The AR-15 may well be the most vilified rifle in existence at the moment, possibly even more so than the Soviet-designed AK-47. This is especially true following several incidents where bad people did bad things with the rifle in question.

As per usual following such incidents, politicians begin clamoring for the rifle to be banned. They use all kinds of rhetoric to paint the firearm as some kind of evil murder-death-kill machine that serves no other purpose except to end lives. This usually comes from the same people who claim that the most recent gunman, armed with a Glock, didn't have a semiautomatic weapon.

Yeah.

Anyway, many of these folks–including at least one former vice president of the United States–have said that all you need for self-defense in your home is a shotgun.

Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. The AR-15 is a great weapon for self-defense, and there are a number of reasons why. What follows is one man's thinking on why the AR-15 is great for home defense and, in a few cases, why it's far superior to the shotgun.

1. It's Lightweight