. It will not be pleasant, but that is not something that need be contemplated until after the fact.
I left my Mossy 500 with a shell chambered, safety off next to my bed for months while it was my home defense weapon. Recently, I graduated to an AR15 as it is a weapon I spent years training on (for those of you that will argue about this decision due to over-penetration, I’m using 40-grain Hornady TAP, which is less likely to penetrate a wall than most pistol ammunition). FTR, my AR has a round in its chamber and its safety is off at this very moment.
And if it doesn’t? What then? What if they duck and shoot? You’re fucked, that’s what. Bad idea.
You shouldn’t have a gun at all. Make a recording of the racking sound and play that for the intruder. Should be just as effective.
Believe me, I am giving that a lot of thought before I made the decision. I am not frightened of firearms in and of themselves. I’ve shot weapons before a few times. I grew up in a hunting family and so had the basic rules of gun safety inculcated at an early age.
I have no quarrel whatsoever with informed, responsible gun owners.
And I hate to come in here and digress, but I’d argue that keeping a loaded gun with a round up the spout and the safety off is quite possibly the most dangerous thing you can do, and is also totally unnecessary- unless your house happens to be located in downtown Honiara at the moment, that is.
I will suggest a .38 calibre revolver- NOT a .357 Magnum, however. .357 Magnums are very noisy and have a lot of cylinder and muzzle flash, which is not good for shooting in the dark.
Wouldn’t an AR-15 be a bit bulky and awkward to use inside?
Not just home defense, but home defense after a natural disaster against looters, or maybe multiple looters. In that scenario, a .44 lever action carbine isn’t a bad choice. Until it’s time to reload.
I think that the AR-15 or mini-14 in .223, with a few 20 round magazines, is good for this situation. Probably not for other home defense situations. For instance, if I was responding to a noise outside in the middle of the night (normal night, not a disaster scenario), the pistol or shotgun would be best. Roaming looters day and night after a disaster? The carbine.
Now that’s not a big deal for me, because I own each of these weapons. In the OP’s situation, buying their first and probably only gun, the shotgun or pistol is best. I’d go with the one that I could practice with more, considering ammunition cost and where I could go to shoot.
Do you have an upstairs? It seems to me that getting the family upstairs and protecting the stairs is the best strategy.
The best outcome, if you have a gun, is to scare the intruder and not need to fire it.
If you’ve never used guns, handguns are much harder to aim than rifles. Shotguns you don’t need to aim as well.
That said, it’s really tough to have a gun that you keep safe (unloaded, out of kids’ ability to get), and that you can get to by the time you realize a bad guy’s coming in.
Large dogs are extremely good defense, because they don’t back down from a gun or knife and the intruder knows it. Plus, they hear things you don’t.
But if you’ve made the decision to get a gun I’d recommend a shotgun. Smaller gauge is more power. Try it out - you have to get used to the kick (for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction - the butt of the gun goes into your shoulder as hard as the shot goes out the other end).
I obviously missed that before I posted. Hope I didn’t condescend.
Although unsuited to the general breakdown in law and order scenario of Hurricane Katrina, I have become more and more enamored with Tasers.
The major deal-breaking problems with them are their short range and single-shot capacity.
That being said, they have some really major advantages. First off, is they are (mostly) non-leathal. That reduces the severity of accidents in the home. It also decreases your reluctance to use it. Even if you did pop your son (who came back from college a week early) in the middle of the night, at least you will not kill him. They also have a neat-o laser aiming aid.
Of course, as I said, it is pretty-well a shoot and run weapon. Once it is fired, it is reduced to a stun baton.
I agree up to a point. One up and off is dangerous if the weapon is being carried around. But up and off and lying under a bed, maybe not so much.
Qualifier: assuming of course the weapon is not left unattended.
Mine is up and on. I have confidence in my ability to thumb the safety off in an emergency. In fact, I never shoot a load of ammo without clicking the safety on first, just so I have to get the act of clicking it off into muscle memory.
Oh, and the first part of that last sentence wasn’t supposed to be overtly sexual, ya freaking pervs. 
Just to placate the Australians 
and anyone else who may think that we are all gun-toting cowboys over here…
Home and family defense is the primary issue that we are concerned with, not the act of owning a gun. The gun is often simply the best tool for that job.
In my case, I don’t own a gun because my wife doesn’t like them, but instead have two good dogs and a couple of swords in convenient places.
I know that statistically, most of the houses in my neighborhood contain a gun, and therefore also contain a gun-owner with an interest in protecting their family. That makes me feel far safer than a gunless environment would.
This is an especially ill-considered remark. Nobody here is advocating a resort to “violence” as a first measure when the roof blows off the house and the cops abandon the local citizenry to their own devices. The idea being promoted in here (and in fact, in every argument in favor of using lethal force for self-defense purposes) is to be able to meet force with like force. If one is threatened with violence, then an in-kind response is not only warranted, it ain’t even violence; it’s an entirely legitimate means of self-defense.
A .357 loaded with .38 Special’s might be a good compromise. Not that I’d really recommend a handgun for use in the home anyway. All centerfire (and probably most rimfire) handgun loads are gonna penetrate walls and floors - unless they’re made outta concrete. Like others have said, a shotgun is probably the firearm best suited for use in the home by a “casual” user. Shorter barrels are better than longer ones, too, for the manueverability. Twelve gauge loaded up with 2-#/4" shells of #6, or maybe #4, shot is what I’d use. Much as I’d like to say flechette reounds, I think you’d get some grief in court if you had a tube full of those guys. Almost as important as the ballistic characteristics of the gun you select, is how the perception of the gun and its use is gonna play in the nearly inevitable aftermath of your trial. If you use a gun to shoot someone in your home, you’re probably gonna be taken to jail. You need to be prepared in advance for that, too.
Me, I got a Browning Bullseye SE .22 target pistol in the nightstand because I know I can shoot the pecker off a gnat with that thing. First two shots are shotshells. If those don’t make a guys stop and think, there’s 9 more little hollow points right behind 'em. And then three more magazines.
I’d certainly think so. Its use is also something I’d rather not have to try to justify in court.