Oh! excuse me, I believe I said that I respectfully disagreed with you. My mistake. Clearly, you are rude as well as misguided and not deserving of respect. I would have expected more from a Texan.
Let me help you out here. The poster is looking for a weapon for INEXPENSIVE home defense. That implies close range and cheap. Your suggestion offers neither.
A sniper rifle with a night-vision scope, such as you describe is great for its intended purpose and would be fine if the poster had stated that he had lots of money to burn and was interested in becoming an assassin.
Under his set of circumstances, it's highly unlikely that he would have much need for five-hundred to three thousand yard shots such as our fine young men, trained as snipers might be called on to make. His likely target would be less than fifty to a hundred feet away and rarely over a block away.
Furthermore, the scope that you describe could cost more than is needed for an good rifle.
I do know for a fact that if I had iron sights and was facing the most determined and hostile opponent, day or night, and he was equipped with the best of scopes and he was in front of my house, he would be a dead man. Iron sights would more than level the playing field.
Some people that just can't shoot very well think that a scope will always help them. It's just not so. Iron sights are cheap, dependable, and as you stated, fine for close range, which is just what this Freeper is looking for. I will go a step further and say that iron sights are better for close range and mixed lighting conditions.
What are you going to do with a scope equipped rifle if armed people were running towards you at 25 feet? Shoot from the hip? You would have to because you ain't gonna find them in your scope.
. . . doh!
First of all, I will admit that a scope is capable of better accuracy at just about any range (OK, I know a range of 3 feet could be better handled with iron sights). That is why most of my rifles have scopes on them. The difference is not nearly as great as most people think tho. Oddly enough, the difference becomes less at extremely long ranges than at closer ones. I don't completely understand why this is so but have done enough long range shooting to know it is so.
The guy, from Finland who holds the all time record for sniper kills used a rifle with iron sights. Many of his shots were at long range.