Correcting some Misinformation about Shotguns

Buckshot from a shotgun will penetrate about half a dozen sheets of drywall

There are two distinctive things about firearms and the people who profess to know lots about them.

The first thing is there’s a terrible amount of misinformation and misunderstanding out there – no doubt exacerbated by what we see in the movies (people thrown backwards a considerable distance after getting hit by a pistol bullet, and ‘six shooter’ revolvers that seem to never need reloading, for just two examples).

The second thing is that some of these people who are not necessarily fully correct about what they may tell you – often people who on the face of it should know better – are very adamant about their views, whether they are supported by facts or not.

The most dangerous misunderstandings of course are those which start from a factual point and then move far beyond that, making it difficult to tell where certain reality ends and uncertain ambiguity takes over.  From this perspective, let’s consider some often cited ‘facts’ about shotguns.

The shotgun is a weapon which is sometimes given more credit than it is due.  By way of specific example, here’s a newspaper report of a horrific sounding home invasion in an upmarket town in Connecticut.  The result of this is that local people are rushing to buy firearms, and it seems that most people are buying shotguns.

There are two reasons why these people are buying shotguns.  The first is that you can walk out of the gun store with a shotgun minutes after purchasing it, whereas it seems that buying a handgun in CT is a much more difficult and time-consuming experience, sometimes requiring you to wait patiently for as long as 3 months or more.

The second reason seems to be that the local gun store owner is recommending shotguns – he is semi-quoted in the article (and we confirmed with the reporter) as saying that shotguns are excellent for home defense because they are maneuverable and when you are shooting one, they are unlikely to shoot through walls.

Unfortunately, we can’t agree with either of these statements.  Let’s consider maneuverability first.

By law, a shotgun must have at least an 18″ barrel and an overall length of at least 26″.  A typical shotgun (eg a Mossberg 500 or a Remington 870) weighs about 6.5 lbs.  Compare that to a pistol which might have a barrel as short as 2″, an overall length of as little as 4″, and a weight of little more than half a pound.  A shotgun is 6+ times longer and 12+ times heavier.  Of course this makes it much harder to carry, and to sneak around corners and confined spaces in your house with, compared to a pistol.  At the typically very close ranges in which home encounters occur, you run an appreciable risk of having the bad guy(s) wrestle the shotgun out of your hands.

And how about shotgun rounds not going through walls?  We can’t agree with the store owner about that, either.  Here’s an excellent article (which we took our opening picture from) that shows how buckshot will penetrate through not just one or two but half a dozen sheets of dry wall.

On the other hand, if you were thinking you’d load your shotgun with birdshot rather than buckshot, while you solve the problem of shooting through walls, you create a new problem – something that isn’t powerful enough to shoot through a wall is probably not powerful enough to shoot sufficiently into an up close and aggressive attacker.  This is commented on at the bottom of the recommended article, with the easily understood conclusion that if you’re shooting at birds, then by all means use birdshot, but if you’re shooting at larger animals, you must use buckshot (or solid slugs).

Can we also comment on one other misperception about shotguns, even though it is not referred to in the newspaper report.  Some people think that a shotgun is a better home defense weapon because the spread of the shot is such as to compensate for any errors in your aim.

Alas, this is not true, either.  At typical home defense distances (probably ranging from somewhere under 10 ft at a minimum and up to 20 ft as a maximum) the spread of shot (assuming a ‘best case’ scenario with a short barrel that has no choke on it) is unlikely to be more than perhaps a 4″ diameter circle at the 20′ point, and correspondingly less at shorter distances.  That’s not quite the same as being able to simply close your eyes, point the shotgun in the general direction of where you think you heard/saw the bad guy, pull the trigger, and be assured of an effective hit, is it!

Don’t get us wrong.  A shotgun can be an excellent weapon for home defense, and perhaps its greatest strength is its intimidation factor.  There’s nothing more likely to take the fight out of an aggressor than the sound of a pump action shotgun being confidently racked.  The good thing about this is that a shotgun could save you from needing to use deadly force, because, let’s face it – if the bad guy turns around and runs away, the threat has been removed, and while he might ‘escape’ that should no longer be your concern.  You’ve successfully defended yourself, your loved ones, and your home, and best of all, have done so without needing to use deadly force.  That’s about as good as it gets, isn’t it.

So – shotguns are good, but they have no magical powers.  They won’t snake sinuously around corners for you, they will shoot through walls, and they won’t compensate for bad aiming.

For More Reading

Please also see our article ‘The Maximum Effective Range of a Shotgun‘ for more discussion on Shotgun facts and fallacies.