I know women who keep guns just like whacko's mom did. They want hand guns for home defense, they are not comfortable with even something as small as a 30/30. In a panick, honestly I can't imagine trying to load up a lever action 30/30, it wasn't the easiest and it would jam up sometimes. Maybe a sawed off 16 guage or something, but not a 30/30
For home defense I think a shotgun is preferable to a rifle. Loading, while not as fast as popping in a loaded magazine, is fairly quick and the blast from a shotgun is more intimidating. You also don't have to have as good of an aim with a shotgun as the pattern will expand at a distance but it will have more stopping power at close range. Just remember, anything shorter than an 18" barrel is illegal unless the weapon is classifed as a pistol.
It's interesting that the people who seem to know the least about firearms are the first to demand restrictions on them. It reminds me of back in the carter administration when he had some nutcase named Joan Claybrook running the National Highway SafetyBoard. As i recall, she wanted to restrict how fast cars could go. Limit them to 60 MPH or whatever. The arguments were the same, you didn't need to go any faster, it was illegal to do so, and if it saved one child's life, wasn't it worth it. A five round capacity sounds reasonable. Reasonable that is, until three toughs, all armed, break into your house. You call 911 and they say someone will be there within a few minutes. Only you don't have a few minutes. They are coming up the stairs right now and your wife is hysterical. Your training takes over and you pump two rounds into the chest of the first guy up the stairs. Only he doesn't go down. Horrified, you see he is wearing a kevlar vest. Those 9 mill rounds had as much effect as BBs. You realize you only have three shots left. If only you still had the M4 assault rifle with a 30 round clip. That was outlawed last year though after the latest school shooting. Tactical shotguns were banned too, so that wasn't an option. Even the 17 round glock had to be turned in. Defeated, you drop your weapon and shout "We surrender. Please don't hurt us."
For that one extreme made up scenario, this is what we should base our national laws on. Why not make up a scenario where we need hand grenades and flame throwers and personal tanks? And land mines, why shouldn't a God fearing American be allowed to protect his life and property with land mines? What we need is common sense.
As you are no doubt aware, there is a lot of debate about this subject. I was in the shotgun camp, but am beginning to see the wisdom of the M4 or even AK argument. Even a tactical shotgun only carries 8 shells or so. The killing power is unmatched, yes, but you have to hit something to kill it. In close quarters combat, say inside a house, the shot pattern is not going to expand much beyond the size of a fist. The weight and size of a shotgun make it harder to manuever, aim and get off followup shots. The long barrel invites a struggle for the gun. The recoil makes it a one shot proposition for many women. While buckshot does not pose the overpenetration problem of something like a .308 round, which might kill your neighbor 400 yards down the street, it will go through multiple layers of sheetrock like it isn't there. A .556 will not, usually fragmenting in the first layer. Most police departments are now replacing pump guns carried in cruisers with M4's. Handguns are convenient for home defense. They can be quickly deployed. The main problems are accuracy, capacity and the inability to defeat kevlar.
I'm sure someone on here knows, what is the background check when you purchase and license a fully automatic weapon? Is it the strict licensing requirements that are stopping these killers from using these weapons? When several of these killings happen timewise close to each other there will be a public outcry for the government to do something. I hope it doesn't come but it probably will.
Fully automatic? Are you serious? Those require a "Dangerous Weapon Permit" and which is rarely given outside of the film industry. A federal tax stamp is required which can take 90-days to obtain. The only large-scale crime I know of where full-auto weapons were employed was the North Hollywood Bank of America shootout. Those weapons were modified to full-auto illegally. None of these mall killers or school killers has used a full-auto weapon. As usual you've just got the facts all wrong. How can someone be so stupid and at the same time so sanctimonious?