Apologies, tone of voice didn't carry. I was being completely sarcastic on that, part of why I called him what I did. It's apparently one of the very few names that piss him off, yet he was an amazing tool for Moscow, arguably a better one than Trump. Trump is a five year old with a shotgun, no plan and running around screaming... and Trump wouldn't be able to pull off a damn thing if Mitchy hadn't literally shredded so much of the US for him.
There is so very little to have hope for and celebrate in the situation we're in, but I can take at least a huge helping of schadenfreude watching McConnell get EVERYTHING he wanted yet be off the throne and reviled by the people he propped up. Truly, my hope is that his freezes finally hits and is permanent while he's still conscious and is forced to live and watch longer trapped away before he burns in hell.
It takes a lot for me to hate someone, it takes a lot more for me to wish evil upon someone. I cannot think of a single person that I have this level of just absolute hatred for, many are more mask off evil, but Moscow Mitch will go down in history as the architect of the US's destruction.
All this is good advice, but adding a bit of clarification and $.02
Personally I'm of the opinion if you're the type to only have one gun, a shotgun is the gun to have. Birdshot won't go through drywall but there's a reason Cheney shooting a guy during the Bush era was much of nothing as he was "peppered", birdshot doesn't have a lot of power and while it can be lethal, it has more chance to not. Buckshot can and will go through drywall, what it does different than all of the others is it doesn't go through your neighbors wall as well, buckshot will stay relatively contained within your home.
The good of a shotgun is it can be a multi-use gun. Dad talked about where he grew up and hunting was a regular thing, a shotgun was all that was owned due to being poor. But that shotgun was used for birds and they didn't use buck for deer hunting but slug so they had distance. The downside of shotguns is range, you're not as accurate at a long range away. That said, it's not like video games where you have to be on top of whatever you're shooting at to do damage, what I mean is slug is pretty inaccurate at a pretty long distance whereas rifles are shot with the maximum range in mind. I've read about Taliban when fighting the US would use larger caliber rifles and shoot outside of the AR-15's range where the smaller bullet starts getting affected by wind resistance and take potshots. So... unless you're planning on that level of guerilla warfare and are really good shot, this will not be to your advantage. I know a few with rifles will complain about this, but y'all are already practicing. I'm not talking to you, but the newbie who may not know. Another big downside with a shotgun is finding a range that'll let you practice with them, it's a real bitch to find.
Rifles, in why they make good militia style defense in the modern era is again the range capabilities, they're the easiest to hand someone and they'll be marginally lethal (if you're not ready for the kick of a 12 gauge shotgun slug it'll be a fun time for a newbie) and the number one factor of why they are the go to for shootings, ammo capacity. Your standard AR-15 civilian chambered .223 (military is the 5.56, you can still get them in civilian but buying off the shelf .223 is default) is 30 rounds. That's 30 bullets you can have in the air as fast as you can pull the trigger. Shotguns are much slower than this and a far far less capacity with a high capacity being 12 shells (there are others higher, but you're specifically looking for them.)
Now... all of this said, the BEST gun you can get is if you have a buddy who shoots on the regular and recommends. All the paper research in the world means shit if you're trying to figure out from the ground up when you have someone who can go "Let me show you." Same token, take to range as said above and don't be afraid of asking questions of the people running the range. It's easy to find someone who thinks they know what they're doing and teach you something dangerous.
And since this conversation is on the people who are looking at their first gun, I'll tell you the first rule. Don't point it at anything you don't want destroyed, ever. The gun is a tool and like any tool it has no morality. But as a tool it is good at only one job, destruction at a range. As such there's a constant history of people thinking they're unloaded right until they find out through injury or death. If you treat the tool with the respect for its job, you'll be fine. When I'm sighting at a store, I aim up away from people, when I'm at a house it's always aimed at the ground. All these are after making sure it's unloaded, and if I'm at home I have a device that goes into the chamber to make sure it's not loaded. But even still, if I need to bring it up to check something, after all this I still aim at the direction where no one lives. All that can be excessive, but all it takes is one fuckup. And this attitude of respect is the same I pay to a machine press or tablesaw, or any other tool that has a label on it "Warning, this will kill you."