Part two of the author survey. [Read Part One here] This one is a little more complex, as most people surveyed have more than one gun they designated as their HD gun (I was the only one with a single designated home defense gun). We’ll get into the specifics in the analysis portion.
Enough nonsense, let’s get into it.
Home Defense
Results
Rifles
- Ar-15: 8.5″ .300BLK, Liberty MysticX suppressor, Holosun red dot, Streamlight Protex HL-X
- Ar-15: 16″ .223, EOTech 512, Inforce rifle light (broken)
- Ar-15: 16″ .223, light (unknown), red dot (unknown)
Shotguns
- Remington 870: bead sight, 00 buckshot & slugs, no light
- Remington 870: 00 buckshot, side saddle (of buck), shortened stock
- Maverick 88: Bead sight, 00 buckshot only, looking for a light
Pistols
- Glock 17: TLR 1
- M&P 4.25″ 9mm: TLR 7 & Holosun 507c
- Sig P320 compact: TLR-1, 3 spare mags
- Glock 19: TLR 1, Holosun 507c, & upgraded trigger
- CZ P-07: Dawson sights, TLR-1, modded internals
Analysis
First up: Weapon Mounted Lights. They had a strong showing in the EDC survey, and they are even more prevalent in the home defense role, which is to be expected. What was unexpected was that every gun that wasn’t a shotgun had one. Every shotgun was without. Every pistol had one, every rifle had one. Only one shotgun was slated to receive one in the future. Lights are important for home defense, as their prevalence shows, except for on shotguns for some reason.
All the lights on all the guns are streamlight, except two. One of those was just reported as “a light”, but I expect it to be a streamlight. The other exception is a broken InForce.
Small side note on the broken InForce light. I had an InForce APL back in 2013 and it broke after 4-6 months. To their credit, InForce replaced it for free. The replacement still works. My friend’s broken light in the poll is the replacement for another broken light. Between the two of us, we have a 75% failure rate. As mentioned in part 1, another pollee had and has gone away from InForce lights as well. InForce designs are cool and the prices are good, but the execution is not the best. I’m not saying that you should throw your s away if you have one that works, I’m just saying maybe have a backup on hand.
Next up: Weapon Selection: Everyone polled had a pistol designated as a home defense gun. Everyone who had more than one gun (next section) had a long gun. One person’s long gun is a pistol as per the ATF, but I’m going to refer to it as a ‘long gun’ due to certain balancing characteristics.
Of the four people with long guns, one had an AR, one had a shotgun, and the other two had one of each. All six long guns were either an AR or a 12 gauge pump.
The pistols were pretty varied by make, but not by type. All nine were polymer framed, no metal frames. 4 of the 5 main HD pistols are poly-framed striker fired, 2 Glock, 1 M&P, and 1 Sig P320. The 5th main HD pistol is a polymer framed DA/SA. The 4 staged pistols are half poly-framed striker fired (a G20 and an XD45) and the other two are poly-framed DAO (both Kahr CM9).
The two DAO guns are also the only two that aren’t duty sized.
Following up: Weapon Redundancy. Everyone polled but me had more than one designated HD gun, except me [my HD gun is my EDC]. Everyone had at least one pistol. Two of the respondents had two guns (one a rifle & pistol, the other a shotgun & pistol). One guy had three (rifle, shotgun, and postol) and the last one had seven!
I’m not kidding. A standard 3-gun setup (rifle, pistol, and shotgun) plus four other pistols staged throughout his house. The dude’s legitimately got a shower gun! Only his rifle and main pistol have lights, however. The staged guns are sans-light. I guess he just plans in showering with his lights on…
Finally: Caliber Choice. Three of the four ARs are .223, with the one 300BLK. Interesting that not everything was .223, but not that the one not-.223 was a .300 black. It also is coming out of a 8.5″ barrel, with suppressor, so it’s a more optimal choice for that setup anyway.
Of the nine handguns, seven are 9mm. The only handguns that aren’t 9mm are staged guns from the resident Burt Gummer. His main is a 9mm, as are two of his staged guns. The other two are a .45ACP and a 10mm.
The shotguns are all pump action 12 gauges. The respondents were surprisingly consistent in this regard.
Conclusion
The home defense guns have more variation between users than the EDC guns. I believe this to be due to the lower specificity of the role.
A daily carried gun has to be carried every day on your person. Weight matters, conceal ability kinda matters. There are a lot of things that drive weapon design and selection that just don’t apply to a home defense gun. The biggest manifestation of this idea is the prevalence of multiple guns being designated as HD guns. No one carried more than one gun, but only one person didn’t have multiple guns for home defense. It’s like being an omnivore, but
The other big takeaway from this poll is the amount of weapon mounted lights. Everybody’s got at least one. The EDC guns had a few WMLs but the home defense guns had them in spades. I guess we just consider a CCW to be used in the daytime and consider a home invasion to be possible at night. Not a real stretch of the imagination. Also interesting was how many people like Streamlight. I guess making a reasonably priced product with a solid reputation for reliability is a winning strategy.
Also, don’t break into people’s homes. You’re gonna have a bad day, and that guy’s just going to get another stateside.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed this content. It was fun to gather up and produce. I also learned a few things from it, and I hope you did too. Come back next week to see what else we’re working on. .
Stay strapped, and I’ll see you next Frifay.
Pro-Gun Millennial 