Home defense guns
Three sound choices, the trade-offs between them, and what Oklahoma law says about using force at home.
A farmhouse at the end of a section-line road in Grady County and a second-floor apartment in midtown Tulsa are not the same problem. On the farm, help may be twenty-five minutes away and the nearest neighbor is half a mile off. In the apartment, help is closer and there is a family on the other side of every wall. Start with where you live and who lives with you, and let that pick the gun.
The shotgun
A pump 12-gauge costs less than any other serious option and ends an argument at across-the-room distance. Its faults are all about handling: it is long, it kicks, it holds five or six shells, and working the action under stress is a skill you have to build. An 18.5-inch barrel, a stock short enough to mount in a T-shirt and a light on the forend fix most of it. A 20 gauge is a real choice for a smaller-framed shooter, not a compromise.
The pistol
A full-size 9mm with a weapon light is the most flexible. It fits a quick-access lockbox bolted by the bed, you can hold it and a phone at the same time, and it is the same gun you take to the range every month. It is also the hardest of the three to hit with when your heart rate is up, so it asks for the most practice. Carrying it during the day means it is never in the wrong room. See the carry guide.
The carbine
An AR-15 has the least recoil, the most capacity and three points of contact with your body, which is why new shooters hit better with it than with anything else. Oklahoma places no restriction on features or magazines. Two cautions. It is punishingly loud inside a room. And while light, fast .223 bullets often break up in drywall sooner than people expect, no round that stops a person stops reliably in sheetrock. Know what lies behind each line of fire in your house.
Things that matter more than the gun
- A light. Identify before you shoot. The noise at 2am is far more likely to be a teenager or a dog than a burglar.
- Locked storage that opens fast for you and not at all for a child, a guest or a thief.
- Doors and lighting. Longer screws in the strike plate and a porch light solve problems before they start.
- A plan everyone in the house knows: where to go, who calls 911, and what to say.
- Practice at in-house distances, including loading and clearing a stoppage without looking.
Oklahoma law, in general terms
The governing statute is 21 O.S. 1289.25, part of the Oklahoma Firearms Act. The legislature wrote into it that citizens have a right to expect absolute safety within their own homes or places of business. It creates a presumption that a person who uses defensive force held a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm if the other person was unlawfully and forcibly entering, or had entered, a dwelling, residence, occupied vehicle or place of business. It removes any duty to retreat for someone who is not engaged in unlawful activity and is in a place they have a right to be, and it provides immunity from prosecution and civil suit for force that the section justifies.
The presumption does not apply in several situations listed in the section, for example where the person entering has a right to be there, or where the person using force is engaged in unlawful activity. Every one of those words gets argued in court.
This is general information, not legal advice. Nothing here tells you what you may do in a particular moment. Read the current text of 21 O.S. 1289.25 and talk to an Oklahoma attorney. The rest of the state's firearm law is on our Oklahoma gun law page.
We are an online store, and every firearm below ships to the licensed Oklahoma dealer you choose, where you complete Form 4473 and the background check.
