A basic rule of shooting is “be sure of your target and what’s beyond it,” but the arguments of people like Joe Biden are predicated on the person handling the gun being a poorly trained buffoon. Pluggers also doesn’t do anybody any favors by constantly pushing the view that, in a general sense, one kind of a gun is “safer” than another:



Biden: In terms of home protection, you know, they make fun of my saying about use a shotgun if somebody’s invading your home. Guess what — use a shotgun if somebody’s invading your home, you don’t kill your kids. Use an AR-15 is goes through the wall and can kill your kid in the bedroom.

Guess what — a shotgun can also kill your kid if you blindly “shoot through the door” like Biden advised. A shotgun in the hands of somebody not properly trained to use it can accidentally kill somebody just the same as an AR-15 in the hands of somebody not properly trained to use it.

Between a rifle and a shotgun, the shotgun would be the preferable weapon in a closed quarters encounter like that (at least for me it would — your mileage may vary). However, Biden’s continual insinuation that a shotgun is somehow safer in the hands of the same hypothetical person who, in his scenario, would shoot an AR-15 in the direction of his kid’s bedroom, is ridiculous.

In any case, how any of this would have prevented another Sandy Hook is anybody’s guess. I thought that’s what this was originally supposed to be about.

Related update: The NRA shreds Nanny Bloomberg’s gun ad.

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