I'm not a big proponent of guns as home defense, I was just listing the arguments as you asked for them.
As for shotguns, while I'm partial to breech loaders, I imagine pump-loaders would be nice when bird hunting- you have literally seconds to take your shots. 12 gauge is popular for hunting, particularly when using a shotgun as a poor man's deer rifle (buckshot or slugs). Anyway, don't worry about shotguns so much. They aren't used much in crime, and I gather they are pretty survivable at all but very close range.
If you want to save lives, forget shotguns, forget rifles, forget even assault rifles- while mass shootings are big news, from a pure numbers point of view handguns are the biggest nail to pound down. More people in rural California in 2010 were killed with handguns than the count for the Connecticut shooting:
As for shotguns, while I'm partial to breech loaders, I imagine pump-loaders would be nice when bird hunting- you have literally seconds to take your shots. 12 gauge is popular for hunting, particularly when using a shotgun as a poor man's deer rifle (buckshot or slugs). Anyway, don't worry about shotguns so much. They aren't used much in crime, and I gather they are pretty survivable at all but very close range.
If you want to save lives, forget shotguns, forget rifles, forget even assault rifles- while mass shootings are big news, from a pure numbers point of view handguns are the biggest nail to pound down. More people in rural California in 2010 were killed with handguns than the count for the Connecticut shooting:
http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/pdfs/publications/Firearms...
It's actually quite an interesting document if we're comparing types of firearms.