Have to agree with CWuestefeld, for home defense you want a shotgun with a short barrel. You want to know how to shoot it and you want some safety and maintenance training. Also, do not choose ammo that is going to go through your walls.
Don't forget a lot of gun owners are shot with their own weapons. At a minimum you want a shoulder strap for larger weapons, and the ability to keep a hand free while aiming. Longer barrels also allow people to more easily grab them which is vary dangerous, and make it more obvious where they are in the home. As to penetrating issues, you can use shotgun ammo in handguns, but with a short enough barrel the difference becomes minimal as long as you have a reasonable clip size.
PS: Statistically gun owners are less safe. I expect that with reasonable precautions you can cross the threshold into overall safety. But, clearly you need to approach things from the perspective that owning a gun is a larger risk by default and then deal with the new risks.
Do you have the stats on "Don't forget a lot of gun owners are shot with their own weapons". I don't think I agree with the shoulder strap part, and I have never seen or heard of shotgun ammo in a hand gun.
Kellermann states that as an emergency room doctor, he noted that the number of gunowners injured by their own gun or that of a family member seemed to greatly outnumber the number of intruders shot by the gun of a homeowner, and therefore he determined to study whether or not this was in fact true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Kellermann (I could quote from this, but it's IMO worth a read.)
When the team looked at shootings in which victims had a chance to defend themselves, their odds of getting shot were even higher.
PS: As to why you have not heard of this. The final appropriation language included the following statement: “[N]one of the funds made available for injury control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control”. These words appear in every CDC grant announcement to this day. [5]
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Showing correlation doesn't show causation.
Consider, for example, that people who are more likely to be injured by a gun at the outset are probably more likely to own, and even to have to use, a gun themselves. A drug dealer, for example, is more likely to have a gun because of his line of work. But having the gun isn't what makes it more dangerous; rather, it's more dangerous, so he feels he needs a gun.
Thus, the gun owners have a higher Bayesian prior. It would be very wrong to interpret this to say that owning a gun causes your likelihood of it being used (maybe even accidentally) against you.
I suggest that many people who actually do such studies understand this, and that is a better reason for it not to be in the headlines.
I don't feel the need to defend the research. There is a lot of it and it does address your obvious concerns. My point about funding was demonstrating that like Abstinence only education the is that it's treated as a political issue where actual evidence is irrelevant. The proper result of a study that you disagree with is to look for flaws and then do more research or change your stance, not to cut funding.
Anyway, did you read the any of the studies or are you filtering new evidence though your basis in such a way that you don't need to reconsider your stance? In proper Bayesian reasoning you need to consider how much this information even if flawed adjusts your probability estimates. Deciding that the risks of some activity is worth it is one thing, deciding that some activity is good and therefore ignoring the risks is not. I just linked a specific case where someones owning a gun resulted in there being shot by that gun so the situation exists. The question becomes how common is it and how common is it to defend yourself with a gun and then compare them. And to do that you need actual evidence not a hunch.
Yes, being shot with your own gun is a rare event, so is using your gun to defend yourself. And at the level of paranoia where spending money on a gun so you can defend yourself becomes reasonable you need to consider other low probability events. The largest downside is how having a gun tends to escalate the violence of a situation, but when evaluating types of guns that takes a back seat to losing control of it.
PS: I am pro gun despite the expectation that it reduces safety. Arthur Kellermann overestimates the risks, but he is a good starting point for the research.
But let me note that we're not just passengers on the probability bus. All those possibilities of accidents or otherwise being harmed by your own weapon are avoidable. I can mitigate all of those dangers by taking responsibility for myself (and imposing the same on my family) to be properly trained and practiced.
On the other hand, there isn't so much that I can do to mitigate the danger I'm in should I or my family find ourselves in the (admittedly very unlikely) situation of being attacked (yes, I can try to avoid some situations to begin with, but I claim that ordinary prudent behavior is the most that can be expected here without getting to diminishing returns).
If I'm under attack, there's little else I can do to protect myself. But ahead of time, I can prepare myself and family to defend ourselves, and at the same time ensure that we won't get ourselves into trouble. I much prefer being the one driving the outcome, rather than the bad guy.
I have never heard of shotgun ammo being used in a handgun. Your PS does not explain that. I am going to go with CWuestefeld's response until I see some actual stats on the issue.
There are handguns that shoot a .410 shotgun shell. The Taurus Judge[1] is one such gun.
However, I think the parent meant that owners either are shot by someone they know who is using their guns maliciously or non-maliciously, or have the gun somehow removed from their control by an assailant and then killed with it.
You want to know how to shoot it and you want some safety and maintenance training.
Absolutely! One needs to learn how to properly wield the weapon, and to do so safely. But "knowing" this stuff isn't sufficient to be able to do so successfully. You must train: practice at least until you can feel comfortable with the weapon: you know what the trigger pull and the recoil feels like, you are comfortable with the grip in your hand and smoothly bringing it up to position, etc.
For anyone crazy enough to believe what they see on television: you won't be able to just pick up a gun and shoot it properly without some experience. You just won't. Some of this is "book learning". But some of it is "you just need the practical experience". In particular, you will be very surprised at how difficult it is to use a handgun to hit a person-sized target in the far corner of your living room.
If you don't learn and practice with your gun, you're no more likely to be successful than you are at programming without actually doing a real project.
I do agree practice is a necessity but people often forget the other basics, particularly maintenance. To add, if you intend to own a firearm, go somewhere with some experience and get one that suits you personally. Think of it as the vi / emacs debate writ larger.
if you intend to own a firearm, go somewhere with some experience and get one that suits you personally
Good advice. In particular, it's too easy to view the gun's style. Do NOT consider that it looks cool, tough, etc. The fact that the .50 Desert Eagle looks menacing is not going to save you from the fact that you (or me, at least) just can't properly shoot a gun that's so big and powerful. Being able to use it properly is much more important.
Also, don't just assume that it's going to be an auto like a Glock, etc. IMHO a simple dual-action [1] revolver is probably a better choice for defensive situations, precisely because it is so simple. A revolver will never let you down: you can always just pull the trigger again to get to the next chamber. By contrast, autos are prone to jamming, not to mention a misfired bullet; either way, you're now at the mercy of the bad guy. Your primary concern in this area is dependability.
[1] "Dual action" means that you may cock it for better trigger pull, but if you don't, you can still fire it with just the trigger
