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I was the fortunate recipient of a week-long tactical shotgun course, and what they add in firepower they lack in portability. Yeah, you can walk down your hallway carrying your shotgun at the shoulder ready position, but when it's time to turn a tight corner, or even a "U" type turn in the home construction you'll instinctively be thinking, "Schitt, I wish I had my hand gun". There are semi-autos that are dead-nutz reliable that carry a large payload of man-stoppers; Mag Safe Ammo comes to mind. I learned some really slick techniques for searching a building for an armed bad guy with a shotgun, but, the bottom line is the handgun is my weapon of choice in enclosed spaces. Using a shotgun in a dwelling just forces you to expose yourself to possible bad guy bullets when had you been using a handgun you would not have been forced to expose yourself while still covering an area or your target.

What about a glock 17 with a light/Laser combo on it loaded with fed 115 grain +p+ cartridges? That's what my friend uses in his house, we don't believe in violence at our house, so just the cell phone and alarm is good to go!

You don't believe in violence?

That a joke?

why no, I am a practicing Rastafarian...

I was at Jeff Hall's talk at IALEFI in 2008 (IIRC, in Reno) where he showed several dashcam videos of cops who were fired upon by the subject of a "traffic stop". In two of those videos the cops slapped leather and fired back at the perp while retreating to their squad cars. In one case the cop was trapped behind his car with his shotgun inside the car, and was murdered by the perp. In the second case the cop popped his trunk to get his shotgun and killed the perp.

To put that in perspective, I've seen dozens of videos in which cops finished the fight with their handguns right then and there. Especially in rural areas, his duty handgun may be all the copper has to fight with... as Mackay Sagebrush says, you don't often get the fight you want, you get the fight you got. You have to deal with it with what's right at hand. This is why I believe it's imperative that a patrol officer should have a generous supply of reloads on his person at all times. A Glock 17 with 2 reloads on the belt gives a copper 52 rounds of ammo on his person, and I know guys who carry 4 spare mags. But I know of departments that issue single-stack 45's with only 2 spare mags, which gives the officer only 25 rounds on their person. Not good, IMHO.

"Fighting your way to your long gun" doesn't happen very often. I expect that was your point/suspicion, and you're correct in my view.

Nothing like having the police minutes away, when the difference between life and death is seconds

...but Doc, I'm guessing that you'd also agree that a lack of frequency doesn't negate it's tactical soundness....the scenarios are rare in which a handgun is to be preferred over a long gun (if available) and a number of those can be overcome by indepth training. Of course, JMO

Greg, of course you're right. I would NEVER want to be taken to have said that the long gun is not a crucial component of the cop's equipment.

Just because few cops get into gunfights with their rifles/shotguns doesn't mean that they don't need 'em. I can't tell you how many OIS's involve police handguns vs rifles with certainty, but just based on my files alone the proportion would have to be 20:1 or higher.

One cop I know in a large metro area has killed 8 people with his duty handgun. He's never fired his shotgun at a perp. A deputy I know in a rural department has shot 3 people with his shotgun and 1 with his handgun. These two guys are differentiated, in my view, by the simple fact that the city cop goes into situations with his sidearm only almost all the time, whereas the rural deputy routinely carries his shotgun when he steps out of his patrol car except for traffic stops. Dunno if that adds anything to the equation, but there it is.

Doc,

You have to take into account the public's perception of a deputy walking up to their house carrying a shotgun. If it's a man with a gun call, the deputy will most likely stage at the inner perimeter and wait for back-up. If it's not a man with a gun call the RP may feel intimidated...guess who his next call will be to. If you do get in a fight that's not a lethal force encounter, what do you do with the shotgun? You can hardly set it down while you wrestle with some drunk. Those are a couple of the reasons I chose the 10mm. I could hit a man-sized target multiple times in seconds at 100 yards. Bad guys don't expect you to be able to ding them at 100 yards if you're not carrying some sort of rifle.

Yes, sorry to imply that he carries a shotgun everywhere he goes... wrote that poorly. I meant in any situation where he KNEW a fight was imminent or on.

Most of police work does not involve use of firearms.

My point exactly!

Jimmy,

You now have me concerned and confused. I tend to take what people on this board to say at face value. I've not been in many threads with you, but I seem to remember that with the appropriate firearm, you're not at all against turning some turd who's trying to harm you or your family into a man-sized sieve.

Shotgun with 00 buck. The down side to that choice is that at close range it makes an awful mess on the carpet...

Use 000 Buck. 00 Buck is .32 cal; 000 is .36 caliber.

Pretty big difference even though you lose 2 or 3 pellets in the count when you move up in size from 00 to 000.

In the specific scenario as posed, pass me the Mossberg. I do not have extensive experience in gunfighting, clearing rooms, etc. regardless of the type of weapon chosen. In this case, there are multiple bad guys coming up the stairs. I don't think that I am going to be making any big moves around the house where the added control of a handgun would be a definite advantage. Why not do something like shout a warning that anyone attempting to come up the stairs is unwelcome, and if they ignore the warning, fill the staircase with multiple rounds of 12 gauge fodder?

I'm thinking that a Mossberg pump with half a box of shells through it is just as unlikley to malfunction as a "tested and true" autoloading pistol, and perhaps a revolver too. In fact, other than the rare short cycle of the pump (i.e. operator error), I don't believe I have ever witnessed a pump shotgun fail to feed, fire or eject a shell. Plus, I think it would be MUCH easier to miss moving targets with a handgun under such severe stress than it would be with a shotgun at the ready and firing from a defensive position. YMMV.

At 5~10 feet, a 1.5 oz load of #8 shot might as well be a pumpkin ball slug.

In a reverse situation two young ranch hands were coming home and saw a vehicle in their driveway that didn't belong there, parked right up against the side of the house. They backed up to the road which put them about 200 yards from the car. They watched as two Bruthas loaded the TV, Microwave, Stereo and some guns in their 1978 Pontiac Grand Le Mans. As the two Bruthas backed out they turned sideways toward the young ranch hands (brothers) who had taken the two 30'06 rifles in the truck rear window rack and had taken a hold on the car over the hood of the truck. One ranch hand put two into the engine block and the other shot through the door. The car, leaking coolant and oil badly, barely made it to town, to the health clinic. You see, the round that went through the door blew the thief's lower right leg off at the knee.

Saaaay, back up a minute, JOG...



You got the scenario backwards, buddy. Who says I get to choose my bedside gun based on my crystal ball? I'll have by my bed whatever I tend to have by my bed, and deal with whatever happens accordingly. I might choose the weapon, but I don't get to choose - or even predict - the mode of intrusion.

I did in the OP.

Well then...my crystal ball says there's more than eight intruders (I really pissed someone off) - so my auto pistol by the bed is this...

http://www.keltecweapons.com/our-guns/pistols/plr-16/



Seriously - a half-box of function check doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy, and while I don't really know, I expect that I will shoot (and reload) my very familiar auto pistol better under that kind of stress than the revolver.