Shotguns: The Best Felon Killing Home Defense Tool Ever Made

For most of my life I have been considered a "gun guy" by my friends, family and neighbors. The discussion about which weapon is best for home defense is one I have had many times. My answer is always the same... pump shotgun. No ifs, ands or buts in my personal opinion.

Imagine, if you will, you are startled awake at 3:00am by the sound of someone crashing through your front door. It doesn't matter how familiar you are with the handgun in the drawer beside the bed, your disorientation will lessen your effectivness with it. The beauty of a shotgun is that even if you are close you still score a hit.

Everyone has their own preference, and I can respect that, but for me and those who ask my opinion, you can't go wrong with a nice little pump shotgun.

I would also recommend one with a short barrel. 18" to 20" at the maximum. It is awful hard to Grandpa's 28 inch goose gun through a doorway in a panic. Don't believe me? Give it a test run some afternoon.

Mossberg 500

Pistol grip or stock is going to depend on personal preference and shooting ability. If you are new to guns, stick with a stock, otherwise, a pistol grip isn't bad if that's what you like. I prefer a stock, but that's just me.

Remington 870

No matter what weapon you choose to defend you loved ones and home, take it out and practice. When you are shocked awake in the middle of the night you want to rely on muscle memory. It's not in your best interest to make the first time you shoot your gun the time that your life depends on it...

by Richard Johnson - Guns & Patriots

Countless hours have been spent arguing what makes the “best” home defense gun. The reality is there is not a single gun that meets the requirements of every person and household.

Frequently, when talking about home defense guns, the shotgun is brought up first. The shotgun can make a very good home defense weapon, but it does have limitations that should be carefully considered.

Power

Shotguns offer devastating stopping power. From a 12 gauge shell, a homeowner can put nine 00-buck (.33 caliber) pellets into an assailant with each pull of the trigger. While this is not guaranteed to stop a determined attacker, it is certainly an attention getter.

By comparison, a 9mm pistol fires a single .355 caliber bullet at typically slower velocities than the shotgun. You would have to pull the trigger nine times on a pistol to put the same kind of stopping power into an assailant as a single shotgun shell.

But there are a number of drawbacks associated with the shotgun including recoil, size and unrealistic expectations regarding performance.

Ouch Factor

Shotgun recoil is stout. A smaller statured shooter is less likely to want to shoot a 12 gauge pump. The very thing that makes the shotgun so effective — power — is the same thing that makes people shy away from using it.

Shotgun recoil can be tamed in a variety of ways. For example, consider using a 20 gauge instead of 12 gauge shotgun. A 20 gauge shotgun loaded with #3 buck (20 .25 caliber pellets) is nearly as effective on human targets in across-the-room distances as a 12 gauge loaded with 00-buck, but has significantly less recoil.

Also, the use of a semi-auto shotgun can reduce felt recoil since the operating system uses some of that energy to eject and chamber shells. Moving from a 12 gauge pump to a semi automatic 20 can really change a reluctant shooter into a willing one.

If you decide to go with the 12 gauge shotgun, consider using the reduced recoil loads offered by most manufacturers. These loads have been used to great effect by law enforcement agencies, with no noticeable loss in terminal performance. In other words, less recoil but same stopping power.

A Knoxx recoil reduction stock from BLACKHAWK! significantly reduces recoil. As a former cop, I carried a shotgun in a patrol car for more than 10 years, and I state without any hesitation that the Knoxx stock is the best accessory ever designed for a combat shotgun.

Size Matters

Size matters in two important aspects: length of barrel and length of pull.

The length of the shotgun barrel typically ranges from 18” to 28”. Anything shorter is illegal without the proper tax stamp from Big Brother.

A long shotgun barrel, such as would be used for wing shooting, is difficult to tactically maneuver through a house. I would never suggest leaving the relative safety of an entrenched position to go looking for home intruders, but reality is you may have to move from your room to go protect your children or other family member.

An 18” - 20” barrel is optimal. If you have a shotgun with a longer barrel, you can easily purchase a second barrel that installs in about five minutes. When you get ready to go hunting, simply swap the barrel back. Shotguns are very easy with which to work.

Read the rest at the link above...

Just a reminder...

Look to the left on your screen, look to the right on your screen. Did you notice anything? I don't have any sponsors or advertisers and I don't ask for donations. I don't try to make a single nickle of off this, I do it for me and for you. I hope that you find something interesting here once in a while and it is therapy for me.

Being able to vent my political frustrations in a non-destructive way is good. The pictures of guns, cars and Beautiful Women enhance my calm.

I appreciate each and every one of you who follow my blog, and those that don't too. If you just stop by once in a while for the pictures, that's ok too. You are always welcome.

I hope some of you are enjoying the new Firearm of the Week feature by Big Mullet. He enjoys doing them. He has an extremely fine collection of firearms. If you haven't noticed that yet, you haven't been paying attention.

Feel free to comment on posts if you want. Even if your opinion is different than mine or some of the other commenters, it will get posted as long as it is respectful and not mean spirited. I wouldn't treat you like that and I just ask for the same in return.

Good night everyone, see you all tomorrow...

Why Liberals Want Gun Shows Stopped

It's all about control. The government wants to control our lives, even more so when it comes to firearms. If they can't outright confiscate our weapons they will regulate us into submission. They fear armed citizens, to the point of turning honest people into criminals through regulations designed to be vauge, confusing and downright impossible to understand...

by Mike Piccione - Guns & Patriots

A fundamental principle of a free people is the ability to transfer property to someone else without government intervention. In the case of firearms, it is often a tradition to pass on a gun from one generation to another.

Recently a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, commissioned a poll to determine how the public felt about tightening background checks on people that bought guns. It will come as little surprise that a group called Mayors Against Illegal Guns wants additional restrictive legislation on the already restrictive process and they even bought the research that indicates the public agrees.

The target of liberal legislators is the gun show. If you are a licensed gun dealer you hold a Federal Firearms License and are required by law to perform a background check before you can release the gun to the buyer. That makes good sense and often there is a waiting period. A waiting period makes good sense too unless you are someone being threatened or harassed and you happen to need a way to defend yourself. The attacker will be reassured that the government will deny you, the potential victim, an immediate opportunity to purchase a tool to defend yourself. When an attack is going to happen in seconds the police, if called, will respond in minutes to take the crime report.

Here is the controversial aspect of a gun show: the unlicensed seller. This is a person that wants to sell his personal property to another individual. It is the equivalent of you saying “Mike, you want to sell that .22?” And then me telling you I’ll take 50-bucks for it. We have a deal and I’m the unlicensed seller. But, I don’t need a license to sell you my .22. That is the “gun show loophole.”

Closing the “gun show loophole” enables the government to curtail person to person sales. That is what is really behind the attack on gun shows. Every gun would have to be turned into a gun dealer so that it could be tracked by the Federal Government and then the transfer process would be monitored by the Federal Government. The right you have now to sell your neighbor your shotgun will be gone, forever.

Read the rest at the link above...

TARP Police! Step Away From the Bailout Money!

O M G! What in the hell is this Country coming to? For as much as obama and his gang of thugs don't like guns, they are sure ready to pass them out to every little piss ant government agency that comes along.

Go read the rest of this at the link...

By: Eamon Javers - CNBC

Early this week, a request for proposal for police car upgrades by the Special Inspector General of the TARP bank bailout program began circulating in Washington.

That prompted a lot of head scratching around town: Huh? You mean the mild-mannered auditors who mind the taxpayer money in the $700-plus billion TARP program? What do they need police car upgrades for?

It may come as a surprise to people in the financial industry — it certainly did to me — but TARP's inspector general (SIGTARP) is not just a financial watchdog. Under its outgoing leader, Neil Barofsky, it has quietly built itself into a full-fledged financial law enforcement agency.

It has 45 investigators who are empowered to carry guns and badges, and 27 vehicles with sirens and lights spread out in its branch offices across the country. SIGTARP agents are empowered to make arrests, and they’ve done just that 23 times, according to a spokeswoman. The agency says it is engaged in 142 ongoing criminal and civil investigations, and that it has already recovered assets worth $151.8 million.

It’s a law enforcement agency with an expiration date, though — by law, the agency expires as soon as all taxpayer dollars under TARP have been repaid, although that could be years from now.

Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico

Finally, a lame stream media outlet gives this story some coverage. This is a big deal and it shows the utter incompetence of the atf. They are basically supplying guns to the drug cartels and have been for quite a while. At the same time, they are using the guns they supply to pad the numbers and make the problem of American guns in mexico seem worse than it really is. It really seems like the guns supplied by the atf are the majority of what makes it south of the border...

By Sharyl Attkisson - CBSNews

WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.

He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?

"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.

Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."

Read the whole thing at the link above, it's an eye opener...

Big Mullet

I've asked my buddy Big Mullet to sign on as an author here at Hell on Earth. He has a wealth of knowledge on a wide range of subjects. He is a gun history buff, especially those of World War II vintage. I'm hoping he will share some pictures and facts about some firearms we all know and love. He also stays up to speed on all things political and we enjoy sharing a discussion on the topic of the day.

If you ever have an opportunity to visit a gun show with this guy, jump on it. Usually the guys selling the weapons don't know as much about them as Big Mullet. It's like a walk through history.

When he makes his first formal post, please give him a welcome.

Lewis and Clark had an air rifle?

Watch this video about a very important piece of American history. If you like historical weapons you will  find this interesting. I never knew that there was an air rifle built in the late 1700's and I sure didn't know that the security of the Lewis and Clark expedition may have been directly linked to one...