I disagree with the author. The "Best" first gun depends entirely on the person and his or her circumstances.
My sister, for instance. She lives alone on a 20 acre chunk of land in the middle of nowhere. Her nearest neighbor is half a mile away and she knows NOTHING about guns. She's not going to put much effort into changing that, either. When I tried to teach her how to shoot, she couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I really mean that. At 30 feet, she was still missing a 3 foot target.
But because she's alone, she needs a gun. That's my assessment, anyway.
For her, the perfect weapon is a single shot, break-action .410 shotgun. With just one shot, there's no SAFETY switch to worry about. The gun is either loaded or it's not, and all you have to do to find out is to open it and look. It doesn't get any simpler than that. If you've fired it, it's empty and you can put it away. If someone's in the house, it takes just a second to open it and stick in a shell.
For someone with an interest in hunting, the answer could be a .22 rifle, a 12 ga shotgun, or a 30-06. It all depends on what's being hunted.
For home defense, nothing beats a 12 ga shotgun. As they say, just the sound of pumping a shotgun is enough to send burglars running.
For a small woman who wants something she can keep in her purse, a snub nosed revolver is a good choice. They're light, easy to conceal, have little kick and are good deterrents at close range. Revolvers almost never jam. If someone tries to mug or rape a woman who has her hand on a snub nosed revolver, it's going to be lights out real quick.
For *ME*, the situation dictates the answer. For daily use, a .357 is probably my best choice. I can have it on me at all times. There are bears in the words, and one day when I'm walking around, I might just bump into one. A .357 would stop it. Most other guns I'd be willing to carry probably would not.
If I want something to lug around in my tractor, the .22 rifle is likely my answer. With a .22, if I see a skunk, fox, rabbit or turkey, I can probably kill it from 50 yards or less. .22s are fun to shoot. Ammo is still dirt cheap and the gun doesn't deafen you or bruise your shoulder when you shoot it.
Okay, so the answer is different for different people. Trying to come up with a 'one size fits all' solution is naïve. But....
August 17, 2017
What Is The Best First Gun For A Neophyte Prepper?
by Tom Knighton
bearingarms.com
With the state of the country as it is, I recently had a couple of friends approach me for my take on where to start in the world of firearms. As they put it, they didn’t want to be stocking years of canned good and toilet paper, but they do want to be ready for the far more day-to-day situations they might find themselves in.
They were putting aside some food and water for disasters and whatnot, but they were lost when it came to guns. They found websites that were supposed to help, but they trusted me for some silly reason.
As I wanted to be a good friend, I told them sure, I’d help, but then I stopped short.
I remembered when someone told me where to start, what type of gun I should first pick up, and I began wondering if that was really the right advice.
“Get a 12-guage,” I was told. “You can use it for hunting and self-defense. It’s the perfect gun.”
Of course, I didn’t do that, but I considered it sound advice.
But I don’t anymore. Not for most people, anyway. Instead, I stay get a handgun in a caliber such as 9mm, .40, or .45 ACP for semi-autos or .38 or bigger for revolvers.
Yes, everything above said about the 12-guage shotgun is true. You can swap out barrels on most and use it to hunt pretty much everything, especially in my neck of the Southwest Georgia woods. In fact, there are some things that can only really be hunted well with a shotgun.
The thing is, what if you don’t give a darn about hunting?
For many people who can be termed “preppers”—those who are preparing for disaster—hunting is a key part of any long-term strategy. The thing is, let’s be realistic. The odds are good that no prepper alive today will ever need their long-term strategy.
Instead, we’ll deal with things like someone trying to hurt us in a parking lot, or some punk deciding he needs our television more than we do.
While a shotgun might work well to protect your home, it’s really difficult to conceal them. After all, you can’t take the barrel too short, or it’s an NFA item and all that.
Yet a pistol is a different matter. It may not be a spectacular choice when something goes bump inside the house in the middle of the night, it’s not a bad choice either. Further, it’s far more likely to be there when you find yourself on a dark, deserted street corner with someone who believes you should fork over your wallet to the charity of his choice…probably some hooker named Charity.
Small and concealable, they’re what I told my friends to pick up simply because they could have it on them when they needed it. Further, ammo tends to be less expensive and that means they can train on it far more often (something else I recommended they do. A lot).
We also discussed how to pick which firearms to buy, but that’s a whole other ball of wax.
I suspect they’ll eventually have all the standard weapons like shotguns, AR pattern rifles, precision rifles, milsurps, and enough handguns to make Shannon Watts have an aneurysm, but that’s not for today.
Today, they just needed to know where to get started and I wanted to explain why I said what I did.
What about you all? What do you tell people who ask you where to start?
http://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2017/08/17/best-first-gun-neophyte-prepper/
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