Home defense: Would you rely on rubber buckshot as your first shot?

:" Slug use looses the one big advantage of a shotgun- high hit probability".
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I have to disagree with that as its utter nonsense. At typical inside the house distances even a big load of small shot doesn't have the time / distance to spread. It'll hit em (or miss em) just like a slug if you're not aiming and just pointing and hoping for the best.

Thats some kind of myth that all you have to do is point the SG in the general direction and you get em. But OTOH, if you have slugs and know you only have one projectile, you aim...and there's your advantage with a SG!

YMMV.
 
I won't comment on the rubber buckshot but would argue that 00 Buck is overkill ( no pun intended) for HD. In tests conducted in some gun rag several years back, 00 buck went through something like 4 walls before stopping. #4 went through 1+if memory serves. I'd limit my liability and get some #4 or 6 Bird shot/hunting loads. It'll be better for overpenetration and the use of common off the shelf wally world ammo will not call notice to your "premeditated" ammo selection decision process.
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"Overkill" is a misnomer. There is no such thing when it comes to life and death situations. What you have is just one level of being dead, dead. You are alive or you are dead. You may be walking dead, but that means you area alive and fighting even if you aren't going to survive. Platt was walking dead in the Miami FBI shootout. As noted, the suspects were dying, they just were not dying fast enough. If sticking to misnomers, he suffered underkill. He wasn't going to survive, but he was still able to kill and wound agents between the time of being fatally shot (he supposedly would not have survived the 9mm shot through his arm, into his chest, nicking one of the major arteries and filling one lung completely with blood. It was a lethal wound unto itself).

So if the choice is overkill or underkill, overkill is what you want if your plan is to be sure that you survive.

I would also add that gun rags cannot be considered optimal for making decision on which your life will depend. Their goal is to sell issues, plain and simple.
 
Although I would feel remorse for having killed someone that someday, because they may have gotten their life straight and invented a cure for cancer that might save thousand of lives in the future (far fetched I know, but I hope you see what I meant), I would not let them hurt my family no matter what the law is at the time.
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This $#!+ kills me.

That same b@st@rd would not have the same courteous decision making while deciding what to do with me and my girlfriend while he's holding us at gunpoint.

I do not subscribe to the idea that I should care about anyone who is intending to do me/mine harm, or that is looking to steal what I have worked my entire life to achieve. Persons that do think this way are wonderful, big-hearted people. We need people like this in the world. I am just not one of them.

I would not matter to me in what state I reside. I feel, that being startled from sleep, trying to assess a situation that, in the middle of the night, is quite out of the ordinary… All while contemplating laws, and what if's, and “can I shoot him now???”... I'm not going to go through that. I am fully prepared to go to prison to defend my family, and my home.

They wouldn't do me the favor by giving me all of this over-consideration (i.e. rubber buck-shot...) if, God forbid, they got the best of me.

Realism (n.): the attribute of accepting the facts of life and favoring practicality and literal truth
 
No, I wouldn't even consider it. If you are not prepared or justified to use deadly force, don't pick up a shotgun.
 
Although I would feel remorse for having killed someone that someday, because they may have gotten their life straight and invented a cure for cancer that might save thousand of lives in the future (far fetched I know, but I hope you see what I meant), I would not let them hurt my family no matter what the law is at the time.
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I do not subscribe to the idea that I should care about anyone who is intending to do me/mine harm, or that is looking to steal what I have worked my entire life to achieve. Persons that do think this way are wonderful, big-hearted people. We need people like this in the world. I am just not one of them.
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I was responding to Fred's debate when I posted that and I would defend my family first before taking that into consideration. I was just talking about remorse of the loss of life. Imagine if the neighborhood, pubescent teenager broke into your house after his first time drinking and doing something stupid. You shot him because you automatically shoot someone who poses a threat to your family (as I probably would). Would you feel remorse for the young honor student's death and the loss to humanity if he was working to be a minister or a doctor later in life? The guy who shot that teenage Japanese student in Louisianna in the mid 90's, who was drunk and wouldn't respond to a pointed gun and leave the front of the house, probably did. I think he did the right thing protecting his family (as I would have as well), but that doesn't change a common human response which is remorse for taking a young life. I do not speak for you, but many of us have screwed up in life in a minor or major way (as kids mostly) and have changed our lives to make up for the mistakes.
 
novus collectus said:
Imagine if the neighborhood, pubescent teenager broke into your house after his first time drinking and doing something stupid.
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The only sorrow I would feel is the loss his family would have to deal with. It would not be for the pubescent teenager. More realistically (rather than him being a pastor or doctor) is he would turn into a criminal.

A "pubescent teenager" that is so inebriated that he does not know breaking into someone's home is a bad thing (complete BS) is hard enough for me to understand, let alone the determination this same punk would have to show in order to actually get past locked doors and such to get inside.

That type of determination tells me this isn't just a drunk dipsh*t having fun. It's someone determined to do SOMETHING bad and I do not want to give them a chance to show me what it is.

I got drunk as a teen (as I'm sure everyone here did). I was also into drugs as a teen (as maybe only some of you here were), and if I had broken into someone's home I damn sure would expect to be shot. I'm not putting any undue restrictions on anyone else, that I wouldn't put on myself.

Besides anyone stupid enough to think B&E is "fun" (drunk or not) should be culled from the gene pool.
 
I gotta admit, it'd be hard to argue with logic like trip20's. All too often young punks, 'scuse me, young little angels who make 'mistakes' in fun are let off cause they were just having fun, at our expense. A prosecuting attorney can always make any situation sound like backing off and letting the criminal have his way would've been the right thing to do.

Pubescent teenagers are not shot for perpetrating B&E's, but that B&E's be not perpetrated! Even drunk teens can understand news reports and remember consequences. Being drunk or young is not an excuse or permission to act stupidly. (I'm not THAT drunk...etc.)
 
Rubber shot

Being an attorney you should know that if the perp lives he's gonna sue your pants off. Rubber shot (blinded, welts, lots of red marks for photos by HIS attorney) will hurt both of you. You more than him/her. Would you use a rubber knife?
 
I agree Edward.

I don't know if my rational is "right" or "just"... in most peoples eyes, and it doesn't need to be so.

I also want to make it clear I'm not picking on novus (I hope your not taking it that way novus :) ).

In fact in my post where I first quoted novus just above, was not necessarily picking on his view point. He made a perfectly good disclaimer in the same quote stating how far fetched it was.

It was more directed towards the people that feel that way through and through, with no disclaimer.

I hope my comments do not make people think I am pulling the trigger regardless of circumstances. Don't paint my comments with that broad a brush.

918sgt - good comparison - rubber knife.
 
I also want to make it clear I'm not picking on novus (I hope your not taking it that way novus ).
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Not at all. And besides, you were answering the question I asked.

[Rubber knife? "watch out!!! He's got a broken candle" (from the movie "the Bus" or "Superbus")] :)

Reading this thread completly made me forget about the idea about using rubber buckshot in my SG for home defense, a week or so ago. So much so that I had a nightmare where I couldn't kill the guys who were attacking my home and was fumbling around trying to put real bullets in my unloaded pistols. Dreams tell you things sometimes that the conscious mind sometimes ignores.
 
So much so that I had a nightmare where I couldn't kill the guys who were attacking my home and was fumbling around trying to put real bullets in my unloaded pistols. Dreams tell you things sometimes that the conscious mind sometimes ignores.
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Funny.. :D ..that's almost as bad as the bad guy counting to ten and then getting back up just to blow me away. :D
 
Would you rely on rubber buckshot as your first shot?
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Hayel No! Anybody or anything needing shot deserves being shot with lead. If you think the threat dosen't warrant you sending them a load of Federal's best, then you don't need to shoot.
Rubber buckshot, fin-stabilized rounds, bean bags and things of that nature are designed for law enforcement and are to be deployed in situations where there are several officers present to gain control of the suspect after they get whacked with one of these loads.
 
i would never use rubber shot. if you feel you need to shoot someone but dont think that your life is threatened enough to kill them then you shouldnt be shooting in the first place. also, as some other people said at HD ranges even rubber shot can be lethal.
 
I agree with the sentiment that if someone has become such a threat that I've got a shotgun pointed in their direction, its going to have double ought in the tube.
 
The "rubber shot/beanbag" and all those other novelty rounds are just that...
Novelty Rounds.

For serious socializing needs, lead only. My choice is #4 Buckshot. If the situation has deteriorated to the point where I am having to present my shotgun in a HD/SD scenario, I'm NOT betting my hide on "Nerf" ammo.
 
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