schmellba99 said:

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You are an AR guy, we all know that. But sometimes, for a host of different reasons, what you like best and what performs best may not simply be the single best thing out there for everybody. I'd argue that comfort and familiarity play as much a roll as weapon selection - maybe even having a bit more weight when you factor in all of the intangibles in a hypothetical like needing to use it at night when a bad guy is in your house. Like everything else, you weigh your options and go on information and have to make the single best decision for you - and that decision may not be that the absolute best tool for the job is the tool that works best for you or that you are most comfortable with.

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Been a busy couple of days so I'm just now getting around to this.

I'm glad you mentioned this, because it is a huge misconception I think is likely based on the AR thread I started here. Yes, I own and shoot ARs, and use one for home defense.

But I am NOT an AR guy. I'm a pistol shooter. As in, 95% of my shooting is pistols. I compete in IDPA, USPSA, and Steel Challenge, I own more pistols than rifles, I shoot pistols at a MINIMUM of once a week either in practice or competition. If I bought the "go with what you're comfortable with" argument, I'd be using a pistol, period. It is by far the gun I shoot the most, the one I am the most comfortable with, and the one I have the most trigger time on by far. Based on a lot of opinions around here, I should be using a pistol for home defense based on my comfort and familiarity with pistols.

But when someone says comfort and familiarity, what are they talking about? For the purposes of home defense, comfort and familiarity really should be phrased speed and accuracy, because those are the two most important things in a defensive shooting and those are the skills being implied a shooter has with a gun when someone is talking about comfort and familiarity. And unlike the vague words "comfort and familiarity", speed and accuracy aren't intangibles. They can be measured, and I've done so. On the clock, if I shoot the vice presidente drill (I can get into why I think it's a good standard for potential home defense if anyone wants to object to testing with it) I am consistently faster with an AR than a pistol (and both are much, much faster than a pump action shotgun). I would be shocked to find anyone who could manage to shoot the vice presidente faster with a shotgun than they could with a pistol or rifle (unless they shoot three gun at a professional level and are using a mag fed competition shotgun but lets be honest: I doubt anyone advocating the shotgun for home defense is talking about anything more than a basic pump or semi auto).

"Comfort and familiarity" is a canard in my opinion based on both my own experience and introducing long time shotgun hunters to ARs on the range. 30 minutes on the range with someone who knows what they are doing and you will be faster with an AR than a shotgun no matter how many birds you've dropped or clays you've busted for the same reason I'm faster with a .22 pistol than I ever will be with a 9mm pistol no matter how much practice I do with a 9mm: simple physics. Shotguns have more recoil, and are slower to shoot accurately. If you stop using the vague term "comfort and familiarity" and start thinking in terms of "speed and accuracy", I think you'll see why I don't view it as subjectively as you do, even if you still disagree with me. And while 30 minutes with a pistol absolutely won't cut it to beat shotgun times on that drill if you're an experienced shotgunner, ARs are easier to shoot than pistols...another reason besides over penetration that I think they're a better choice for shooters of any skill level.

And before the next counterpoint is brought up of "well you don't need to shoot fast with a shotgun because one shot will drop them guaranteed" by anyone, don't make me dig up all the instances where someone did take a round of buckshot and kept going. Depending on one shot stops with any gun in a defensive situation is a bad idea.

Anything below #4 buck is going to have a very hard time penetrating. I've punched a lot of geese out of the sky with T shot - it works great for geese. But even on a goose, it doesn't penetrate all the way through the majority of the time. Bird shot, in any configuration, is simply not a good choice for anything but bird sized game on down.

And you stated well what I was trying to say. AR's are great, it's what I'm grabbing. But some folks just aren't going to get gung ho about an AR - I'd as soon have somebody with a .22 pistol that they can put 10 rounds in the X ring with versus them having an AR that they simply aren't comfortable with or aren't going to take the time to become comfortable with.

And if for some reason I don't have my AR out, I'm going for my MP5. I can just about close my eyes and put that thing on target at close range. It's not a point and shoot gun, but it's awfully close. No recoil, and 30 rounds of 9mm (even with over penetration and lack of power issues) is still a hell of a good start.

There is no universal answer. There are better choices than others, but ultimately it comes down to what the individual chooses. Just make it an educated choice and, like Bender said - not going off of internet myths.