Originally Posted by
Ed L.
This could certainly happen. But are you going to build your choice of defensive firearms and ammo around it? If that's the case you might as well sell all of your ARs and semiauto battle rifles, lest owning them might make you look bad, and rely on an over and under shotgun loaded with birdshot for home defense. That way you can pretend that you are on your way to a sporting clays match when someone broke into your house. You may not even have to worry about the legal aftermath because you might not survive the violent encounter itself.
In this day and age, it would be pretty weak for a prosecution to point to a high cap handgun/AR/or ammo to try to make you look bad when these weapons can be found on the persons and in the cars of virtually every police agency in the nation.
As long as the gun is legal to own for the average person and is legally owned by you, it should be good to go in most places. This does eliminate ARs in some places like New York City & Chicago. Hell, in New York City ARs and such are banned and you cannot legally own a new longarm that has more than a 5 round magazine capacity (I don't know if this applies retroactively or not).
In a place where I was on less secure legal footing with regards to a long gun for home defense, I might use a 12 gauge shotgun with an extended magazine (if legal) or an M1 Carbine with the right ammo (if legal).
I agree with everything you say. I made those points only for clarity's sake, and to echo what we can potentially be in for, given our choice of defensive arms.
For the record these days I use a Glock 19 loaded with whatever ammo is available from Doc Roberts' list (right now 127gr +p+ and 124 gr +p Ranger T's) for CCW. I'm oscillating between a standard connector with the S spring, and a standard connector with the NY1 polymer trigger spring (- coil spring) and don't go lighter mainly due to the fact that I carry a Glock AWIB. I also have a 6920 with standard trigger that is in my closet.
But I'm aware that I may very well have to defend my choice of using ugly black high capacity weapons loaded with "sinister" hollow points "designed to destroy as much flesh as possible" in self defense . And I'll argue that the lighter your trigger the more potential explaining one may have to do. I should think that the use of a striker gun with a 4.5# connector (eg, a Glock with a "-" connector) can be well defended, but the lighter you go I think the more explaining you may need to do.
I just think that one should be prepared to defend one's choices and not just rely on the hope of being in a shooting that is automatically seen as "justified" as you may be dealing with an attorney general that has a very jaundiced eye.
Formerly known as "Son of Vlad Tepes"
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