Have you ever wondered what you would do if someone broke into your home? The question isn’t purely hypothetical. Home invasions happen all the time.
According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there were an estimated 1,117,696 burglaries in 2019. Of those, 55.7% involved forcible entry, 37.8% were unlawful entries, and 6.5% attempted forcible entry. Furthermore, 62.8% were burglaries of residential homes.
One of those homes could have been yours! To protect yourself, your loved ones, and your property in such a situation, you need to have a home defense plan. After all, according to the FBI, burglary victims suffered an average of $2,661 in property losses alone.
One way to defend yourself against a home invasion is to own and learn how to use an AR-15 rifle. When you hear the term AR-15, you may think of the military or mass shootings. But the truth is that the rifle can also be a highly effective home defense weapon.
In this article, we’ll go over eight characteristics that make AR-15s ideal for defending your home compared to other types of guns like handguns and shotguns.
Let’s get started!
1. Accurate
AR-15 rifles have greater accuracy than pistols and shotguns, especially when shooting from a distance.
Why? For one, AR-15s offer multiple points of contact with your body, which provide more stability when aiming. In addition, the rifle’s long, narrow barrel helps improve the precision of each bullet that runs through it, and it provides a greater distance between the rear and front iron sights for aiming.
Overall, the accuracy of AR-15s can help you shoot home intruders on target while preventing you from accidentally hitting innocent bystanders.
2. Accessible
You might think that AR-15s aren’t as accessible as smaller guns like pistols. However, AR-15s can be stored in ways that make them very easy to grab in an emergency. For example, you could hang one on a firearm sling in a bedroom closet so that you can quickly pick it up when needed.
3. Lightweight
Unlike many rifles, AR-15s are relatively lightweight. The average AR-15 weighs only 6 to 7 lbs. Some weigh as little as 5.5 lbs. It all depends on the rifle’s exact configuration and what attachments it has.
The low weight makes the AR-15 easy to carry and maneuver in a home invasion situation, and you won’t get tired of holding it as fast.
4. Powerful
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AR-15s are also pretty powerful. Their 5.56x45mm (or .223 Remington) ammunition has about three times as much punch as the most powerful handguns. This makes it much more likely that attackers will stop when shot.
At the same time, AR-15 rounds don’t over-penetrate (i.e. go through their target or through walls). Why? Because the bullets are relatively light, so they tend to lose velocity much faster than other bullet types do (while still maintaining a high stopping power due to the power of the gun itself). This makes AR-15s safer than some guns because they are less likely to hit unintended targets (e.g. people in other rooms).
5. Little recoil
Another surprising feature of AR-15s is that they have relatively little recoil. This makes them easier to control and shoot, which can be especially important in high-stress home invasion situations.
6. High ammunition capacity
Most AR-15 magazines can hold 30 rounds at a time. This is twice as much as magazines for the typical full-sized 9 mm handgun, which holds anywhere from 15 to 17 rounds.
The AR-15’s high ammunition capacity can be a huge benefit during home invasions because it means you don’t have to reload your gun as frequently. In such situations, every second counts, and the less time you need to spend reloading and fumbling with your gun, the better.
You can even equip AR-15s with special attachments that hold extra magazines. That way, even if you do have to reload, you can do so relatively quickly.
7. Highly versatile
Source: thearmorylife.com
Lastly, AR-15 rifles are highly versatile. Most have a Picatinny rail on their fore-end, which allows you to add all sorts of attachments (and even if your AR-15 doesn’t have one, you can add one).
For example, you could attach a red dot sight to your AR-15 to improve your aim, which might suffer under the stress of a tense home invasion situation.
You could also add a flashlight to help you see in the dark. This is especially useful for home invasions since many home invaders like to commit their crimes at night under the cover of darkness.
Other upgrades you can make to your AR-15 include getting a sling for easy carrying, scopes to shoot from far distances, better grips, adjustable stocks, and more. You can even replace your triggers and muzzles. Nearly any component of the AR-15 can be customized. Just check out 80% arms selection of 80 lowers.
Just make sure you don’t go overboard with too many attachments. Otherwise, your AR-15 could end up becoming too unwieldy and hard to handle in an emergency situation.
Adding it all up
At the end of the day, there are many good reasons to choose an AR-15 as your home defense weapon. It’s accurate, accessible, lightweight, powerful, highly versatile, and capable of holding a lot of ammunition.
If you choose to get a home defense AR-15 rifle, your next task should be to learn how to use it properly. After all, you wouldn’t want to accidentally hurt or kill somebody because you didn’t know how to use your gun. To ensure you are well-prepared for any home defense situation, it’s important to choose the right firearm; a guide on choosing between handgun and pistol caliber like this one at ProArmory can offer critical insights into selecting a firearm that meets your specific needs for protection.
To avoid a tragic gun accident, follow the basic rules of gun safety: always treat the gun as if it is loaded, never point it at anything you wouldn’t want to shoot, always know what’s behind your target, and don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to fire.
If you do all that, you’ll be much better prepared to protect your family from danger, no matter what happens.
