I don't mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with having fun or that I wouldn't have enjoyed myself with the group, but if you are going to be writing about serious tools, be serious about it and don't try to convert your readers with silly statements about the "paralysis that accompanies analysis."  That after telling us how you have always felt that understanding self-defense wasn't simple and your students weren't stupid.  Okay, Rich, enough clichés for one column.

I'm glad they had fun, figured out ways to make a substandard weapon work better, got a little competitive on the Gunsite ranges, and made Mossberg some money...but a double barrel over and under is not the shotgun of choice for home defense, and no amount of commentary like this is going to convince me it is.  A good shooter can make anything work better than it should, but with better technology available, why limit yourself? 

In a self-defense situation you're going to have enough problems already without dealing with those of your own making.