My mother recently passed away so I'm living alone now. It's summer so I stay up pretty late, and in the wee hours of the morning in a house alone is kind of creepy, so I want to buy a gun just to give me that comfort of knowing I'm armed. I'm 19 and my state gun laws say I can't buy handguns, so I have to get a rifle or shotgun. I don't have a problem with this, a shotgun would be fine. However I don't really know how to buy one? Will they get freaked out and think I'm some emo kid who's going to put one on his schoolmates? My state has really lax gun laws so I just need to know if I should tell them I want it for protection or should I say hunting or something?

go to walmart buy a mossburg
or go to a gun store noone really cares what you are buying it for as long as they get their money trust me

in fact go to a pawn shop im not sure about SC but around here you can get an M-4 decent price and it has decent knock down power other then that i recomend the mossburg 500 12guage its just swell

Thank you I appreciate the responses I've gotten. That clears it up.

no prob gun sales are what i do

What would you say about a remington 870?

ive got one they are alright but nothing compares to a mossy go with your budget stay away from european remington winchester and mossburg are the best affordable .... banelli is great if you can afford it. mossburg is the best out of the others tho

how much would a Benelli run? I'd feel comfortable spending up to 1-1.5k on it. I heard Benelli's have a hell of a recoil. I'm a big guy so I'm guessing this won't matter?

hell 1500 you can get a reall nice one hell that will get you a bushmaster m-4 round here

i would recomend this tho http://www.ableammo.com/catalog/prod...c ts_id=30748
the pistol grip will help you seeing as you seem fairly new to shotguns and will probably want some extra combat control

First thing is you need to know this as gospel.

Jeff Cooper's Rules of Gun Safety

RULE I: ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED

RULE II: NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DESTROY

RULE III: KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER UNTIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET

RULE IV: BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET

Since you live in a free state, you don't need to give 'good reason' i.e make something up. So I wouldn't.

How much do you want to spend? I've listed shotguns because they're generally cheaper than rifles. Of course if you want you could always get one of the cheaper AKs.

The big pump shotguns are:
*Mossberg 500 (Maverick 88 is their budget version); Mossberg 500 is around $300, Maverick 88 is being sold for $200.
*Remington 870; prices are all over the place on this one.
*Saiga 12; if you want a shotgun in an AK format. Price seems to be about $300-500.

Budget break action shotguns are around $200-300.

The most important thing when buying a gun is how it fits. Its a lot like clothes. If it doesn't fit well, you're not going to practice, and if you don't practice, you're going to be in trouble should the shit hit the fan. So go to the rifle range and gun shops and feel them and shoot them before putting money down.