The attitude that 'all legal weapons are okay' (to paraphrase Bill) while morally and philosophically correct is an example of foolishly disregarding reality.
The reality of our existance is that we live in a world of gun-grabbers, soccer moms and damnfools, and more likely than not a substantial percentage of your jury will be made up of one of the abovelisted categories.
If you get involved in a shooting you have three fights to survive:
The first is the actual fight- the one where arguments such as 'better to be judged by 12 than carried by six' apply. IMO a shotgun- just a plain old shotgun without tactical addons and lethal surekill whozeewhatsits- is perfectly viable. The shotgun that rides in my car on duty has no sidesaddle, no weapon light, no pistol grip, no bayonet lug, no special sights. I feel perfectly fine using it. Any increased capabilities from tacitcal gizmos would be marginal. And certainly a battle or assault rifle would be at best marginally better. At best.
The second fight is the criminal legal battle. Logic, sense and the rule of law often pervail here, but with lawyers and politicians there are no sure bets. Little things can and do make big differences. And if the cops are required to present the facts to a grand jury regardless of the priopriety of your actions (this is the case in some jurisdictions), the decision of whether or not you will become a defendant in a criminal trial is in the hands of a dozen or so people too stupid to avoid jury duty. Think about that. Best not to give them ANY reason to think your gun was 'mean looking' or an 'assault weapon.' Yes, I know its crazy. But its reality.
The third fight is the civil wrongful death suit that can be filed by the family of the (hopefully) dearly departed. Don't think it doesn't happen. Suits have been filed on perfectly good shootings...yes, we know Uncle Joe shouldn't have been busting into your place and threatening you with a Raven Arms .22 pistol, but you didn't have to SHOOT him...now give me $50,000. The playing field is different here, too. Civil juries don't need unanimity to award damages, and juries do some really truly utterly brain-dead things when they are tossing around someone else's money. How many Rosie O'Donnel brain-dead soccer moms and sissyboys are gonna be deciding the fate of your family's money? All it takes is one or two on that jury and a few more people who really don't care or want to argue and the majority of the twelve benighted souls sitting in judgement over you will decide that yes, even though Uncle Joe was a crackhead, and he was threatening to kill you, you really shouldn't have perforated him with your evil ugly M-16 army-like rifle-thing, and you really shouldn't be so mean and stuff, and you should visualize world peace while you sell your house to pay off his aggrieved relatives...because Uncle Joe was GETTING HIS LIFE TOGETHER before it was tragically ended by this right wing militia member (thats you, in case you didn't figure that out).
Is it stupid? Yes. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it reality? Yes.
And reality has a nasty way of clobbering people who do not pay attention to it.
*rant mode off*
Mike
[This message has been edited by Coronach (edited September 09, 2000).]