Buy a shotgun, advises Joe Biden in arms debate

Joe Biden upset both sides of the gun control debate on Wednesday after urging Americans to "buy a shotgun" rather than an assault rifle to defend their homes.

The US vice-president, who is leading the White House's gun policy proposals, said he told his wife to reach for the family shotgun if there were ever an intruder at their Delaware home.

"Jill, if there's ever a problem here, just walk out on the balcony, here, walk out, put that double-barrel shotgun and just fire two blasts outside the house," Biden said. The advice came during an online forum with readers of Parents Magazine.

"If you want to protect yourself buy a double-barrelled shotgun," Biden responded to a woman's question about defending her house.

"You don't need an AR-15: it's harder to aim, it's harder to use and you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself."

Bill Maher, a prominent Left-wing television host, said Biden's comments were an example of "our gun control charade", where Democrats had no plans to ban certain guns.

Prof James Jacobs, a gun control expert at New York University, said Biden was making an unhelpful distinction between "good guns and bad guns".

Dan Loesch, a conservative commentator, said, "If the Bidens fire two shots, Secret Service comes running. If we do, we're out of ammo and risk becoming statistics."