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They won't forget that bullets go through walls

And by walls I assume you mean a single bullet will go through multiple walls.

Maybe it does:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/the-box-o-truth-46-shotgun-slugs-sabots-and-smooth-bore-barrels/

Because cars are concealment not cover http://www.theboxotruth.com/do...

Pistols and most other firearms are made to function for tens of thousands rounds with out parts wearing out. Here is an example of a pistol being fired 50,000 times with cleanings at every 7,000 rounds and a few springs at each 10,000 proactively. Nothing was broken during that time. This an extreme case but he has done this with a number of other models and has gotten similar (but not quite as good) results.
http://pistol-training.com/archives/4027

Firearms that have been used for generations and that are still functioning fine are the norm and not the exception.

As to ammunition contamination we are a 100 years since getting your powder wet was an issue. Modern brass cased cartridges are pretty well sealed up solid with crimping of both the primers and actual bullet. In the case of defensive and military ammunition they add extra sealant sometimes for an extra measure. For an example of how little effect even things like penetrating oil has read the following.
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot39.htm

"And if you're worried about shooting through the walls with an AR-15 you can always use hollow point bullets."

Bullshit. http://thefiringline.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4499511&postcount=7

"Using a shotgun is a double edge sword. The good part is that is doesn't shoot through walls so you're not going to hit anyone in other rooms."

Again, bullshit of the worst kind. The kind that will lead you to kill a family member in a home defense scenerio. http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

You need to spend less time watching TV and more time on the range. Read this, test some of your theories on the range, and stop spouting armchair soldier bullshit: http://www.ar15.com/ammo/project/Self_Defense_Ammo_FAQ/index.htm

Sidearm isn't used until shit gets really ugly and you didn't have time to fix your bayonet. It's a damned near useless trinket these days except for a few specialized outfits. Military keeps considering whether or not to ditch them entirely. I think they keep them just because 'that's how we've always done it'. Kinda like how they chose the powder for the rounds originally sent out with the M-16.

Rock salt in a shotgun? Cute. Why not just fart in their general direction?

they're much less likely to go through a window / door / wall and injure an innocent bystander

Some interesting empirical testing at the The Box O' Truth - or for shotguns specifically (page through to "next page").

And take heed of the advice at Box O' Truth that "Unless you expect to be attacked by little birds, do not use birdshot". Basically, if it's good enough to do quick and debilitating damage to the perp, it's also going to penetrate quite few sheets of drywall (unless it hits a family member sooner of course).

they're much less likely to go through a window / door / wall and injure an innocent bystander

Some interesting empirical testing at the The Box O' Truth - or for shotguns specifically (page through to "next page").

And take heed of the advice at Box O' Truth that "Unless you expect to be attacked by little birds, do not use birdshot". Basically, if it's good enough to do quick and debilitating damage to the perp, it's also going to penetrate quite few sheets of drywall (unless it hits a family member sooner of course).

Bird shot is for birds. I'm amused it took that drone down.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

That is why you use a shotgun.

Contrary to popular belief, shot will go through several layers of sheetrock. It is not safe for shooting in a residential neighborhood.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

The reviews I've read on the Taurus Judge suggest it is NOT a good security weapon, especially using the 410 round, which does not have enough penetration to be any good. See: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot41.htm for details. Of course, the OP was likely suggesting a system that would be in force when he wasn't there, so a firearm might be way off topic here. In any case, a Glock 40mm or a 12 gauge would be much better choices than a Taurus Judge for home protection.

Does a glock 40mm look anything like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_40_mm

Birdshot is not good even at across the room distances. It will not attain needed penetration. You don't want to hurt the bad guy you want to stop him.

00 is fine, slugs are better. You don't care that what happens later, this ain't the movies and you need the bad guy to stop now.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/

The reviews I've read on the Taurus Judge suggest it is NOT a good security weapon, especially using the 410 round, which does not have enough penetration to be any good. See: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot41.htm for details. Of course, the OP was likely suggesting a system that would be in force when he wasn't there, so a firearm might be way off topic here. In any case, a Glock 40mm or a 12 gauge would be much better choices than a Taurus Judge for home protection.

While I haven't spotted a test for your type of walls, the box o' truth has a collection of tests on a variety of other wall type vs. firearms. You might be able to extrapolate you level of protection from their results.
I can't help on the effect of the log wall on radar, since my license class ends just over 100MHz.

and lead shotgun shot is less likely to penetrate walls and hurt others

I agree with all of what you say except this part. Any shotgun load powerful enough to stop a determined human aggressor is powerful enough to easily slice through interior walls. Here's an interesting test of the ability of shot to penetrate drywall. #4 buckshot went through six pieces of drywall without issue. 00 buckshot went through seven and a rifled slug went through all twelve (no surprise there). They did the same test with various pistol and rifle rounds. A 9mm went through six walls (the same as the #4 buckshot). The .357 went through nine walls. Not much of a difference between the handgun loads and the shotgun loads, though I'm a little disappointed they didn't test the .45 ACP.

A handgun is still good for carrying around the house though.

That's one of the reasons I picked a handgun as my home defense weapon. You don't get as many strange looks if you answer the door with a concealed handgun as you would if you answered it with a shotgun slung across your back ;) The handgun is also easier to maneuver around tight quarters if you have to leave your safe area to get the kids and it leaves you with a free hand if you need one. The shotgun is probably still a better bet for the new gun owner though.

and lead shotgun shot is less likely to penetrate walls and hurt others

I agree with all of what you say except this part. Any shotgun load powerful enough to stop a determined human aggressor is powerful enough to easily slice through interior walls. Here's an interesting test of the ability of shot to penetrate drywall. #4 buckshot went through six pieces of drywall without issue. 00 buckshot went through seven and a rifled slug went through all twelve (no surprise there). They did the same test with various pistol and rifle rounds. A 9mm went through six walls (the same as the #4 buckshot). The .357 went through nine walls. Not much of a difference between the handgun loads and the shotgun loads, though I'm a little disappointed they didn't test the .45 ACP.

A handgun is still good for carrying around the house though.

That's one of the reasons I picked a handgun as my home defense weapon. You don't get as many strange looks if you answer the door with a concealed handgun as you would if you answered it with a shotgun slung across your back ;) The handgun is also easier to maneuver around tight quarters if you have to leave your safe area to get the kids and it leaves you with a free hand if you need one. The shotgun is probably still a better bet for the new gun owner though.

Into The Box O' Truth.

You're looking for more of something like a 12 gauge slug. You don't need to sling a small round a long range, you're looking for the short range stopping power. If the body armor does stop it, they'll be flat on their backs regardless. Then again, any decent bullet hitting any body armor is going to really hurt, so it's only really good for saving their lives, not pretending that they weren't shot at.

Here's some approximate effective ranges of various ammunition.

9mm pistol - 50 yards

45 cal pistol - 100 yards

12 gauge slug - 100 yards

AK-47 (7.26x39mm) - 400 yards

AR-15/M-16 (5.56x45mm) - 600 yards

30-06 (7.62x33mm) - 800+ yards

These vary by the weapon, ammunition, shooter, and conditions.

Any of these weapons are going to go straight through a standard interior wall with no problems. Don't take my word on it, There's a much better resource available.

  They have an interesting page where they show shooting through 4 interior walls. Pistols all do a fine job of going straight through them. The AR-15 (civilian M-16) actually has a problem with accuracy through the walls.

    Pretty much, if anyone decides to just start shooting at an intruder, if the bullet doesn't stop in the intruder, it will very likely continue to travel through the structure until it hits something hard. That could be a family member or neighbor.

    Most houses in neighborhoods are oriented so the front and back doors face another house. Just because an intruder breaks into your house is not a reason to spray the doorway and possibly kill your neighbor in the process. Gun control is a very important thing. I'm not talking about limiting access to weapons. I'm talking about proper application of the tool. TV has shown that you just shoot and hopefully one will hit. In real life, you have to take shots very carefully, because it's not just your target who may be in your line of fire. Using a firearm is an absolute last resort, and as such must be used with extreme caution. Will you be able to live with yourself because you shot at an intruder, and killed a neighbors kid?

    Back to the video, it's terrible. Anti-guns versus gun nuts. I've heard these arguments, and when you get extremes on both sides talking, it never comes to a friendly compromise.

To put that another way, you know what would really stop terrorists from hijacking an airplane? Hundreds of well-armed passengers. And no, a bullet hole will not decompress an aircraft.

Yeah I would feel much safer with that drunk jerk behind me packing heat. And when you get delayed on the tarmac for 6 hours I am sure he won't take out his frustration on the staff. It isn't like they already have to land planes to drag off people who freak out...

Lets look at some gun stats - http://www.metro.us/us/article/2009/06/16/03/5431-82/index.xml Looks like big pro-gun southern states see 300-500% more gun related deaths than states with strong gun control like Massachusetts. Problem with giving everyone guns is that obnoxious bully or mentally damaged teen also want guns, and when one person fires or misfires do you think grandma will keep her cool and not accidentally shoot the guy who stands up to look around pulling his own gun out? As a cope I wouldn't want to enter a plin with a couple hundred panicked gun toting passengers.

The last thing they need is a pitched gun battle with 30-40 people on a plane all trying to help by shooting at that other guy who must be a bad guy, I mean everyone can spot an Afghan/Saudi. No one will mistake that darkskinned guy, or jewish lady. No one will shoot that Arabic dude "just in case". Hell, only half of Americans know who was involved in 9/11 attacks and most of them couldn't identify a Saudi Arabian on sight.

Anyone Jewish, Arabic, Dark-skinned, would be an "obvious" threat. And it isn't like that bullet will go through multiple chairs and people before stopping... http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/theboxotruth.htm I mean their tests only went through a dozen plywood walls and its not like anyone would miss while panicked and shooting at a human for the first time.

*shakes head* Keep the guns off the plane. Carrying in public is asking for trouble... People may panick when they see you packing heat, and if something does happen the right response is almost always to not use the gun. Yet that wasn't your first justification for bringing one, was it? It was to use in case of an attack , not as a deterrent. And hundreds of people shooting towards the cockpit won't cause any issues, right? I mean avionic electronics are not sensitive machines with wires running all over the plane... /end rant

Most rifle bullets don't go through walls. 5.56mm is notorious for being stopped by 2 sheets of drywall. Any professional knows this.

Absolutely wrong, and this is extremely dangerous misinformation you're giving out here.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot1.htm

5.56mm rifle rounds will go through 12 sheets of drywall quite easily as demonstrated here, and worse, the bullet tumbles as it penetrates. The only round which didn't go through all 12 sheets was a puny .22LR.

If it wont damage 2 sheets of drywall, it may not be worth a damn. Check out Box #3 http://www.theboxotruth.com/index.htm After testing rounds theres some talk of birdshot, that wont penetrate 2 sheets of sheetrock...and a tale that follows about someone shot by birdshot, and it didnt stop him, which is a pretty important thing to keep in mind if youre going to shoot someone and dont want them to hurt you.

Heck, if they can test ammo penetration on books, frozen clothing and bread, why not this monitor?

Can't wait to see The Box O' Truth give it a try.

I don't want to get too far into the rest of your post (well ... I do, but better that I don't! :)), but I would like to pick a particular graf where I think you're conflating a few different ideas:

You wrote: "Another issue is that type of guns available in the States has no real restriction : large high calibre and semi-auto weapons are available, whereas these guns are not the defence weapon of choice for the home owner, and are far more likely to be used in a crime."

- Large, high-caliber, and semi-auto are orthogonal categories; there are large guns that shoot small bullets and vice versa, and they may or may not be semi-automatic -- it all depends on the particular gun. Many small (and small caliber) guns cannot be imported because of a complicated system of "points" whereby weapon design conventions are applied in a quest for safety (external safety = some number of points, etc.).

- As another poster has pointed out, there are quite a few restrictions in fact on the weapons Americans can buy and the process for doing so; some of these restrictions are Federal, and some are imposed by individual states. In my current state (Pennsylvania), guns are fairly easy for any adult with no criminal background or history of mental illness to obtain, as are concealed carry permits. In other states, most famously (or notoriously, depending on your point of view) California, Maryland and Hawaii, guns are much harder to obtain because of rigorous state-imposed rules, such as state-specific "drop tests." There's quite a patchwork of laws, actually; many guns or accessories are technically legal to own, but only in combination with tax stamps which bless them in the eyes of the BATF, and there too, local rules can impose further restrictions. (Suppressors and fully-automatic weapons are in this category.)

- As to whether "large high calibre and semi-auto weapons" are good for home-defense, or are likely to be used in crime: Well, again, I think there is some semantic overlap between these categories that makes your claim hard to defend. Large caliber semi-autos (I'm thinking of the 1911-style .45 pistol, but of course there are many others) are extremely popular among those whose guns are intended for home defense, and are even a popular carry gun (though not among small folk!); "large" would seem to include rifles and shotguns (though I don't know what baseline you're thinking of), and these too are frequently kept for home defense; a shotgun is often lauded as the best such tool. I can't speak to that, but I can say that a) in the early 1990s, an armed burglar was shot and wounded with a shotgun by my landlord in the apartment next to mine and b) I'm somewhat glad I hadn't at the time read about the sometimes-underestimated ability of shotgun ammo to penetrate walls, because I was 10-15 feet away at the time: http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot14.htm

Crimes involving guns more often feature handguns than longarms; some people (like Gary Kleck, a famous defender of guns as crime prevention devices -- and who didn't start out as one) have famously expressed their happiness that more crimes aren't committed with (higher-power, more accurate) longarms. I think that's partly tongue-in-cheek, since I think we can all agree that handguns' smaller size makes them easier to use in certain situations, whether for good or ill.

I know that distant cousins of mine who operate farms keep (and make use of) rifles and shotguns to mercifully put down dying animals, kill predators, and keep wild boar out of their fields; I call that home defense :) (Plus, thanks to the U.S.'s insane drug laws, there's the occasional marijunana farmer, whose respect for anti-gun laws when it comes to his own protection may be shockingly slight.)

Cheers,

timothy

p.s. If you visit a range in the states, try several guns rather than only one; many ranges rent "by the hour" but allow you to swap guns within your alloted time. Once you get the hang of loading whatever it is you're shooting, the real expense is ammo.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/ Is probably the site you're thinking of. Great site.

A flak jacket is designed to stop shrapnel, not bullets. Just about anything will tear through a flak jacket. Have a look at this Vietnam issue flak jacket being perforated by pistol rounds...
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot15.htm

+5 informative site! I've thought about doing a similar experiment for some time now, but I can tell by the attention to detail and the range of weapons utilized in the photos, I'll just leave it be.

Too bad, really! Looks like good fun... ;P

Enigmatic... Check your facts before spouting off such BS. You clearly have no idea what you are writing about.

A flak jacket is designed to stop shrapnel, not bullets. Just about anything will tear through a flak jacket. Have a look at this Vietnam issue flak jacket being perforated by pistol rounds...
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot15.htm

Also, the AK 47 fires 7.62x39 not 7.62x51 NATO. There is a big difference in size, energy, velocity, ballistics... AK round is a lead antimony slug with a full metal jacket. The 5.56x45 (M16 round, not civvie .223) green tip used presently is steel cored, and therefore armor piercing.

Your Korean war era vest is rated to 50 cal? That's interesting, since a 50 will go through a cast iron V-8 engine block... Tell me honestly, have you ever handled or shot a firearm? FPS games do not count:)

Pardon me while I leech the opinions and data provided by smart people, but damage is done by lead crushing tissue. It matters very little how much tissue is crushed in the first two inches of penetration in jello (representing penetration of skin) but very much how big of a hole you can make in either the brain or a large, blood-bearing organ which will serve to deprive the brain of oxygen. 5.56 NATO is terribly messy with a sufficiently long barrel to impart velocities on the bullet sufficient to cause fragmentation and resulting huge, gaping wounds. Problem is, the M4's barrel is slightly too short to impart these velocities, resulting in a tiny ice-pick like wound channel, which increases slightly at the point which tumbling occurs and the bullet moves to traveling tail-first through a squishy target.

If I can impart a single lesson, *energy transfer is nuts*. It is only damage caused directly or indirectly to the central nervous system that can cause incapacitation.

http://www.theboxotruth.com/
http://www.serbu.com/shorty.htm

And big slow bullets (e.g., .45 ACP) are about the best single-round choice for self-defense there is, because not only will they take down the target, if you miss they're much less likely to go through three walls and kill your neighbor's toddler. Even better is a short-barreled 16-ga. shotgun.

That's what I meant by 'crater.' There are some excellent examples at The Box O' Truth website. The tests with level IIIA armor and bulletproof glass give me a lot of respect for a 12 gauge slug.

That's what I meant by 'crater.' There are some excellent examples at The Box O' Truth website. The tests with level IIIA armor and bulletproof glass give me a lot of respect for a 12 gauge slug.

The Box O' Truth doesn't lie. Mythbusters' methods leaves a little to be desired.

I had a situation where at college, a friend and I were sitting playing video games with our door open, when two cops came up, and one used the door for cover with his gun drawn
 
  Doors make particularly poor cover... (Bad cop, no donut.)